By the 1970s, the cotillions and debutante balls that had graced Seattle’s Olympic Hotel since it opened in 1924 were things of the past. The hotel’s ornate Italian Renaissance Revival structure, with its crimson and gold interior, was suddenly considered garish and out of place...
There is more than meets the eye in the layered paintings, prints, and murals of celebrated Chicano artist Tony Ortega. Pieces by this artist reflect a mythmaker and man of many roles, talents, and cultural traditions (Mexican, American, and the distinctive cultures of the American...
The summer after high school, lifelong New Mexican Eric Romero and a few friends were backpacking in Spain. It was during what he calls his bohemian period, and they were “crazy and irresponsible and completely broke after three weeks.” In San Sebastián one day, they...
George Phippen changed sculptor Bill Nebeker’s life. Twice. The first time came when Nebeker attended a Phippen art show in Prescott, Arizona, in 1964. “My wife Merry says I had an epiphany and my life changed direction that day,” Nebeker recalls. George Phippen (1915-1966) died two years...
Mitch Blake can’t remember what attracted the clients for the ChaChe Residence to the architecture firm he and Tom Ward founded in Jackson, Wyoming, in 1996. There are numerous possibilities, like Ward|Blake’s distinctive modern designs. Or maybe the firm’s biophilic philosophy, which drives them to...
From its inception, the renovation of a 3,200-square-foot condominium on the 22nd floor of a mid-century high-rise on San Francisco’s Russian Hill was deeply personal. The owner was newly-widowed and downsizing from a home in Sea Cliff, California. She wanted a fresh beginning, a place...
When a couple moving from a Chicago high-rise to a Sacramento suburb asked Gary Orr, principal of Orr Design Office, to create a single-family home for them, he saw it as a dream job. “As new Californians, they were excited to experience the ‘California lifestyle’...
At a time when certain U.S. markets — and markets within markets — are bouncing around like a pinball inside its machine, the demand and prices for Western and Native American paintings and sculptures show steadiness. Steadiness is a strength, especially in uneven economic times,...
Contemporary Western Art is having a moment, particularly the Modern West subgenre, a.k.a. New West. While there are many ways to tell the stories of the American West in art, New West artists share one common thread: they embrace the visual language of Modernism. Borrowing from...
Kevin Gray remembers the first time he visited historic parks in Canada and saw log homes with chinking. He was eight, and his family had just emigrated from Scotland to Alberta. “It was so unique,” he recalls. “In a little kid’s eyes, it felt like...