Wildlife With a Twist

How Lisa Gleim Transitioned from Portraiture to Wildlife Art Inspired by Montana’s Wilderness

About 10 years ago, after painting portraits for more than 20 years, Georgia-based artist Lisa Gleim needed a change. She found what she wanted when she and her oncologist husband Bill Jonas bought a vacation home in Big Sky, Montana. While there, she spent days photographing bears at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a sanctuary for bears and wolves that for various reasons wouldn’t survive in the wild, and taking in the mountain scenery. That visit made a profound impression on her and kickstarted a change in her subject matter.

“I was gobsmacked, being right there, not far from these grizzly bears,” Gleim says. “And they had two wolf packs; I was just mesmerized. I thought, ‘This is what I’m going to do; I am going to paint wildlife.’” As she and Jonas began settling into their new home, she spent her first days and weeks there occupied with taking in the scenery and capturing it in photos.

“I fell in love, and I thought, ‘Okay, this is it,’” she says. “I love being in the mountains. I love the beauty of the West.”

Read the full article in the July/August 2026 issue.