Posts by Brandon Rosas

Cowboy Storyteller

May 4, 2023 | by Brandon Rosas

“When I was 14 or 15, my school offered an on-location drawing class in the summer,” says Arizona-based artist Steve Atkinson. “I’d get up early in the morning and go down to Yellow Creek with my little sketch pad and transistor radio, and I can remember just thinking to myself, ‘If I could do this for a living, it would be Heaven,'” he recalls of that class. If the teenage Atkinson could see himself now, he would likely agree that his life has been Heaven. His paintings have earned him many honors, the latest being the People’s Choice Award at
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‘I Will Always Have My Art’

March 4, 2023 | by Brandon Rosas

If you walked into a particular Coeur D’Alene office building at 4 a.m., you would find Western artist Tobias “Toby” Sauer already hard at work. He faces an easel, surrounded by beaded moccasins, feathered headdresses, and a bear claw necklace that hang from the walls. Sauer began to make his own Native American accoutrements in late 2020 in order to correct inaccuracies he saw at reference photo shoots. “They would have women’s clothes on a man—and artists would paint it,” says Sauer, who conducts extensive research to ensure his creations are faithful to the cultures he depicts in his paintings.
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Poignant Moments

November 3, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

Colorado-based low relief sculptor J.D. (Jeremiah) Welsh spent much of the past year working in secret. The award-winning member of the National Sculpture Society (NSS) is no stranger to producing complex works on tight deadlines, but he poured many months and 23 years’ worth of skill into one special, small object: the Brookgreen Medal. “I honestly never thought I’d have the chance to do it,” Welsh says of the medal, which honors the prestigious Brookgreen Gardens sculpture garden in South Carolina and is presented to artists who ear the Anna Huntington Hyatt Award at the NSS’ annual awards exhibition. It
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Nature and the Human Soul

September 1, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

In some ways, personally and professionally, Sally Vannoy’s life might seem like a fairytale. She married the man of her dreams in a beautiful setting in Glacier National Park, was accepted into the Society of Animal Artists as a Signature Member on her first attempt, and has seen her works hang beside original Charles M. Russell paintings at the famous Triple Creek Ranch. As in many classic stories, however, the heroine had to leave her comfort zone in order to reach her potential. “I had the most amazing childhood and family life growing up,” says Vannoy, who grew up with
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Anything is Possible

June 30, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

“It’s incredible how magical the desert is when you go with the intention of self-reflection,” says Colorado artist Anna Rose Bain, who began a tradition of taking solo trips to the California desert when she was struggling with severe adrenal fatigue just before the start of COVID. “I found that I was getting burnt out at least twice a year, to a point where it was affecting my health and my relationships,” says Bain, who balances painting with raising two young children and practicing CrossFit, a high-intensity fitness program. “I started going to the desert to recharge and meditate and
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Quality Over Quantity

May 1, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

It is no surprise that some people might wonder if R. S. Riddick has retired. He has not. In fact, the nearly 70-year-old artist has been very busy making some of his most meaningful work ever. He has also acquired a new ranch studio and a clear perspective on the messages he wants to pass on through both his art and his life. For more than 40 years, Riddick had made his home and studio in southern Arizona, though he has always had a genuine longing for mountains. “Your faith becomes alive there, nature becomes a profound teacher, and people
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Walking With Grace

March 1, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

Walking with grace has become a way of life for landscape artist Jennifer Moses. “I have always had an affinity for the word,” she says. “For me, grace encapsulates so many other words. It exists in all things that are in their purest, natural state.” Moses’ fascination with things in their natural state might have begun in Virginia. She and her family moved there from Kansas when she was 3 years old. Her father Mike was in the Army Reserve and was assigned to Fort Eustace Army Base for advanced training. There, Moses and her sister Krista enjoyed spending summers
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‘This is My Life’

January 1, 2022 | by Brandon Rosas

Sculptor Chris Hunt has dislocated each of his shoulders at least four times and broken both clavicles, both scapulae, and a couple of ribs. The Texas-born artist and former Air Force senior airman has always jumped feet first into new things, be it riding in rodeos or introducing a new medium to his repertoire. “‘No fear’ was my mantra, and still is to this day,” he says. Hunt grew up in Damon, Texas, on a ranch on the Brazos River, where he was raised by his father Maurice and had no problem amusing himself by drawing, fishing, hunting, and riding
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A Promise Kept

November 1, 2021 | by Brandon Rosas

During his 16 years of formal art training, Valeriy Kagounkin has studied everything from painting and sculpture to Italian fresco, mosaic, and stained glass. While he now focuses on capturing the American West on canvas, he also feels a duty to serve the community with his other skills. One of Kagounkin’s most recent projects—painting a mural on an eight-story building—has seen him perched atop a lift in 90-degree temperatures, breathing in smoke-filled air from the wildfires raging near his home in Sacramento, California. “It is what it is,” he says. “This is real artwork.” Except for a few difficult times,
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Silver Linings

September 1, 2021 | by Brandon Rosas

“I always thought when you went blind, it was black. It wasn’t,” says watercolor artist Marlin Rotach, who noticed changes in his vision in the spring of 2018. “It was flesh-toned, and it was just like a curtain going across my eye until I had no sight at all.” After visiting a specialist, Rotach learned that he was suffering from a detached retina, a condition that required two surgeries and left him blind in his right eye for five months. Unable to paint, but still able to use a computer, Rotach decided to try writing biographical vignettes about historical artists
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