Posts by Joe Tougas

Talent and Tradition

Ed Natiya’s Indigenous and Native American sculptures and monuments have earned him a reputation as one of the best sculptors of his kind. In 2016, for instance, he won the top prize in sculpture at the Southwestern Association for Indian Art (SWAIA) Indian Market—the largest Native American art show in the world, attended by 100,000 at its annual gathering in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In March, he’ll have one of his larger-than-life monuments on display at the Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. The Briscoe doesn’t ordinarily take large pieces but, in Natiya’s case, it made an exception.
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Simplicity and Complexity

Rick Kennington grew up in environments much like those he paints: seemingly endless spaces, mountain backdrops, blue skies, and the steady resolve of cowboys and others whose lives are quietly, solidly entwined with the West. A lifelong resident of Utah, living near the Wasatch Mountains, Kennington’s parents were both from Star Valley, Wyoming, and he spent much of his childhood visiting his grandfather in that area. That’s when the painting began. From his first painting, when he was 18, of his grandfather on a horse, it’s been an ongoing pull toward portraying that life and lifestyle that has kept Kennington
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The Studio of Michael Blessing

Michael Blessing is working on a big project that he expects to complete next year. When it’s done, his evolution as an artist will hit a new level. Actually, it will hit two levels. Currently, it’s still in the blueprint stage—a two-level home studio with a view of the Alaska Mountain Range near Anchorage. By the fall of 2024, Blessing will be creating works in a space where Alaska is on permanent display through picture windows revealing a breathtaking panorama that includes both the mountains and the ocean. Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue. Sentinel Oil 30″
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One Step at a Time

Paul Rhymer had just received one of the biggest honors of his artistic life, and he was making those noises humble people make—noises that sound an awful lot like, “Why did they pick me?” In this case, “they” would be the folks who organize and conduct the annual Birds in Art event in Wausau, Wisconsin, who selected Rhymer as Master Wildlife Artist of 2023. A longtime attraction of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Birds In Art has included works by thousands of avian artists from around the world. Most years—not all—they select a Master Wildlife Artist. And
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A Compelling Medium

With its mix of pigments and powders, pastel preceded all other mediums. The proof is on the walls of caves painted with mineral oxide pigments. Pastel is the only medium for painter and mountaineer Nori Thorne, a longtime collaborator with nature and paint. From the gritty, finger-staining application to its flexibility and even its fragility, pastel is the mode of choice for Thorne, who finds herself celebrated in a genre often associated with large-format oils or bold acrylics. “We’re really the red-headed step-children of the art world,” she says. “But pastel has been around since we were humans. That’s what’s
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Art and Authenticity

In the action, beauty, frailty, or majesty, Jim Bortz infuses into his oil paintings a quality that results in sunlight landing perfectly, flowing river waters the viewer can almost hear, and animals that are more than reproductions. That quality stems from his immersion into the wild outside his home in Cody, Wyoming. Bortz spends countless hours hunting, hiking, and taking photos that provide critical references for his work. “I spend a ton of time in the field,” he says. “I study the animals I put in my paintings. I want to know their biology; I want to know their habits,
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‘A Renaissance Woman’

Laurie Lee’s art career took root while she and her husband Bryan lived for more than 45 years in Frannie, Wyoming, a small town—population 150—on the Montana border. They raised three children there, while also running the family’s natural gas business. Today, she and Bryan live in Powell, Montana, not far from Frannie. Lee has not moved far geographically but, artistically, she has come a long way as she creates paintings that tell stories, ask questions, and are beautifully crafted. A solid career in oil paintings that depict a range of visual moods—from pensive portraits to moody nightscapes to vivid
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New Man, New Artist

With colors that swerve up, literally, from the canvas in thick swooshes and splatches of oil paints, Mateo Romero knows full well his paintings aren’t everyone’s cup of gallery cappucino. “I had a dealer in Arizona, and the person who worked in the gallery told me, ‘I think you’re wasting a lot of paint,'” Romero recalls with a slight laugh. For the past six years, the Santa Fe, New Mexico, artist has been working in a unique method of portraying Southwestern landscapes and forms. His primary tools are oils, applied thickly on canvas with palette knives rather than brushes. The
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Capturing the Cowboy Culture

It’s not often you find common qualities with oil painting and bull riding—but you do when you meet Western painter Brandon Bailey. “It’s a lot of self-doubt and fear,” he says of bull riding. “There’s no one there to make you get on that bull. With art, it’s the same type of thing, whether you’re sitting at the canvas or walking into a gallery; it’s the same type of feelings and the same type of emotions you come across.” In the decade-plus since he left rodeo riding, Bailey has made a full-time living working as an artist, with things progressing
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