Posts by Sara Gilbert Frederick

Dogs, Landscapes, and More

Dogs, Landscapes, and More

April 7, 2025 | by

Every now and then, James Swanson, who lives in LaGrange Park, Illinois, likes to spend time at a lake near his cottage in Michigan. He takes his two dogs—Bjorn, an English cream golden retriever, and Fenrir, a golden retriever—with him and throws tennis balls for them to chase. For them, it’s purely fun. For Swanson, however, it’s all work. Every time he throws the ball, he aims it in a different direction or to a different depth. He throws it from the dock. Sometimes, he gets into the water himself. He does whatever it takes to to get a new
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Spiritual Experiences

Spiritual Experiences

February 7, 2025 | by

When Randy Van Beek sees a landscape that he wants to paint, he grabs his camera and his outdoor painting kit. He then alternates between painting a small study that captures the light, colors, and emotions of the place and looking through the lens of his camera to compose the scene. “The adrenaline just starts rushing through me when I look through the camera lens,” he says. “With your eyes, you’re taking too much in, and there’s no way to communicate all of it. But with the camera, I find the little slices that are the most interesting. It’s all
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Beyond the Paint

Beyond the Paint

December 13, 2024 | by

During the past 25 years, Judith Dickinson has painted portraits of hundreds of people—including some for celebrities. She’s painted Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of Colorado, and federal judges. She’s also done three commissions for TV’s Judge Judy who once sent her private plane from Florida to Colorado to pick up a finished work for her son’s birthday party. Dickinson has also painted the African people she and her husband Gary have met on their trips to Uganda and Rwanda and the cowboys and Native Americans they got to know at the South Dakota ranch they visit almost every year. But,
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Identifiable Art

Identifiable Art

October 9, 2024 | by

Kim Wiggins has spent the past 18 months preparing for an upcoming one-man show at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, in November. He’s completed 25 new works, including an eightby-six-foot centerpiece that took him almost four months to finish. Preparing for this major solo show has given Wiggins reason to reflect back on the first show he ever participated in. It was 1983, and he had recently been invited to join the Society of American Impressionists. Twenty-five at the time, he was the youngest artist in the group. Wiggins was delighted to attend the society’s annual show in St. Louis,
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‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’

‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’

August 8, 2024 | by

Jack Sorenson remembers the day his cowboy lifestyle collided with his dreams of being an artist. He was 9 years old and helping to break a horse on the family’s dude ranch and frontier town located on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon—not far from Amarillo, Texas. He remembers being bucked off that horse—and he remembers what he was thinking as it happened. “Between the time I left the saddle and the time I hit the ground, I had the thought to protect my right arm,” Sorenson says. Now, as he turns 70, the toll of all the tumbles
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A Noble Pursuit

A Noble Pursuit

June 6, 2024 | by

Amy Lay admits that it took her a few years to recognize the value of the art degree she earned from Eastern Oregon University in 1994. At the time, most of the faculty members were interested only in abstract art and didn’t appreciate her passion for wildlife and nature. Since those were the only subjects that interested her, Lay often felt that her instructors snubbed her. But there was one professor who encouraged her to take the time to explore and to develop her own style. Thirty years later, the style that emerged from that exploration has become the hallmark
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A Dream Realized

A Dream Realized

April 10, 2024 | by

Dale Terbush hasn’t kept count of the number of paintings he’s created during the course of his career—but, if he had to guess, he thinks the tally would be close to 10,000. Terbush, who has been painting vibrant, light-infused landscapes for almost 55 years, works fast. When people often ask him how he is able to paint so quickly, he has a ready answer: “How many times do you have to paint a tree before you understand what a tree looks like? The same goes for clouds, mountains, anything,” he says. “How many times do you paint them before you
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Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead

February 8, 2024 | by

During the past six months, J.R. Hess has been living his dream life. He moved to Colorado with his wife Molly and their two teenage sons, Cass and River, he’s got studio space in his new home in Loveland, and his photorealistic wildlife drawings hang in galleries in Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to get to this point,” Hess says. “I am so thankful, so happy to be doing what I’m doing. I’m still new at this but I know that I’m so fortunate to be able to do what I love to do.”
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On the Road

On the Road

December 11, 2023 | by

On some level, Linda Lillegraven has been drawn to the wide-open spaces of the Western landscape for most of her life. She remembers visiting national parks with her family when she was a child. When they’d stop at an overlook and get out of the car to take in the view, she’d see her dad’s face light up. “He’d say, ‘This is God’s country,’” Lillegraven says. “The enthusiasm he had, the love and reverence—he really loved the big open spaces, and I think I caught that from him.” The idea of painting those spaces didn’t occur to her, however, until
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Peaceful, Spiritual Paintings

Peaceful, Spiritual Paintings

October 12, 2023 | by

In November, Jane Hunt expects to move into her “dream studio” in her family’s home outside of Boulder, Colorado. Building it has been a three-year process, and she’s more than excited to leave behind the small, temporary space she’s been using. It isn’t just the open floor plan and the additional space for new, larger easels that Hunt is anticipating. “The thing I’m most excited about is the view,” she says. “The studio is on the very top of my house, which is on the very top of a mountain so the view is just amazing. It’s a vista as
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