Archives for 2016 March-April Issue

‘Everyday Life Inspires Me’

‘Everyday Life Inspires Me’

March 19, 2016 | by

Andre Kohn’s art teachers at Auburn University figured out quite quickly that he was not a typical student. His drawing and painting skills were already so well developed that they told him to come to class only on the first and last days of the semester. “They said that there was nothing they could teach me,” Kohn says. His English teachers, however, saw much more of Kohn. “I stayed in English 090 for five quarters before I passed,” he admits. “That was much harder for me.” Kohn enrolled at Auburn at the age of 20, shortly after arriving in the
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Timeless Places

Timeless Places

March 19, 2016 | by

In his much-loved memoir “A River Runs Through It,” writer Norman Maclean famously noted, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.” For Brent Cotton, who counts Maclean among his favorite authors, there is no clear line between art and nature, particularly rivers. And for him, both represent a sort of near-religious calling. “Just as Maclean writes at the end of ‘A River Runs Through It’ that he is ‘haunted by waters,’ so am I,” says Cotton, who strives to evoke similar feelings through his art. “There is something magical and enchanting about flowing water and
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Honoring the People of the Past

Honoring the People of the Past

March 19, 2016 | by

Historically speaking, Montana artist Charles Fritz is always historically speaking—well, at least through his paintings. History for him is an enduring passion, and doesn’t show signs of letting up any time soon. “My interest in the history of the West just keeps growing,” he says. “The fur trade era, the Pony Express, the Oregon Trail, the voyageurs, homesteading, the native cultures and the Indian Wars all present great opportunities for paintings. These may seem like unrelated topics, but in actuality they all seamlessly weave one into another, and it becomes one large fascinating story with endless nuances to explore through
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I’m Not Fit For Anything Else

I’m Not Fit For Anything Else

March 19, 2016 | by

The young woman approached Romona Youngquist, during an art show in Scottsdale, Arizona, and asked for her autograph. A little surprised, but pleasantly so, Youngquist obliged. “How the hell did you hear about me?” she blurted out. Youngquist was one of those three artists, and the young woman had chosen her and her work for the assignment. “She was copying my paintings to see how I do things,” Youngquist says, adding that it probably was a tough assignment, because “it’s hard to explain how I do things; I just do them.” Romona Youngquist Autumn Sky Oil 40″x40″ “With this painting
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Simple Serenity

Simple Serenity

March 19, 2016 | by

Pristine and peaceful, the paintings of Canadian artist Jeremy Browne are a celebration of freedom, nature’s beauty, and man’s relationship to the natural environment. Like Monet’s haystack imagery, which explores the perception of light across various times of the day, seasons and weather conditions, Browne’s paintings create similar visual essays that celebrate his own fascination with the inherent natural beauty found in rustic, rural homesteads enhanced by the glow of sunrise, evening shadows, or moonlight reflections on a snow-covered landscape. Born in 1977 in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Browne’s early upbringing imbued him with an inherent love for the simplicity of
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Mother Nature’s Magic

Mother Nature’s Magic

March 19, 2016 | by

Christine Drewyer (Annapolis, Maryland) Aged to Perfection Oil 30″x30″ “I’m very attracted to a sense of drama. That can be an extraordinary sky, or a fog-filled meadow, or some ancient tree that is just calling me to paint it. I’ve been known to stop and just stand before a tree as if it were the Taj Mahal, and I get this sense of profound wonder and even reverence. There needs to be a connection before I paint something, and I especially love painting at dusk and dawn, when there is an ethereal quality to the light, a veiled sense of
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The Studio of Sonya Terpening

The Studio of Sonya Terpening

March 19, 2016 | by

For want of a door to close, Sonya Terpening’s studio was born. Really. How would you feel if you left work at night and your work stood outside your kitchen begging you to return, demanding your undivided attention? That is pretty much the experience Terpening had until a little more than a year ago when her work life changed for the better. Terpening is excited about her new studio, having recently taken over the master bedroom on the second floor in the Grapevine, Texas, home she has shared with her husband Mark for 28 years. In many respects, Terpening believes
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