Archives for 2016 November-December Issue

Magical Connections

Magical Connections

November 19, 2016 | by

While strolling through a gallery, a painting catches your eye: an intricately portrayed primitive clay pot set against a stark black background. It’s a complicated design, dramatically displayed. You’re drawn to the simple artifact, looking deeper for meaning you can feel but can’t see. That is exactly the effect Santa Fe, New Mexico, artist Roseta Santiago hopes to elicit. Painting these artifacts, she says, is like looking into the window of the ancient peoples’ souls and retelling their history. When she looks at a piece of pottery, Santiago doesn’t see just a geometric, complex design, although it’s clearly visible. What
Read More

Making a Life’s Work from One Trip

Making a Life’s Work from One Trip

November 19, 2016 | by

One of the earliest white artists to portray life in the West, Alfred Jacob Miller had no idea he was headed that way, until an unexpected 1837 encounter with a Scotsman, who hired him to document the trip through illustrations. Their ensuing journey was Miller’s only westward travel. However, he found so much inspiration and made so many sketches from that one journey that it sustained commissions for the rest of his life. Miller, who made a career out of one trip, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in January 1810, the first of nine children in a family of comfortable
Read More

Sweet Sixteen

Sweet Sixteen

November 19, 2016 | by

Contacted in mid-August to see if he would be available on the following Wednesday afternoon to do the interview for this article, Kyle Ma replied, “That won’t work; I’ll be in school.” If all you knew about Ma was that he creates beautifully rendered paintings of everything from landscapes and seascapes to flowers and chickens, you would quite naturally assume that the reason he would be in school on a Wednesday was that he would be teaching art classes. And you would be oh, so wrong. Ma is taking classes, not teaching them. You see, this remarkable painter is a
Read More

Defying Definition

Defying Definition

November 19, 2016 | by

Tim Solliday’s paintings do not lend themselves to easy categorization. Clicking through the slides on his website once, twice, a couple dozen times, my eyes linger on the expressive faces, the light-drenched landscapes. Are these works realistic? Well, no, not exactly. No human eyes have ever been that wise or that kind. No natural light is quite so warm and inviting. I’m not looking at reality; I’m looking at something with more beauty and more potential for magic than mere prosaic reality. I find myself looking to literature instead, where there’s a term that feels close to apt: magical realism,
Read More

Celebrating America’s National Parks

Celebrating America’s National Parks

November 19, 2016 | by

On August 25, 1916, with a stroke of a pen, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act that created the National Park Service—and that would result, 100 years later, in the protection and preservation of 59 national parks, encompassing approximately 51.9 million acres in 27 states. That act was inspired, in large part, by the Hudson River School painters, who eagerly painted the majestic landscape of the West. Perhaps best known is Thomas Moran, who became famous for his paintings of the Rocky Mountains and whose Western landscapes are credited as being critical to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. In
Read More

The Studio of Richard Loffler

The Studio of Richard Loffler

November 19, 2016 | by

Born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, 60-year-old wildlife sculptor Richard Loffler is passionate about the natural world that surrounds him and has been for as long as he can remember. He draws his inspiration from the splendor of the region’s big skies, vast prairies, and especially its abundant wildlife. A large, three-sectioned structure already was on the property, when Loffler purchased it in 2012. “The middle building was an empty shell, so I had the luxury of designing a studio space to fit my needs,” he says. Measuring 40’ by 40’, the studio’s ceiling rises up 22 feet, providing
Read More