Archives for 2018 May-June Issue

The Wonder of Wildlife

The Wonder of Wildlife

May 15, 2018 | by

Hailed as one of the nation’s premier wildlife artists, the path Montana-based painter Daniel Smith traveled in reaching this position of renown has been one of dedication and evolution. Born in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1954, he says he was genetically infused with a love of art and nature thanks to his father, an inveterate outdoorsman, who used his own wood-burning skills to give visual testimony to his inherent love for wildlife. He goes a step further, saying that same gene seems to have been passed on to his son, Adam. “After dabbling with art a bit in high school, at
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A Lifelong Journey

A Lifelong Journey

May 15, 2018 | by

The first sculpture Bill Nebeker cast was of two mountain men. He had been crafting small clay pieces at his kitchen table in the evenings, after working all day with other artists at George Phippen’s Bear Paw Bronze Foundry in Skull Valley, near Nebeker’s home in Prescott, Arizona. “It was pretty crude,” Nebeker admits. But it sold. So did the others he made after it. It wasn’t long before he was making more selling sculptures than he was at the foundry, so he gave up his job and starting sculpting full time: cowboys, mostly, but also Native Americans and wildlife.
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‘Each Painting is Personal’

‘Each Painting is Personal’

May 15, 2018 | by

In late February, after being out of commission for several months, David Hettinger was back working in his studio, creating the wonderfully executed paintings that have earned him a host of awards, as well as inclusion in collections throughout the world. The reason for that interruption in his schedule was a torn ligament that required surgery and almost three weeks in the hospital, followed by months of recuperation at his home in Aurora, Illinois. That doesn’t mean, however, that Hettinger wasn’t working at his art. He asked fellow artist Walt Gonske and several other artist friends to send him photos
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Abstract Impressionism

Abstract Impressionism

May 15, 2018 | by

Perched atop the corrals or catwalks above rodeos, artist Howard Post gets a view that rouses his muse. The patterns of cattle huddled together in the corral, or the linear outline of the fences create a vision that spawns his artistic vision and are a strong focus in the Arizona artist’s paintings. Post, once an avid rodeo participant himself, discovered this birds-eye perspective by accident. To get a better look, he clambered up above the activity and discovered patterns and light that hadn’t been evident from his ground-level participation. The new perspective set his contemporary paintings of cattle, cowboys, rodeo
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‘It’s a Calling’

‘It’s a Calling’

May 15, 2018 | by

“Besides painting, I don’t really have any other hobbies. I don’t do anything besides painting,” says Chicago oil painter Mary Qian, when asked what sorts of things she likes to do in her spare time. She seems honestly a little bewildered by the question. Why would she not be painting? Why would she have spare time? What is spare time? Qian leads a clean, streamlined, art-centric existence, spending many of her waking hours at Chicago’s Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, an art space where she makes extensive use of the studios and the models the organization makes available
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In Praise of the Cowboy

In Praise of the Cowboy

May 15, 2018 | by

Bill Anton traces his fascination with the West back to a trip he took, when he was just 7, with his family to Glacier National Park and the West Coast. “The mountains, the air, the weather were profoundly different from anything I’d known,” says the artist, who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. “I’d never seen anything that was like the American West, and the impression it made on my mind and heart was unmistakable. I’d find a way to be back to stay the minute I was old enough—and I did.” Now living in Prescott, Arizona, Anton has been sharing
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