Some people follow sports teams, some follow the stock market. Award-winning artist Mark McKenna follows a herd of wild horses that roams the McCullough Peaks not far from where he lives in Cody, Wyoming. “Just last week, I was able to get some great reference shots of this stallion named Sargent, who recently won over a group of horses from another stallion,” says McKenna, who describes Sargent as being mostly black with significant white markings, including a mane that shifts from black to white to black. “If you’ve ever been around a wild horse, they have so much character, especially
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Archives for 2023 September-October Issue
Sharing Her Light
“My goal is to show others how I see the world,” says Kwani Povi Winder. “Being an artist has completely changed how I see it; it’s so incredibly colorful.” While she’s always seen the world and its people as a wondrous place, since 2013 Winder has been sharing her visions—whether they be landscapes, people, spiritual images, or animals—through paintings filled with vibrant colors and brilliant light. “I am constantly analyzing everything before my eyes and trying to identify what made me stop and take a second look at something,” she says. “Was it the contrast, the saturation, or maybe the
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Visual Diaries
“I spent my childhood on the East Coast, but I think I grew up here,” says Western oil painter Scott Yeager. Here refers to Woodland Park, Colorado, where Yeager and his wife Marie have made their home in the shadow of Pikes Peak for the past 15 years, but he could easily be referring to the West as both specific geography and more abstract concept. He’s come of age as an artist in the sagebrush, beside the rivers, on the flanks of the mountains. He’s camped and hiked, he’s hunted and fished, and all of his experiences in nature have
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A Magnificent Obsession
When Heidi Marshall was a young girl, she said to her mother, “Show me something I haven’t seen before.” Her mother replied, “Oh, my—another artist!” In recalling that moment, Marshall says, “I come from a family of artists, and she recognized what we were like.” Marshall’s father, William Amenda, was chief editorial portrait and courtroom illustrator for “The Detroit News” and also painted and sculpted in his spare time. Her paternal grandfather was an artist in Germany who painted religious scenes in churches. And her mother was a writer and fine arts appraiser. Read the full article in the September/October
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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 Continual Pursuit
David Dorsey takes great care to create Western paintings that are realistic rather than photorealistic. His goal is to move viewers to become involved, to fill in the blanks. “I want viewers to look at a piece and be able to become connected to the image by allowing them to interpret areas within the piece that are not as defined as others,” Dorsey says. “I am always trying to move toward a looser feel and more expressive brushwork in my pieces.” A Nebraska native, Dorsey lives within 75 miles of his childhood home in Newport. “I’m from a ranching family,”
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The Studio of Mary Ross Buchholz
From the windows of her studio, Mary Ross Buchholz can see a row of apricot trees and a stand of towering oaks. She can see the set of beehives that she tends and the barbecue pits where family meals are often prepared. And just past a slight hill, she can see the fence that separates her house from the pasture where the family’s livestock grazes. That’s been her view since 2002, when she and her husband Bob added the 13-foot-by-20-foot studio onto their home near Eldorado, Texas. Before then, they had three young boys running around the house and little
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