Archives for 2024 September-October Issue

Living History

Living History

August 8, 2024 | by

“To be a frontiersman, I thought I needed a horse and a rifle,” artist Doug Hall says of his childhood in southwest Missouri, where he did his best to imitate his heroes, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. That meant spending his days in a tipi in his parents’ backyard and, at age 15, skipping school to buy a flintlock rifle. “I’ve been shooting one ever since,” he says. That story is a fitting example of how Hall has lived his life, bucking convention in favor of the way things used to be. He has won black powder rifle matches, roamed
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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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Storyteller With a Brush

Storyteller With a Brush

August 8, 2024 | by

Patrick Saunders has worked at a variety of jobs, from marketing and teaching to a stint as a Hallmark artist. Today he is a fine artist who paints everything from pet portraits to landscapes to florals. It took quite a while for him to get to where he is today but the route was well worth his effort. One thing that    hasn’t changed over the years, however, is his focus on telling stories with his art. Saunders, who lives in San Antonio, Texas, has earned a myriad of awards for his work, including a gold medal from the Oil
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Born to Be an Artist

Born to Be an Artist

August 8, 2024 | by

“I like to live as much of what I’m going to paint as possible, so I do a wagon train every year,” says Sandpoint, Idaho-based oil painter Julie Jeppsen. She doesn’t mean that she paints a wagon train every year; she means that she organizes and directs an entire real live wagon train—and then she paints it. “We live out in the wagon, with a team of horses pulling it,” she says. “My kids are all involved in it, and so are my grandkids. It’s an experience I can have with them. Last year, on our wagon trip, we had
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Following Her Heart

Following Her Heart

August 8, 2024 | by

Don’t try to pidgeon-hole Jennifer Johnson—or her art. Her subjects are varied, but her goal with each is the same: to celebrate the past. She captures nature’s vibrancy with bright, bold colors, pays tribute to the charm of the 1930s and 1940s, and shares her love of wildlife. “All of my paintings have a story from my own experiences, stories told to me by my parents and grandparents and even people I meet at art events who share their adventures,” Johnson says. “When it feels right in a piece, I love to include a touch of whimsy and humor because
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The Power of Paint

The Power of Paint

August 8, 2024 | by

Before Brad Teare was a professional illustrator, before he was an abstract artist, and before he became the revered Western landscape painter he is today, he was the drummer in a rock band that had one particular revelatory night. Gigging in and around Oklahoma and Kansas with a lot of original music in their repertoire, the band, Frostfire, was playing one of its own songs in a rowdy, rough, and noisy bar. As their song continued, the noisy patrons grew less so, paying more attention to the band. When the song ended, the house erupted in applause. While most of
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The Studio

The Studio

August 8, 2024 | by

Kyle Polzin’s studio at his home in Austin, Texas, isn’t a grand, architectural space but it suits him just fine. A former study, the room is just off the entryway to the home he shares with his wife Leigh and their two teenage daughters. Surrounded by oak trees, his house sits on one-and-a-half acres of property in a quaint neighborhood that overlooks Austin and the surrounding hill country. Earlier this summer, Polzin was hard at work in his studio, preparing paintings for a show he’ll have in September at Legacy Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The painting resting on
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