Archives for 2025 November-December Issue

Inspiring Artists in the West

Inspiring Artists in the West

October 8, 2025 | by

  As the July morning sun rises and the horses are saddled up, a group of artists eagerly awaits the opportunity to photograph and paint the West on Cottonwood Ranch in Cokeville, Wyoming, about a three-hour drive south of Jackson. Artists have been gathering here since 2010 to learn from several of the leading Western painters in the country.  The 500-acre Cottonwood Ranch has been in the family of Charles Dayton since 1912. Dayton, an experienced corporate consultant and award-winning Western artist, hosts the annual Painting the West Artist Gathering and Studies Show. Painting the West is a workshop for
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Renaissance Western Art

Renaissance Western Art

October 8, 2025 | by

  You might describe Colorado artists Olga and Aleksey Ivanov as contemporary Western art pioneers. Why? Because their partnership, medium, and technique stand out among Western artists. Their creativity is formed by intuition and collaboration—they paint together on the same canvas—storytelling, whimsy, symbolism, and a Renaissance art technique. Their harmonious paintings could be called the artistic equivalent of perfect pitch. “We are using one of the oldest techniques,” Olga says. “We are modern artists trying to connect the old medium to the modern vision of the West.”  Vivid colors are the hallmark of the couple’s art—the result of using the
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The Cowboy Connection Continues

The Cowboy Connection Continues

October 8, 2025 | by

  Bruce Greene has been fascinated with cowboys since he was a young boy growing up in Texas. That fascination continues today and is manifested in the paintings and sculptures he creates. It’s also apparent in how he spends some of his time when he’s not in his studio, which often involves helping out at area ranches, something he’s been doing for about three decades. “I started spending time on the JA Ranch and the 6666 Ranch,” Greene says. “I went and helped them work cattle, which I think is hugely important. A lot of Western art today lacks that,
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Chasing the Top Spot

Chasing the Top Spot

October 8, 2025 | by

  Every fall, Rebekah Knight’s mind is on the Federal Duck Stamp Contest. She’s entered the annual competition for the past 16 years—every year since she turned 18. She also participated in the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Contest for five years before that, winning the competition the third time she entered, when she was 15. That experience gave Knight the confidence to pursue art as something more than a hobby and helped to launch her career as an artist. “I had always known that I wanted to do art and that I had a talent for it, but I also
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Slow and Easy Does It

Slow and Easy Does It

October 8, 2025 | by

  Vicki Catapano’s paintings combine a mastery of brushstroke, color, exquisite realism, and authenticity. From the details of hand-braided hackamore of the Nevada buckaroo to the beadwork in Native American regalia, her work displays a passion and carefulness in preserving the ways of the Old West. “I’m such a slow painter,” Catapano says. “Getting the elements of the Native regalia and the hackamore or spade bit accurate are of utmost importance. Every detail in each painting is critical and has to be precise and correct.” Painting in the Old Masters style and technique of applying thin layers of paint, one layer
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The Studio of Josh Clare

The Studio of Josh Clare

October 8, 2025 | by

  Light plays a major role in the art and life of Josh Clare. The big-picture light is his strong Christian faith. Light is also the element he knew he wanted to harness and infuse throughout the 4,000-square foot studio he built near his Utah home in 2018.  The three-level structure has six 4-by-4-foot skylights above his painting area, and the way the lights works—illumination without direct sunlight—is the studio’s strongest asset. “It’s a beautiful, pleasing light to paint under,” Clare says. A Utah native who studied art, he met Cambree, a horticulture major, on the Brigham Young-Idaho campus. The
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‘I Let the Land Speak to Me’

‘I Let the Land Speak to Me’

October 8, 2025 | by

  Landscape artist Scott Christensen doesn’t let a painting go out the door until he is convinced that it is as perfect as it can be. And he doesn’t rush the process.  “I’ve had some of my paintings for six to eight years,” he says. “I save them to see what the problems are.” He puts them away or turns them to the wall until he can look at them with a fresh eye and change anything that might need changing. Christensen’s self-imposed standards are high—and he paints because he loves to do so, not to win awards. “I don’t
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The Magic of the Desert

October 8, 2025 | by

  Canyons erupting from the earth. Cotton candy clouds looming over sunbaked cacti. Cowboys defying gravity, their weathered hands gripping the reins as their horses catapult them into the air. To landscape artist Josh Gibson, the desert Southwest is a powerful place. “It seems like, in terms of the geological formations and the kind of weather, there just aren’t other places that have that sort of thing going on,” he says. “The sunsets every day are a 10 out of 10. There are mountains that are huge blocks of rock coming out of very desolate desert plains. I haven’t really
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