Archives for 2026 March-April Issue

Struggle, Hope and Beauty

Struggle, Hope and Beauty

February 4, 2026 | by

  California-based Chinese-American oil painter Huihan Liu loves the writings of Ernest Hemingway, particularly “The Old Man and the Sea,” so much that many years ago, he made an oil painting inspired by the book. “When I was in graduate school, we had a final project involving literature and painting,” he says. “And one of my paintings was The Old Man and the Sea.” There was something in the story that spoke to him, he says—the difficulty, the struggle, the endurance, the refusal to lose hope even in the face of crushing misfortune. Unlike most of his other paintngs, The
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Painterly Photography

Painterly Photography

February 4, 2026 | by

  Wayne Heim has spent most of his career as a medical illustrator, working on a freelance basis with medical device manufacturers to explain to surgeons how to use their instruments during various procedures. For the past 15 years, he’s been exploring another medium as he captures images of the people and places of the West with a camera. Every image, he says, is a “one-image movie.” What Heim means by that is that each image he captures—whether it be a cowboy or a landscape—has a story to tell. “Each one-image movie pulls viewers into what happened just before the
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The Studio of Krystii Melaine

The Studio of Krystii Melaine

February 4, 2026 | by

  When Krystii Melaine and her husband Michael moved from Australia to the United States 15 years ago, they settled in Spokane, Washington. They had a large, lovely house with a tree-filled backyard that sloped down to a river. They regularly saw moose, eagles, coyotes, porcupines, owls, and many other birds from their windows. “It was fabulous,” she says. Melaine loved that house, but Michael was concerned about keeping it up as they got older. So, he dangled the one thing he knew would convince his wife to move: her dream studio. In Spokane, Melaine’s studio was in the basement
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He’s Still On the Bus

He’s Still On the Bus

February 4, 2026 | by

  For almost 40 years, Jason Scull has been creating sculptures that are alive with action and emotion. In the spirit of the cowboy ethos he emulates in his art, he takes an organic approach to his realistic award-winning work, eschewing, for instance, working from photographs. “If you’re sculpting a running horse, you aren’t going to find a photograph that’s going to give you a 360-degree view of the animal in one position,” he says. “You have to be able to know how to construct these things and do it in a realistic, natural way. That goes back to what
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Reflecting the Magic of Light

Reflecting the Magic of Light

February 4, 2026 | by

  When Michelle Kondos was a senior at Bennington College in Vermont, her advisor told her something no aspiring artist ever wants to hear. “I had a bad experience toward the end of college with my main advisor there, who told me that I had zero talent and no hope of ever earning a living as an artist,” Kondos says. “When I left school, I was so discouraged by this that I didn’t paint for about four years.” Kondos’ academic career was full of ups and downs. The curriculum at Bennington College focused on abstract art, leaving her unsatisfied, because
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The Beauty of Botanicals

The Beauty of Botanicals

February 4, 2026 | by

  The first word that comes to mind when you see a painting by Dyana E. Hesson is “stunning.” Her botanical paintings with their vibrant colors and masterful use of light and shadow simply cannot be ignored. While other artists might paint similar subjects, few—if any—do so on the scale and with the talent of Hesson. Her largest painting to date is a whopping 61”-by-100” commission for one of her many collectors. “I had to build a special easel for it,” she says, “I built one I could rachet up and down. Large canvases grab people’s attention. I love to
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Communicating Without Color

Communicating Without Color

February 4, 2026 | by

  California artist Ray Brown says that, if he could have chosen his dream job after graduating college, it would have been working as a children’s book illustrator or science fiction fantasy book cover illustrator. That wasn’t the path he took but, when you look at his charcoal drawings, you can see his love for illustration and for the natural world. Brown’s highly rendered images seem ready to leave the canvas for the world beyond. Each creature he draws is alive with personality and presence; it is not merely a one-dimensional depiction. Art didn’t hold much interest for Brown as
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