Archives for Oil

Up Close and Personal

Up Close and Personal

January 19, 2016 | by

In an ideal world, Bonnie Marris would get out for a long horseback ride every day. Especially in the fall, when the trees around her northern Michigan home transition to brilliant yellow and reds, she would love to settle in for a daily ride. But it doesn’t always work out that way. “I would feel too guilty,” Marris says, “because of the dogs. It’s too hard to bring them with, and I can’t seem to do much without them. I don’t know who has more separation anxiety—them, or me.” That connection to her animals—she and her husband, landscape artist Woody
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Letting in the Light

Letting in the Light

January 19, 2016 | by

Throughout her life, voices have spoken to J. Peralta, acknowledging her talent and urging her to create art. Fortunately, she paid them the attention they deserved and, in doing so, changed the course of her life. The first was the voice of her kindergarten teacher who, after taking note of Peralta’s incredibly detailed drawings, announced to Peralta’s mother, “She will be an artist.” The next would come many years later and would provide the encouragement Peralta needed to pursue art and, in the process, to share with the world paintings that showcase her brilliant use of color and light. “It
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Seasons of Change

Seasons of Change

January 19, 2016 | by

Landscape artist Carole Cooke is pushing a deadline—and she’s pushing her envelope. Sometimes you need to take a good look around and change course. After all, life is change. A major change for Cooke came about 11 years ago when, as a fledging artist, relatively speaking, she was accepted into the Masters of the American West Art Show at the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles, California. “I really wanted to get into that show, because I knew it would be a turning point for my career, and it really was,” she says. “John Geraghty [a
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It’s About the Light

It’s About the Light

November 20, 2015 | by

Nancy Bush noticed something recently, when she was looking at her website. Scrolling back to look at some of the older paintings shown there, she realized a difference between then and now. “I could see a progression,” Bush says. “I could tell that I am expressing myself in a more advanced way now than I was then. There’s a softening of my technical side, and more of my internal thoughts and feelings are coming through.” It’s been 30 years since Bush gave up her corporate job and launched a career as an artist.. She’s grown from a fledgling artist studying
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A Penchant For the Past

A Penchant For the Past

November 20, 2015 | by

Known for evocative historical paintings that depict the lives of the Eastern Woodland Indians and non-native settlers, who lived in the region surrounding his home in Western Pennsylvania during the 18th century, John Buxton, like several successful fine artists, began his career as a commercial illustrator. Determined to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a professional artist, in 1959 Buxton journeyed west to begin formal art studies at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California. Getting his priorities straight a few years later, Buxton returned to his studies and earned his Professional Arts Degree in 1962, which
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I’m Never Bored

I’m Never Bored

November 20, 2015 | by

A drive to yoga class about 10 years ago provided an aha moment for Teresa Elliott. As she drove by a pasture of longhorns, she was so taken by what she saw that she returned the next day and took photographs of them. “There was a bull there,” she says. “It was hot, and he was miserable and stomping his feet. I took a snapshot and went back home and that was my first painting.” Little did Elliott realize how popular her longhorn portraits would become, how eagerly collectors would seek them out. She painted them because she loved them
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Personal Inspiration

Personal Inspiration

November 20, 2015 | by

Robert Peters is talking to me on the phone, but he’d rather be painting. As a successful Western landscape artist with a 30-plus-year track record, he understands the necessity of the peripheral aspects of the artistic life: the marketing hustle, the gallery shows, the website design, the research, the magazine profiles. Peters is a good sport, answering my many questions in a friendly and engaging way. But, as he speaks, I picture him pacing his studio in Prescott, Arizona, hoping the clear morning light will last longer than our conversation. I picture him frowning thoughtfully at an in-progress canvas, making
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Eiteljorg Museum Receives Multimillion-Dollar Art Collection

Eiteljorg Museum Receives Multimillion-Dollar Art Collection

November 20, 2015 | by

Imagine, if you will, that you receive a phone call from someone telling you that you soon will be receiving a gift. When that gift arrives, you open it and find inside millions of dollars worth of artwork—paintings by the likes of Frederic Remington, Charles Russell, N. C. Wyeth, and Howard Terpning, along with magnificently crafted Native American artifacts. You are stunned. You are thrilled. And you are grateful. That is exactly how the folks at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, felt when the attorney for the estate of the late K. S.
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The Studio of Lori Putnam

The Studio of Lori Putnam

November 20, 2015 | by

An affinity for Italy led Lori Putnam and her husband Mark to sell everything they owned in 2008, pull up stakes, and move there for eight months, where Putnam spent the time absorbing the countryside and translating that experience into her art. When they returned to the United States early the next year, the economy was beginning to tank. Mark was searching for a suitable job and, rather than get tied to a mortgage, they chose to rent an apartment, until they felt more stable. The only logical option was to build a studio they could live in. The result
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Cowboy Artists of America Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Cowboy Artists of America Celebrates 50th Anniversary

September 20, 2015 | by

With the celebration of the Cowboy Artists of America’s 50th anniversary, one has to wonder if the founding artists—Joe Beeler, Charlie Dye, John Hampton, and George Phippen—could have envisioned what the organization would become and that it would still be going strong five decades later. Those four men, along with dozens of others who were invited to join the prestigious organization over the years, were committed to creating authentic representations of life—and work—in the American West and to doing so with the highest of artistic standards. Four members of the CAA—John Coleman, Martin Grelle, Bill Nebeker, and Jim Norton—recently took
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