Archives for Genre

Portraits of the West

Portraits of the West

October 9, 2024 | by

The three best gifts you could give to Cindy Long are a pencil, paper, and a man with a weathered old face. Then give her a few weeks to work her magic. The result will be a detailed, black-and-white portrait that will have you studying each line, each shadow, the eyes, the face. It will also have you wondering who he is, what he’s thinking, and what he’s experienced. And that’s exactly what Long wants. “I want to convey the depth and personalities of my people—an emotion, a mood, the story behind the eyes,” she says, adding that the same
Read More

A New Focus

A New Focus

October 9, 2024 | by

Many artists, when asked how they got started, will cite a parent or teacher who encouraged them, an artist they admired—someone who guided them to their vocation. For Western oil painter Jason Lee Tako, all of these influences played a role, and he is generous in giving credit to everyone who supported him on his journey. But, when he recounts his foundations, it’s clear that his first and best inspiration was nature itself and the simple act of sketching what he saw in the woods. “Growing up in rural Minnesota, I would get up at five in the morning and
Read More

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
Read More

‘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
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More

A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

June 6, 2024 | by

Kathryn Merrill has a lot going on right now, in both her life and her art. The accomplished Oklahoma artist, who brings ranch scenes to vivid life with colored pencils and oil paints, is in a particularly vivid period of her own existence. During the past year, she married Sid, who works in the oil and gas industry, and became a stepmother to his two children. “I’ve had a huge life change,” she says. “We have four children between us. We probably moved pretty fast [on marriage] because we just felt like we had to have things in place to
Read More

Cowboy Storyteller

Cowboy Storyteller

April 10, 2024 | by

“I need a wife,” laments accomplished New Mexico oil painter JaNeil Anderson. She is mostly joking; she has been happily married to her husband Walt for many years, working side by side with him on their cattle ranch beside the Gila River. But, as she notes, it’s not uncommon for the wives of male artists to take on much of the ancillary work that surrounds making and selling art: marketing, framing, accounting, and other supportive and administrative tasks. “My men artist friends all have wives,” Anderson says. “The wife does all the show entries and all the paperwork; the men
Read More

‘I Like Variety’

‘I Like Variety’

April 10, 2024 | by

Dana Lombardo has a 9 to 5 job, but it doesn’t take her far from her art projects. Both, in fact, are usually in the same room. Lombardo is a contract specialist for a hospital and lives in Grand Lake, at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Since the pandemic, she’s been able to work from home, setting up her office in her art studio. “It’s great because I can sit across the room and stare at [one of my paintings], and say it needs this or it needs that,” Lombardo says. “I can
Read More

The Studio of C. Michael Dudash

The Studio of C. Michael Dudash

April 10, 2024 | by

C. Michael Dudash’s 2,100-square-foot studio is nestled on a scenic, five-acre lot in the small Irish city of Rathdrum, Idaho, a small town just north of Coeur d’Alene. Working with a contractor, he designed and built a beautiful studio, one that would stand out and have a certain “je ne sais quoi.” The interesting shape resembles a church from the outside and could easily be remodeled someday to accommodate a large RV by taking out two interior walls and adding a larger garage door. “That’s the way I designed it—a big main room,” Dudash says. “At its core, it’s a
Read More