Archives for Genre

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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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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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
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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
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‘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
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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
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Where Function Meets Fine Art

Where Function Meets Fine Art

March 20, 2024 | by

Functional art, artwork that is both attractive and practical, is nothing new to the art world. Art glass vases, clay vessels, and even bronze door knockers or bookends apply. But these works don’t seem to be included in many shows. Last year, artist Eric Bowman made a splash at the Prix de West with his tetrapycht screen—and he’s doing it again at the Night of Artists at the Briscoe Museum this year.   Bowman, known for his stylized Western scenes, got the idea for the original screen from his love of craftsman furniture. “The idea just popped in my head one
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The Studio of Michael Ome Untiedt

The Studio of Michael Ome Untiedt

February 8, 2024 | by

When he was a college student in the 1970s, Colorado artist Michael Ome Untiedt attended a lecture by Jacob Bronowski and remembers to this day most of what the Polish-British mathematician and philosopher said. “I heard Dr. Bronowski say that it is not tools nor intellect nor language that separate us from all other species on the planet. The thing that separates us from all other species is the ability to pass on aspects of our culture through acts of beauty, which he defined as art,” Untiedt recalls. “That has led me my entire life. That’s why I’m committed to
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