Archives for Genre

The Nostalgic West

June 9, 2026 | by Mark Wilcox

A trip to the principal’s office in first grade might have been the catalyst that pushed Dennis Ziemienski toward art. When he drew a full wine glass next to a bottle, his principal called his parents in for two reasons: One, he worried Ziemienski might be “imbibing” at home, given the adult subject matter. Two, the principal, who was also an artist, noticed that the child had correctly drawn the top of his wine glass as an ellipse. The kid could already render complex visual perspectives instead of simple outlines. “Let this kid go into art, because he has
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Fresh Mind, Fresh Eyes

June 9, 2026 | by Clover Cameron

You might not recognize Simon Lok’s name, but you have almost certainly seen his work. If you watched any of Disney’s animated feature films in the late 1990s and early 2000s—“Mulan,” “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” “Brother Bear,” or “The Princess and the Frog” to name just a few—you’re familiar with his use of color, light, and landscape to create a vivid and memorable palette and setting for those films’ characters and their adventures. Lok, who is listed in those films’ credits as Sai Ping Lok, was freshly graduated from art school at California State Long Beach when Disney hired
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Paying Tribute to the Statue of Liberty

June 9, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

Some works of art are immediately identifiable throughout the world. A few that come to mind are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, Michelangelo’s David, Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo, and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. Another one we can add to that list is the Statue of Liberty, a magnificent work of art that is known throughout the world as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty took 10 years to create—from 1876 to 1886. It was assembled in Paris, then disassembled into 350 pieces, packed into 214
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Riding High

April 8, 2026 | by Mary Nelson

If you’ve ever imagined living on a ranch, riding high in the saddle, herding cattle, and working in nature, you can live that vicariously through the art of Sherry Cobb-Kelleher. “I don’t know if I’m being romantic or what, but I’ve always had such a connection to the land and the animals,” she says. “I want to be able to show that in my artwork so people can see and feel it. I’ve had this connection my whole life. That’s why I paint—to make that connection.” Born into a family of artists, Cobb-Kelleher describes her trajectory to becoming an
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The Studio of Heather Burton & Dave Santillanes

April 8, 2026 | by Joe Tougas

Since meeting in Maui in 2014, artists Dave Santillanes and Heather Burton have been side by side in many ways: dating, marriage, parenting, and living as full-time artists in Colorado. Since September 2025, when they moved from Wellington, Colorado, to Colorado Springs, they have also been side by side when painting in their spacious studio on the main level of their home on the northern part of town near Black Forest. The main-level studio is the first room a visitor sees, and once in the studio, the view is as inspirational as their art. “We look right out at
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Struggle, Hope and Beauty

February 4, 2026 | by Clover Cameron

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

February 4, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

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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Reflecting the Magic of Light

February 4, 2026 | by Madeline Cisneros

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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Unlocking Unorthodoxy

December 8, 2025 | by Mark Wilcox

At age 79, Craig Tennant is conscientiously reinventing his career to shy away from tired formulas and to create art that makes him happy. The creative change hearkens back to his roots in advertising while it also gives him more permission to experiment and to paint what he wants. “I’m coming back to who I really am, and that’s a graphic artist,” he says. “I’m going to go into more design and a flatter look.” The directional change, Tennant says, is due in part to being burned out on creative ideas after feeling compelled to produce the same painting
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The Studio of Karin Hollebeke

December 8, 2025 | by Vicki Stavig

Inside a charming log cabin set on a 40-acre plot of land in the northeast corner of Utah, Karin Hollebeke is hard at work, creating scenes of the Old West that have found their way into the hearts—and homes—of collectors throughout the country. The former cattle ranch, located 40 miles from Vernal, and situated at an altitude of 7,000 feet, attracts an impressive variety of wildlife. It’s the perfect setting for Hollebeke, who has spent most of her career capturing scenes of the historic American West. She and her husband Wayne, who passed away last year, moved from El
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Archives for Genre

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