Archives for Genre

The Studio of Gladys Roldan-de-Moras

Magic can occur anywhere. Take, for instance, a busy street in San Antonio, Texas, with five lanes of traffic rushing past a bustling neighborhood of restaurants, doctors’ offices, and an upscale grocery store—where the businesses give way to residential blocks with a sleek, white, modern house that sits behind a cinderblock wall. Unlike the surrounding houses, this one doesn’t sit neatly parallel to the street; it’s at a noticeable slant, facing squarely north. To step through the gates and into the foyer is to step into another world. The rear wall, composed of 15 five-by-seven-foot windowpanes, stretches up, embracing the
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The Studio of Michael Blessing

Michael Blessing is working on a big project that he expects to complete next year. When it’s done, his evolution as an artist will hit a new level. Actually, it will hit two levels. Currently, it’s still in the blueprint stage—a two-level home studio with a view of the Alaska Mountain Range near Anchorage. By the fall of 2024, Blessing will be creating works in a space where Alaska is on permanent display through picture windows revealing a breathtaking panorama that includes both the mountains and the ocean. Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue. Sentinel Oil 30″
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Great Inspiration

When you see a William Haskell painting, you will never forget it. The shapes, the colors, the movement within it are, simply put, stunning. And that’s just as he wants it. “You can be a great technician,” Haskell says, “but, if you can’t compose a painting with a great flow, it won’t work. I want to create something that keeps you in that world, that has all that movement, that you enjoy exploring and finding new things in.” Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue. Night Ride Acrylic 9″ by 12″ Trust in the Storm Acrylic 16″ by
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Story Teller Extraordinaire

In June of 1973, Clark Kelley Price had just worked a spring roundup in Montana. He had four paintings in his truck and decided to stop at the Jensen Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on his way home to Utah. He was bedraggled, but he entered the gallery and wandered around, admiring the artwork it housed. A staff member approached him and asked, “Are you an artist?” “Yes, I am,” Price responded. “I can tell by the way you’re studying these paintings,” she said. “What kind of art do you do?” Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue.
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Embracing the Challenge

Paul Van Ginkel will tell you he’s an all-in kind of guy. Every time he does something, he challenges himself to do it better than ever before. That kind of tenacity and ambition paid off in early March when Van Ginkel, who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, learned that he’d been nominated for the prestigious Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. The winner will be honored at a ceremony in September. Although he’s not a stranger to awards—there have been many—he was particularly pleased that his patrons were so insistent on nominating him to be recognized for his outstanding
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‘The Ball Just Kept Rolling’

Russell Smith’s original career plan was to become an aeronautical engineer so he could design airplanes. That changed after he took a few art classes during his first year of college. “I realized I didn’t want to design them, I wanted to paint them,” he says. And that’s just what he’s been doing for more than 20 years. His depictions of early aircraft—combined with the people and land of the West—are wonderfully crafted and carry with them a captivating energy, excitement, and perspective. His paintings, fueled by an early love of aviation, have earned him several awards but the real
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A Compelling Medium

With its mix of pigments and powders, pastel preceded all other mediums. The proof is on the walls of caves painted with mineral oxide pigments. Pastel is the only medium for painter and mountaineer Nori Thorne, a longtime collaborator with nature and paint. From the gritty, finger-staining application to its flexibility and even its fragility, pastel is the mode of choice for Thorne, who finds herself celebrated in a genre often associated with large-format oils or bold acrylics. “We’re really the red-headed step-children of the art world,” she says. “But pastel has been around since we were humans. That’s what’s
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A Journey Through History

“I love where we have come from,” says Brian Bateman. “History is the catalyst for all of my work—the men, women, machines, and how they intertwine.” That love of history took hold when he was a young boy and continues to drive him as he captures the past in paintings that feature everything from the West and Native Americans to mountain men and military aircraft. What makes those paintings unique is that he often combines two or more subjects in one painting, and he looks forward to combining aircraft within his Western work. Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Bateman’s initial
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Looking to the Skies

Canadian artist Ross Buckland developed his love of the land while growing up on a farm in Ontario. “I was always looking at the sky or at the colors on the ground,” he says. He’s still looking at the sky and the ground but now he’s sharing what he sees through his paintings of landscapes, wildlife—and airplanes. “Aviation became a passion for me, and so did drawing,” Buckland says. “For summer vacations we would go to visit our grandparents in Calgary. The airplane flight was the most exciting part of it. I wanted the window seat so I could see
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The Adventure Continues

Last fall, Lee Alban took a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Although he and his family had traveled through the Tetons back in the 1970s and had explored some of the National Parks out West in the early 1990s, he hadn’t yet been to Jackson Hole. The purpose of the trip was to participate in the National Oil and Acrylics Painters Society’s Best of America exhibition. It was Alban’s first trip to Jackson Hole, and he was eager to see the city and gather photographic reference materials he could use in future works. But it wasn’t just the quintessential beauty
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