Kim Wiggins has spent the past 18 months preparing for an upcoming one-man show at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, in November. He’s completed 25 new works, including an eightby-six-foot centerpiece that took him almost four months to finish. Preparing for this major solo show has given Wiggins reason to reflect back on the first show he ever participated in. It was 1983, and he had recently been invited to join the Society of American Impressionists. Twenty-five at the time, he was the youngest artist in the group. Wiggins was delighted to attend the society’s annual show in St. Louis,
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Archives for Landscape
The Studio of Lori Putnam
Nestled on a five-acre plot of land in rural Charlotte, Tennessee, Lori Putnam is living the dream in her 1,800-square foot studio. The open design of the studio’s structure also boasts a 700-square-foot loft that serves as living space for Putnam and her husband Mark. Looking at the building from the outside, you would assume it’s just another house but, once you walk through its doors, you realize how wrong that assumption is. The openness of the home and studio gains perspective when Putnam says there is only one door inside: the one that leads to the bathroom. Putnam and
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Following Her Heart
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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The Power of Paint
Before Brad Teare was a professional illustrator, before he was an abstract artist, and before he became the revered Western landscape painter he is today, he was the drummer in a rock band that had one particular revelatory night. Gigging in and around Oklahoma and Kansas with a lot of original music in their repertoire, the band, Frostfire, was playing one of its own songs in a rowdy, rough, and noisy bar. As their song continued, the noisy patrons grew less so, paying more attention to the band. When the song ended, the house erupted in applause. While most of
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The Studio of Joseph McGurl
Just off Upper Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is a small stretch of land called Amrita Island, where Joseph McGurl has lived for almost 30 years. It’s also where he has his studio and paints landscapes of both the East Coast and the West Coast. That stretch of land has a history as colorful as McGurl’s paintings. In 1867, British immigrant Thomas Baxendale and his wife Esther purchased the land and built a mansion and several “cottages.” Those structures housed visiting scholars from Harvard University, who would present seminars on world peace, children’s issues, animal welfare, and other concerning topics. Today the
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A Dream Realized
Dale Terbush hasn’t kept count of the number of paintings he’s created during the course of his career—but, if he had to guess, he thinks the tally would be close to 10,000. Terbush, who has been painting vibrant, light-infused landscapes for almost 55 years, works fast. When people often ask him how he is able to paint so quickly, he has a ready answer: “How many times do you have to paint a tree before you understand what a tree looks like? The same goes for clouds, mountains, anything,” he says. “How many times do you paint them before you
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Kindred Spirits
Matthew Hillier and Julia Rogers have a special connection. They share a love of wildlife, landscapes, and water. They respect each other’s talent and cheer each other on. And, they’re married—to each other. The two met at an art show in Tacoma, Washington, in the 1990s and continued to connect at other shows for a few years before they began long distance dating. At the time, Hillier was living in Florida, and Rogers was living in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. They married in 2001 and lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C. for a time, but Rogers missed living in Chesapeake
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Riding New Waves
Daniel Keys is successful, inspired—and inspiring. He’s earned prestigious awards for his paintings, which are included in collections throughout the world, and is inspired by the beauty around him. He’s also generous, giving back through two programs he developed to encourage young artists: the Sierra Art Group and the Palette Project. He got the idea for both programs while painting with the late master artist Richard Schmid, who had formed the Putney Painters on the East Coast. “I wanted to replicate that, so I started the Sierra Art Group,” Keys says, adding that the group paints together at A Sense
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The Studio of Michael Ome Untiedt
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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A Celebration of Color
Erin Hanson has an energy that mirrors the paintings she creates. She shares the story of her life—and her work—and injects both with vibrant colors and textures that have captured the attention of collectors throughout the world. That’s no exaggeration; during the past 15 years she has sold 3,000 original paintings and countless prints. Collectors purchase her paintings as quickly as she completes them. One collector says that, every time he looks at the painting he purchased from Hanson, “it gets more and more beautiful” and that it will be his “get-out-of-husband-jail-for-free-card” for years to come because his wife loves
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