Archives for Portrait

The Studio of Glen and Barbara Edwards

The Studio of Glen and Barbara Edwards

January 18, 2017 | by

The couple’s main home is in Smithfield, Utah. They purchased it in December 1987 to be close to Utah State University in Logan, Utah, where Glen was a professor of art. Both artists love nature, especially trees, so when they discovered a property surrounded by trees of all kinds—poplar, blue spruce, maple, juniper, Austrian pine—they knew they were home. Forty years ago, Western artists Glen and Barbara Edwards decided that their summer home in Star Valley, Wyoming, lacked a fundamental tool of their trade: a studio. So, along with Glen’s brother, a chain saw, and a book on carpentry, they
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Magical Connections

Magical Connections

November 19, 2016 | by

While strolling through a gallery, a painting catches your eye: an intricately portrayed primitive clay pot set against a stark black background. It’s a complicated design, dramatically displayed. You’re drawn to the simple artifact, looking deeper for meaning you can feel but can’t see. That is exactly the effect Santa Fe, New Mexico, artist Roseta Santiago hopes to elicit. Painting these artifacts, she says, is like looking into the window of the ancient peoples’ souls and retelling their history. When she looks at a piece of pottery, Santiago doesn’t see just a geometric, complex design, although it’s clearly visible. What
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Making a Life’s Work from One Trip

Making a Life’s Work from One Trip

November 19, 2016 | by

One of the earliest white artists to portray life in the West, Alfred Jacob Miller had no idea he was headed that way, until an unexpected 1837 encounter with a Scotsman, who hired him to document the trip through illustrations. Their ensuing journey was Miller’s only westward travel. However, he found so much inspiration and made so many sketches from that one journey that it sustained commissions for the rest of his life. Miller, who made a career out of one trip, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in January 1810, the first of nine children in a family of comfortable
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Defying Definition

Defying Definition

November 19, 2016 | by

Tim Solliday’s paintings do not lend themselves to easy categorization. Clicking through the slides on his website once, twice, a couple dozen times, my eyes linger on the expressive faces, the light-drenched landscapes. Are these works realistic? Well, no, not exactly. No human eyes have ever been that wise or that kind. No natural light is quite so warm and inviting. I’m not looking at reality; I’m looking at something with more beauty and more potential for magic than mere prosaic reality. I find myself looking to literature instead, where there’s a term that feels close to apt: magical realism,
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A Long Time Coming

A Long Time Coming

September 19, 2016 | by

Mark Maggiori fell in love with the American West when he was a 15-year-old on vacation with his uncle and cousin. It was so different from his home in Paris, France, that he couldn’t help but be charmed by the wide-open spaces, the rugged terrain, and the hard-working cowboys. But when he returned to France, his attention quickly returned to his skateboard and his studies, and the romance of the West was forgotten. Almost 20 years later, Maggiori found himself at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. By then, he had finished his formal art
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‘This is My Calling’

‘This is My Calling’

September 19, 2016 | by

Best known for his magnificent stone carvings, Oreland Joe also puts his artistic skills to good use in creating bronze sculptures, as well as paintings and jewelry. His creativity doesn’t end there, however. “I’ve ventured into filmmaking and am writing a book,” he says, adding that the process for both will take two to three years to complete. “The film is an historic documentary about a 4-year-old Ute boy who was stolen by the Cheyenne in 1849. He was called Yellow Nose and was adopted and raised by Spotted Wolf, head chief of the Northern Cheyenne. At age 12, there
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‘There Was Always a Plan’

‘There Was Always a Plan’

September 19, 2016 | by

Patient and painstakingly precise as he creates masterworks in oil, Canadian artist Bruce Lawes evokes an equally dedicated passion when it comes to shaping his own artistic destiny. His first painting sale at the age of 12 confirmed his innate artistic abilities, but the direction that talent would take was not clarified until six years later, when his father brought home a stunning coffee table book titled “The Art of Robert Bateman.” “I was absolutely mesmerized by his imagery,” Lawes says. “It brought my love for nature into focus and defined my goal to be able to paint like Bateman
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Putting Light Into the World

Putting Light Into the World

September 19, 2016 | by

“I try to be attentive, as I walk through life. It’s a spiritual thing for me, as well as an artistic thing. I see inspiration as God’s gift to humanity. You just have to be open to it and tap into it. Painting is my way of saying ‘Amen’ visually, of saying I’m in agreement with the beauty and mystery of this world.” Those “amens” have not gone unnoticed by art lovers, who eagerly collect the paintings Michelle Dunaway creates, paintings in which she skillfully shares her love of the world—its people and its land. In each, she finds stories
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I Just Have To Paint It

I Just Have To Paint It

September 19, 2016 | by

Jim Norton was, as he puts it, “scared to death.” He was pale and had a terrible headache, but he stood by his paintings, with a smile on his face, determined to suffer through what he anticipated was going to be a rather humiliating experience. The cause of Norton’s distress was his first showing with the prestigious Cowboy Artists of America (CAA). He was elected into membership in 1989, when he was just 34 years old, and was overwhelmed by the company he would be keeping—artists such as Howard Terpning, Robert Pummell, Roy Andersen, Jim Reynolds, and Ken Riley. Jim
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The Quiet Side of the West

The Quiet Side of the West

July 19, 2016 | by

When it comes to subject matter, Wyoming-based painter Ann Hanson’s inspiration lies just beyond her studio door, in and around her hometown of Shell. Named not for the mega oil company, but rather for huge deposits of prehistoric Ammonite fossils, the tiny rural community (population 84) traces its earliest heritage to the traditions of the Crow Indians and later to the pioneer ranching families that settled in the beautiful Big Horn Basin. Inspired by these cultural influences, Hanson creates highly detailed vignettes of daily life that go beyond mere imagery to capture the heart and soul of today’s West. By
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