Archives for Sculpture

Still Going Strong

Still Going Strong

July 2, 2020 | by

Artists will tell you that creating art is a career—but it’s not a job. Why is that? They see creating art as a calling that is so intense it cannot be ignored no matter the risk. And there is indeed risk, financial as well as personal. They put their work out into the world, where everyone who sees it will judge it. If it’s deemed worthy, it will sell. If not, it’s on to the next painting or sculpture, determined to do better. The four artists we feature on the following pages have a combined age of 344 years and
Read More

Toward a Greater Understanding

Toward a Greater Understanding

May 4, 2020 | by

During the more than three decades Susan Kliewer has been sculpting, she has created a large body of work that ranges from the beauty and traditions of the Native American culture to images that celebrate the working cowboys and cowgirls of the Southwest. “All my life I have been fascinated by the ever-changing dynamics of our American West,” she says. “Through my work I strive to portray the many cultures that have come before us with dignity, respect and understanding. From the ancient cliff dwellers to the cowboys who rode the range, my subjects reflect the West that I’ve researched
Read More

Monumentally Magnificent

Monumentally Magnificent

February 28, 2020 | by

On the night in 1987 that Bill Nebeker announced an edition of 25 castings of his sculpture If Horses Could Talk, he sold all 25 of them—and had another 75 collectors wanting to buy it as well. “It was the most popular piece I ever made; people just loved it,” he says. “You’ve got the cowboy looking for the deer, the deer sneaking away behind him, and the horse looking at the deer. It’s happened to every hunter out there. And people who don’t care for hunting love it, too, because the deer is getting away.” During the following years,
Read More

Releasing the Spirit

Releasing the Spirit

July 15, 2019 | by

When Doug Hyde was commissioned to create a sculpture for the town of Joseph, Oregon, one of the first things he did was to go there. He knew the story of what had happened in Joseph. Hyde knew that it took its name from Chief Joseph, who led the Nez Perce people, when the government relocated them from their home in the lovely Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon, to a reservation in Idaho. He knew that it had been a sad time in Nez Perce history, and that even now, as the tribe continues to return to the area, feelings
Read More

The Hemingway Version

The Hemingway Version

June 15, 2019 | by

Today, the name Sandy Scott is synonymous with sculpture. But there is much more to this versatile artist than meets the eye. Her experience and expertise spans decades—and abilities. No matter what Scott does, she charges full bore into it and excels at it, leading the kind of life many of us can only dream of. Born in rural Oklahoma, near Tulsa, Scott knew early on that art was her destiny. The path she took, however, didn’t follow a particularly natural progression. She’s the first to tell you that her journey has been propelled by good fortune, but it’s clear
Read More

Frederic Remington Treasures

Frederic Remington Treasures

September 15, 2018 | by

Few would argue that Frederic Remington is the most well known name in Western art. And yet, not many people realize the full breadth of his career and how much he accomplished during his life, before he died at age 48. That is something the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, hopes to help change. The museum will pay tribute to Remington when it hosts Treasures From the Frederic Remington Art Museum & Beyond from September 8 to January 13, 2019. Described by Seth Hopkins, the museum’s executive director, as “the largest Remington exhibition ever to come to the
Read More

Three-Dimensional Delights

Three-Dimensional Delights

July 15, 2018 | by

I made my first—and, as I recall, my last—attempts at sculpting when I was in elementary school. Those “works of art” consisted of an ashtray—why, I don’t know; neither of my parents smoked—and an elephant with several holes on its back, strategically placed to hold pencils. I quickly learned that art was not my calling and turned to other endeavors. Fortunately for us, the five artists we feature here did not give up so easily. Of course, they had the talent—and the fortitude—to pursue their dreams of becoming artists and, in the process, have brought immeasurable joy to countless art
Read More

A Lifelong Journey

A Lifelong Journey

May 15, 2018 | by

The first sculpture Bill Nebeker cast was of two mountain men. He had been crafting small clay pieces at his kitchen table in the evenings, after working all day with other artists at George Phippen’s Bear Paw Bronze Foundry in Skull Valley, near Nebeker’s home in Prescott, Arizona. “It was pretty crude,” Nebeker admits. But it sold. So did the others he made after it. It wasn’t long before he was making more selling sculptures than he was at the foundry, so he gave up his job and starting sculpting full time: cowboys, mostly, but also Native Americans and wildlife.
Read More

‘My Best Years are Still Ahead’

‘My Best Years are Still Ahead’

March 15, 2018 | by

The first few years after moving to the United States were the lowest in Mick Doellinger’s life. In 2003, he sold his home, his furniture, his taxidermy business, and his studio in Australia to come to America and become a wildlife sculptor. He certainly hadn’t expected it to be easy, but he didn’t realize how lonely it would be. “I had no resources, no family, no safety net,” Doellinger says. “But I knew that, if I wanted to be a full-time sculptor, the United States was where I needed to be.” He also knew that he couldn’t really go home:
Read More

Doing it His Ways

Doing it His Ways

January 15, 2018 | by

Greg Woodard has been known as a carver, a sculptor and a falconer. He’s worked with wood, clay, bronze, and concrete. And he’s created everything from eagles and buffalo to cowboys and past presidents. “I like adventure,” Woodard admits. “Not many of my pieces are like the last.” One of his recent pieces is a sculpture representing President Ulysses S. Grant and the $50 bill. It’s a concrete column with Grant’s head at the top and then the words on the bill depicted almost like petroglyphs below. Woodard calls it a totem, in part because it represents the importance that
Read More