Archives for Wildlife

Excellence and Beauty

August 6, 2026 | by Joe Tougas

Named after the French word for studio, atelier schools are where students immerse themselves in an intensive series of training in realism. For months on end, they draw and paint repeatedly, often the same subject—usually still lifes or human models—with a focus on detail. Along with most of the world, Jonathan Noon had some time on his hands during the pandemic, so he decided to seriously explore his interest in drawing and painting. Up to that point in his life, he had set art aside for other pursuits. But, in 2021, he and his wife Katie moved from Scottsdale, Arizona,
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The Puzzle is Complete

August 6, 2026 | by Mark Wilcox

Hannah Harper once watched a black bear bound out of the forest while she was parked at a trailhead in Glacier National Park. It playfully romped through a beautiful buffet and stuffed itself with a critical, early spring food source by eating grass and wildflowers and then ambling back into the forest. That experience formed the backbone of a painting Harper created years ago, and she’s now in the planning phases of another painting that will use the same reference photos in a unique way. “I often want to revisit ideas or experiences and repaint them in a different
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The Studio of Walter Matia

August 6, 2026 | by Mary Nelson

Maryland sculptor, Walter Matia, is a practical and pragmatic businessman; he has to be. “Sculpture is a business; you can’t treat it like a hobby,” he says. “There’s way too much money involved and too many things to keep track of.” Becoming a sculptor was a natural step for Matia. From the time he was 16 until he was 23, he worked at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio, alongside the exhibit staff. “I also worked with a taxidermist there, Larry Isard, who was also a sculptor, so I learned a lot about animal anatomy,” he says.
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The Evolution Continues

August 6, 2026 | by Sara Gilbert Frederick

On a recent May morning, Kelly Leahy Radding sat on the deck of her rural Connecticut home and watched the birds flying by overhead. The 20 acres that she and her husband Greg live on is located half an hour southeast of Hartford and is surrounded by woods that Radding explores almost daily. It’s also on the migratory path of the birds that return to the East Coast each spring. “I sat for two hours, just watching and listening to the birds,” Radding says. “I think I counted around 40 species that morning alone.” Birds are central to Radding’s
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Ink, Oil, and Graphite

June 9, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

You would think that having parents who are successful artists would naturally set their offspring on a path leading directly to fine art. Not so if that offspring is Maia Chavez Larkin. “I was certain that I would never be an artist, because it seemed like a tough way to make a living,” she says. “I thought it also meant being nervous about finances. It seemed like a hard life and a tough way to make a living. I thought I’d have a real job.” After years of working as an illustrator, four years ago Larkin became what she
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Wildlife With a Twist

June 9, 2026 | by Joe Tougas

About 10 years ago, after painting portraits for more than 20 years, Georgia-based artist Lisa Gleim needed a change. She found what she wanted when she and her oncologist husband Bill Jonas bought a vacation home in Big Sky, Montana. While there, she spent days photographing bears at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a sanctuary for bears and wolves that for various reasons wouldn’t survive in the wild, and taking in the mountain scenery. That visit made a profound impression on her and kickstarted a change in her subject matter. “I was gobsmacked, being right there, not far
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The Sculptor and His Village

April 8, 2026 | by Clover Cameron

Loveland, Colorado-based sculptor Dan Ostermiller is hard at work on a new piece that will be part of a 50th anniversary celebration of his work at Nedra Matteucci Galleries in June. It’s a huge sculpture—nine feet long—and it’s somewhat unusual. “It’s 12 rabbits,” he says. “They’re all interacting with each other—jumping off this wall and running around it and sleeping on it, scratching their ears. All of them doing different things on it. It’s pretty cool.” In the world of wildlife sculpture, Ostermiller’s pieces stand out in a few key ways, including their sheer size and the virtuosity of
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The Grandmother of Scratchboard

April 8, 2026 | by Mark Wilcox

Scratchboard is a subtractive medium that Sally Maxwell has moved toward becoming an additive medium as well. The medium consists of etching away black India ink from a white clay subsurface, using fine-tipped tools—one painstaking line at a time. For Maxwell, the process evokes emotions she can’t find in other art forms. “It feels so good to work with it,” she says, adding that her personal satisfaction stems from the way she’s wired—specifically mathematically. Many artists of her caliber came through top-tier art programs in college, but Maxwell dropped out of Monmouth College in the early 1960s after an
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The Studio of Krystii Melaine

February 4, 2026 | by Sara Gilbert Frederick

When Krystii Melaine and her husband Michael moved from Australia to the United States 15 years ago, they settled in Spokane, Washington. They had a large, lovely house with a tree-filled backyard that sloped down to a river. They regularly saw moose, eagles, coyotes, porcupines, owls, and many other birds from their windows. “It was fabulous,” she says. Melaine loved that house, but Michael was concerned about keeping it up as they got older. So, he dangled the one thing he knew would convince his wife to move: her dream studio. In Spokane, Melaine’s studio was in the basement
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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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