Archives for Wildlife

Visions in Stone

Visions in Stone

October 9, 2024 | by

When he was in his twenties, Navajo (Diné) Alvin Marshall was traveling to Florence on a grant to study Michelangelo’s David when he had an especially vivid dream. In it, a man spoke to him first in Italian, then in Navajo. “He said, ‘You’re going to see a lot of great art, but don’t take anything from it, because it won’t help you,’” Marshall says. “He said, ‘All of that has already been done; you need to do your own thing.’” Later, at the Galleria Dell’Accademia di Firenze, Marshall recognized the man from his dream in a seated figure that
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A Walk on the Wild Side

A Walk on the Wild Side

October 9, 2024 | by

The influence of one artist on another can be gradual, something that develops and reveals itself over years. In the case of Kathryn Ashcroft, it happened much more abruptly. That came about in 2015, when David Koch, a painter living in Utah, asked her to help him with a mural project that was going to be displayed at a church building in Montreal, Canada. During the 10 years before she got that request, Ashcroft was creating realistic oil paintings of wildlife that were exercises in precision, with every hair and feather in place. Koch wanted her to paint some animals
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Born to Be an Artist

Born to Be an Artist

August 8, 2024 | by

“I like to live as much of what I’m going to paint as possible, so I do a wagon train every year,” says Sandpoint, Idaho-based oil painter Julie Jeppsen. She doesn’t mean that she paints a wagon train every year; she means that she organizes and directs an entire real live wagon train—and then she paints it. “We live out in the wagon, with a team of horses pulling it,” she says. “My kids are all involved in it, and so are my grandkids. It’s an experience I can have with them. Last year, on our wagon trip, we had
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A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

June 6, 2024 | by

Kathryn Merrill has a lot going on right now, in both her life and her art. The accomplished Oklahoma artist, who brings ranch scenes to vivid life with colored pencils and oil paints, is in a particularly vivid period of her own existence. During the past year, she married Sid, who works in the oil and gas industry, and became a stepmother to his two children. “I’ve had a huge life change,” she says. “We have four children between us. We probably moved pretty fast [on marriage] because we just felt like we had to have things in place to
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Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes

June 6, 2024 | by

Wyoming sculptor and painter, J. C. Dye, says an artist needs two lifetimes: one to master the art of sculpting and painting and another to reap some rewards. As a 76-year-old who has enough experience to fill at least two lifetimes, one reward is being recognized as one of the top sculptors in the United States. He’s earning kudos for his paintings as well, something he turned to when foundries began closing, and he found himself waiting up to a year to have a sculpture cast. Dye’s years as a rancher provided with him with intimate knowledge of the cowboy
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A Noble Pursuit

A Noble Pursuit

June 6, 2024 | by

Amy Lay admits that it took her a few years to recognize the value of the art degree she earned from Eastern Oregon University in 1994. At the time, most of the faculty members were interested only in abstract art and didn’t appreciate her passion for wildlife and nature. Since those were the only subjects that interested her, Lay often felt that her instructors snubbed her. But there was one professor who encouraged her to take the time to explore and to develop her own style. Thirty years later, the style that emerged from that exploration has become the hallmark
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Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits

April 10, 2024 | by

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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‘I Like Variety’

‘I Like Variety’

April 10, 2024 | by

Dana Lombardo has a 9 to 5 job, but it doesn’t take her far from her art projects. Both, in fact, are usually in the same room. Lombardo is a contract specialist for a hospital and lives in Grand Lake, at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Since the pandemic, she’s been able to work from home, setting up her office in her art studio. “It’s great because I can sit across the room and stare at [one of my paintings], and say it needs this or it needs that,” Lombardo says. “I can
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Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead

February 8, 2024 | by

During the past six months, J.R. Hess has been living his dream life. He moved to Colorado with his wife Molly and their two teenage sons, Cass and River, he’s got studio space in his new home in Loveland, and his photorealistic wildlife drawings hang in galleries in Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to get to this point,” Hess says. “I am so thankful, so happy to be doing what I’m doing. I’m still new at this but I know that I’m so fortunate to be able to do what I love to do.”
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It’s Never Too Late

It’s Never Too Late

February 8, 2024 | by

Arkansas oil painter Brenda Morgan’s artistic life currently is a tale of two buffalo—or maybe three. “It’s a long, sad story,” she says with a sigh. “The painting I’m working on is actually a replacement for the Woolaroc/Women Artists of the West Invitational Exhibition in May. I had two buffalo that were going to be in it but now I’m basically repainting one of them, painting the same painting. I varnished it, the same way I varnish all my paintings; I’ve used the same varnish for years. I don’t know what happened.” The varnish, Morgan says, got “a little weird.”
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