Archives for Wildlife

Heading in the Right Direction

Heading in the Right Direction

September 15, 2018 | by

On a recent trip to Glacier National Park, Dustin Van Wechel came upon a rugged old tree that stopped him in his tracks. Something about its trunk, which had folded over itself and the mist hanging in its branches, reminded him of a scene from a horror movie—which gave him an idea for a painting. “I looked at it and I thought that it would make a great setting for a group of ravens feeding on an animal carcass,” Van Wechel says. “But I wasn’t interested in actually painting the carcass, I just wanted to paint it so that anyone
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Poetic Landscapes

Poetic Landscapes

September 15, 2018 | by

For Colorado artist David Grossmann, painting is a heartfelt means of communication. It’s his way of incorporating beauty, creation, imagination, and memory into his art. At first glance, his muted landscapes seem simple, soft. Look closer, and you see they are teeming with texture, nuance, and subtle commentary. Grossmann hopes his quiet, evocative paintings inspire viewers to linger and reflect on nature, to observe the beauty around them. “There is so much clamor for attention [in the world] that it’s easy to miss the quiet,” he explains. “I’d like people to pause and observe, look at the textures. I paint
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Reaching New Heights

Reaching New Heights

September 15, 2018 | by

Martin Grelle was a very nervous young man when, in 1974, just a year after he graduated from high school, he had his first art show at a gallery and frame shop in Clifton, Texas. “I had no idea what to expect,” he says. “It’s hard to remember, but I probably had, at most, eight or 10 pieces for the show, and we sold almost all of them the first evening. I had a combination of oils, charcoals, and pastels in the show, and the largest piece was probably an oil painting about 24” by 36”. It probably sold for
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Realism with a Painterly Slant

Realism with a Painterly Slant

July 15, 2018 | by

Shawn Cameron can’t remember when she first began drawing horses. “I never decided I would be a Western artist,” she says. “It was just a natural outcome of my life. I painted or drew horses from—I can’t remember when I started! But from my earliest memory, I drew what I saw, and what I saw was horses and cattle.” A fourth-generation cattle rancher, Cameron grew up among horses, cattle, and working cowboys. She also grew up immersed in the arts. “My mother encouraged it, always,” she says. “She studied art and music herself, and my brother and I had professional
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The Wonder of Wildlife

The Wonder of Wildlife

May 15, 2018 | by

Hailed as one of the nation’s premier wildlife artists, the path Montana-based painter Daniel Smith traveled in reaching this position of renown has been one of dedication and evolution. Born in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1954, he says he was genetically infused with a love of art and nature thanks to his father, an inveterate outdoorsman, who used his own wood-burning skills to give visual testimony to his inherent love for wildlife. He goes a step further, saying that same gene seems to have been passed on to his son, Adam. “After dabbling with art a bit in high school, at
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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.
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Abstract Impressionism

Abstract Impressionism

May 15, 2018 | by

Perched atop the corrals or catwalks above rodeos, artist Howard Post gets a view that rouses his muse. The patterns of cattle huddled together in the corral, or the linear outline of the fences create a vision that spawns his artistic vision and are a strong focus in the Arizona artist’s paintings. Post, once an avid rodeo participant himself, discovered this birds-eye perspective by accident. To get a better look, he clambered up above the activity and discovered patterns and light that hadn’t been evident from his ground-level participation. The new perspective set his contemporary paintings of cattle, cowboys, rodeo
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In Praise of the Cowboy

In Praise of the Cowboy

May 15, 2018 | by

Bill Anton traces his fascination with the West back to a trip he took, when he was just 7, with his family to Glacier National Park and the West Coast. “The mountains, the air, the weather were profoundly different from anything I’d known,” says the artist, who grew up in Chicago, Illinois. “I’d never seen anything that was like the American West, and the impression it made on my mind and heart was unmistakable. I’d find a way to be back to stay the minute I was old enough—and I did.” Now living in Prescott, Arizona, Anton has been sharing
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Creating an Interesting Dance

Creating an Interesting Dance

March 15, 2018 | by

Some nights, Mary Ross Buchholz dreams that she is making art. “Sometimes I wake up and—oh, mercy—I didn’t finish that after all; it was just a dream,” she says in her melodic west Texas drawl. “I eat, sleep, and breathe art.” It’s an apt commentary on Buchholz’s life, a busy but joyous synthesis of ranching, family life, and, of course, art. She and her husband Bob run a good-sized ranch near Eldorado, Texas—population 1,961—and for many years she has balanced her creative endeavors seamlessly with the family business. “Maybe a little bit of our daily ranch life shines through in
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‘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:
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