Every evening, when 8 p.m. rolls around, Tobias Sauer puts his eldest boy—Cash, who is 6—to bed and follows a routine as he does so. He lies down with him, makes shadow puppets for him, and reads him a book. That routine is followed by another one that Sauer put into practice a few years ago—spending two to three hours each night making accoutrements for Western models to wear during artist photo shoots.     Sauer, who lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with his wife Andrea Hunter and his children, has been painting full-time for about seven years now.
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  Maynard Dixon would be proud. The master artist, who was considered one of the premier landscape painters of the American West during the early 20th century, died in 1946, but his legacy is alive and well, thanks to Paul and Susan Bingham, founders of the Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts. Dixon’s home and studio in Mt. Carmel, Utah, had fallen into disrepair over the years, but a telephone call changed everything. In 1997, Milford Zornes called Paul Bingham and asked him a question: Would he be interested in buying it? Paul’s response was an immediate and enthusiastic, “Yes!” Zornes, who
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Rob Pitzer, who passed away in the spring, was an art collector and founder of several galleries, including Pitzer’s Fine Arts in Wimberley, Texas—located between Austin and San Antonio. He also assembled an impressive collection of art from the artists he worked with during his almost 50 years in business. One of his most interesting ventures was what his son, Tyson, describes as a sub-collection that he refers to as the Artists’ Palette Collection.   Painted Palette, Mikki Senkarik, oil on panel   That collection is the product of an art lover who also thought outside the box—or the frame,
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“It just seems like [Louis L’Amour] was part of a lot of people’s households,” says Allyson Sheumaker, executive director of the A. R. Mitchell Museum in Trinidad, Colorado. So, when the folks at the museum had the opportunity to display and sell some original cover art and sketches from dozens of Louis L’Amour books, they didn’t hesitate to put together a show.  Gregory Manchess is an award-winning illustrator and artist and has been working on illustrations for advertisements, magazines, and book covers for almost 50 years. One of the authors whose covers he worked on was Louis L’Amour, and he
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Are you a big Fan of “Yellowstone”? If so, keep a lookout for a David Frederick Riley piece in the background of some of the scenes in season five. And this might not be the last time you see a piece of his on the acclaimed TV show or its spin-offs.   The entire process started about six months ago, when Riley got a call from Montana Trails Gallery in Bozeman, Montana, one of the galleries that carries his work. “The [Yellowstone crew members] were shooting around Bozeman,” Riley says. “They went to Montana Trails Gallery, and that’s where they saw
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“Bob and my relationship goes beyond art, and I think that’s the important thing,” artist Robert Krogle says of his friend, Robert Rodriguez. “It’s art that has drawn us together and kept us together in this really unbelievable, close relationship that I think a lot of people wish they had in their lives.”   Krogle and Rodriguez are both Western artists and will each be showing 15 to 20 available works at the Out West Art Show at the Heritage Inn in Great Falls, Montana, from March 20 to 22. They have known each other since the late 1960s when they
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Brad and Sundie Ruppert didn’t start out as textile artists. But an on-a-whim experiment with beaver felt hat scraps changed everything for this collaborative artist couple. The artists, based in Norwalk, Iowa, started out doing sculpture with found and thrifted objects, plus wood and metal custom signage. Eleven years ago, they made a custom sign for Greeley Hat Works in Greeley, Colorado, and toured the facility while they were there to install the sign. “While on the tour, Brad picked up the rings that they cut off of the brims of the hats right before they shape them and asked
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The eye of an artist allows them to see things others may not. This leads to beautiful work, inspired insight, or — in the case of Crystal Orlando — becoming a modern day Indiana Jones (minus the snakes and guns, luckily). In 2016, Crystal Orlando was working and drawing at a framing shop in Temple, Texas. There was an estate sale happening in the area and she had a feeling there was a reason she needed to be there. “I’ve always had a knack for finding things that I was supposed to find,” she says. “I don’t know if that
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