developing a still life paintings art collection · discovering the prescient power and timeless...

Developing a Still Life Paintings Art Collection

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Discovering the prescient power and timeless appeal of still life art.

Laura Robb, Blue Cup with Crabapples, oil, 10 x 16.

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A Quiet DynamicDavid Riedel’s still-life paintings reveal a subtle sense of movement, mystery, and depth

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As the pAle light fades into dusk through north-facing skylights in his Portland, OR, studio, painter David Riedel sits quietly, watching a painting on his easel. His hands are in his lap. His tools at this moment are his eyes, closely observing how changes happen in the painting’s areas of light and dark— seeing how shadows and highlights fall on a brown clay jug surrounded by au-tumn leaves. What he’s hoping to see is the painting’s sense of mystery and depth increase in proportion to the studio’s disappearing light.

“It may be a quiet still life, but it’s very dynamic,” the artist points out, his eyes still on the easel. “It’s not a station-ary thing at all. You have to be passion-ate about some idea, and then build in the tensions and energy and flow. There should be a lot going on. And the fascina-tion for me is: How well can I see what’s truly there?”

As it turns out, since moving from northern New Mexico to Portland a few years ago, Riedel has had to work harder to see subtle variations in color and other nuances as he paints. For the previous 10 years he observed his paintings in the sharp, high-altitude light. That’s what filled the studio he and his wife, Rachel, built—along with an adobe house—on a mountainside north of Taos. When they moved to the Northwest, Riedel found himself facing a re-education in the effects of light.Turquoise and Green, oil, 20 x 16.


“Up here, the light is soft and silvery, and I have to struggle to see things. There’s not the sharp distinction be-tween warm light and cool light,” he ex-plains. “I think it’s been really good for me. It pushes me to work harder to see, and the result is that I’ve learned to study what I’m looking at more closely, to be very observant and careful with color.”

Riedel’s hard work has paid off. Already an award-winning artist whose still lifes are collected nationally and internation-ally, he received the top prize—the Amer-ican National Award of Excellence—at the Oil Painters of America national ju-ried exhibition this past May. He also earned a merit award at this year’s Salon International, which is held each spring at Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art in San Antonio, TX. And while still life remains his primary genre, the 53-year-old artist recently has also begun showing his figu-rative and plein-air landscape work.

DrAwing AnD other creative ac-tivities have been central to Riedel’s life since childhood. He was raised in Indiana in the early 1960s, the son of a banker fa-ther and a mother who loved to sit down at the baby grand piano at night, playing elegantly while her four children were in bed. His was a “Norman Rockwell boy-hood,” the artist remembers, with bike rides and playing in the nearby woods as daily fare. The exception for young David was periodic downtime mandated by se-vere asthma. Confined to bed for as long as a week at a time, he would spend his hours reading and drawing. “I learned to do those quiet things,” he relates.

Surrounded by beautiful objects, in-cluding antiques, Chinese scrolls, and landscape paintings, Riedel absorbed an aesthetic appreciation for such ob-jects. And while he was always encour-aged in his love of art, there were no role models for making it a career. So when

he entered college at Northern Arizona University, he headed for the architec-ture department. But he soon switched majors, having realized architecture was no match for his growing interest in art. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in printmaking. He had a vague sense of abstract expressionism but did not possess the fine art fundamentals a future realist painter would need. For several years after graduation, in what he describes as a “time of great energy and little direction,” he created land-scapes in pastels. “Hopefully,” he says, smiling, “those early pieces will remain forever lost!”

Then, in 1986, he was introduced to the Art Students League of New York. It was a career-sparking stroke of fate. He enrolled there and everything changed. “For me, the concept of painting, as dis-tinct from drawing, was a revelation,” he recalls, noting it was not until he was 30

Two White Onions, oil, 11 x 14.


that he picked up a paintbrush. His first painting teacher, and one of the most influential figures during this period, was renowned still-life painter David Leffel. Sherrie McGraw and other in-structors also made a strong impres-sion, and important living artists such as Richard Schmid have left an inevitable mark on his work.

From 1986 to 1991, Riedel spent three to four months each year living in a friend’s apartment in New York City and im-mersing himself in art. “The Art League started teaching me the fundamentals of drawing and painting,” he recounts. “But just as important was learning how to go about learning—how to pull each paint-ing a little farther along.” Completely engrossed, he would paint and draw 12 hours a day for weeks on end. When he was finally exhausted, he would return for a few months to an isolated cabin in a canyon near Sedona, AZ.

There, alone, the artist more fully absorbed and explored what he had learned in New York. “The contrast was wonderful,” he remarks. “Even now, to get out in a very quiet place, out in the

woods away from everything and just car camp and paint for a week—that’s one of my great loves.”

Over the years Riedel has had ample opportunity to spend time in nature and paint on location. After Arizona he lived briefly in southern Colorado; in 1992 he moved to New Mexico to be close to a community of other artists in Taos. He met Rachel in a gallery in Taos and they were married in 1994. Then came a daughter, Danica, and soon David and Rachel began the “enormous, 10-year art project” of building an off-the-grid, passive-solar adobe house and studio from the ground up.

Today the family has settled in urban Portland, near the Willamette River. Es-pecially on blustery winter days, Riedel finds a measure of wildness and solitude kayaking on the river. In a more con-tained way, his studio—in a former fac-tory converted to art spaces—is a quiet place as well. The artist has covered the studio walls with neutral-colored fabric to reduce reflections that would inter-fere with shadows and color in his work. Around him are shelves filled with vases,

pots, objects he collected during travels in Asia, and an assortment of dried flow-ers, branches, and leaves.

Things get shuffled around on the shelves over time, which often sparks the idea for a painting. Other works are born of a simple color combination or an intriguing shape. ENAMEL PAN AND PEACHES began when Riedel noticed the blue enamel pan he has used many times on camping trips. “One day it just caught my eye and I knew there was a painting there,” he recalls. In another instance, a branch of perfect red maple leaves hung drying on the wall for months before it became the inspiration for CLAY POT AND FALL LEAVES [see page 5].

However an arrangement starts, its journey to a finished painting taps into a wealth of knowledge the artist has ac-quired over nearly 25 years. Now, with technical painting skills under his belt, he is free to approach a work from various angles, depending on what interests him at the moment. “It’s never just stuff on a table,” he explains, referring to the expe-rience of visually exploring an arrange-ment. “It’s all about the relationships. Sometimes I’ll decide to play with edges more, or I’ll set up a good framework of shadows and work on that, or I’ll think of the image in a more abstract way, as pieces of color. These are all just internal games I play in the process of painting.

“It’s never easy,” he acknowledges.

Red Onions, oil, 14 x 15. Enamel Pan and Peaches, oil, 11 x 15.


the yard, a neighbor’s strikingly beauti-ful cat is grooming itself under a tree in the evening light. “Oh man,” he says, “if I had my sketchbook with me—what a fan-tastic pose!” F

Colorado-based Gussie Fauntleroy also writes for Art & Antiques, New Mexico Magazine, Native Peoples, and the Santa Fean.

Clay Pot and Fall Leaves, oil, 24 x 22.

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“Each time I set objects on the table it’s a different environment or there are a different set of parameters I set for my-self. So it’s always a challenge—which it should be.”

Another means of honing observational and drawing skills is to always carry a sketchbook, something Riedel did dur-ing his student years and is training himself to do again. “Creativity can’t just

be limited to the studio. It’s your life. It’s part of everything,” he says. Echoing the advice of a respected instructor, he adds: “When you see it now, do it now. In other words, when you see something beautiful, don’t put it off; you might not see it again.”

Settling into a chair in his front yard, Riedel smiles ruefully as he discovers he’s just broken his own rule. Across


Jeannie PatyA fresh take on the still-life genre

lipstick tubes, high-heeled pumps, and trendy handbags. These are a few of Jeannie Paty’s favorite things. The Colorado painter is known for casting her artistic eye on ordinary objects and then bringing a fresh sense of color and high energy to her tableaux. Earlier this year, Paty won high praise from Califor-nia painter Brian Blood, who selected her painting LIPSTICKS & NAIL POLISHES #14

Lipsticks & Nail Polishes #14, Oil, 20 X 20.


as a finalist in a national online compe-tition. “I felt Jeannie captured a bit of Wayne Thiebaud in this one,” Blood not-ed. “I’m a sucker for well-drafted works with juicy paint.”

Recently another of Paty’s lively tab-leaux, SUNFLOWER, BLUE PLATE & ART BOOK, won an honorable mention award at the prestigious Salon International show at Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art in San Antonio, TX. The still life hangs alongside an array of paintings by estab-lished artists such as Dan Beck, Jeff Legg, and Robert Spooner. Paty admits 2010 has been a really good year so far.

She is also quick to point out that while her subject matter may seem whimsical on the surface, she is very serious about her art. Her subject matter of choice is merely a vehicle to explore nuances of colors and shapes. In other words, she views landscapes, objects, and figures in the abstract.

Lately Paty has been drawn to the col-ors and shapes of accessories like shoes and purses—a fascination that developed after examining some of her friends’ pos-sessions. “I’m lucky to have such stylish girlfriends, and I’ve raided many of their closets,” she jokes. The visual structure of

such seemingly playful works is carefully planned to convey what she may not be able to express in words. “Paintings can be a way to communicate in the same way music can evoke the right emotions you feel or want to express,” she explains.

Paty relishes playing with light, me-dium, and dark values. Pushing the me-dium values towards either the light or dark allows her to create a stronger com-position, she says. “Whether my painting is of a figure or an inanimate object like a shoe, I am drawn to the rhythm and har-mony of things,” she says. “How a person may shift his or her weight or the ran-domness of a tossed-off pair of shoes is usually what catches my eye.”

Paty also believes in painting directly from life. If she does use photos as refer-ence, she first creates color studies from life and then keeps them close by as her main reference material. Like many art-ists, she strongly adheres to the idea that something is lost when paintings origi-nate from photographs.

As a child, Paty says, she was highly visual and often studied the way light moved and created things like long shad-

ows at sunset. Raised in Maryland, she spent many days as a teenager in nearby Washington, DC, perusing the paintings at the National Gallery of Art. She later earned a degree in industrial design from Arizona State University in Tempe and also studied painting at the Art Students League of Denver.

After numerous art classes and years spent in her studio, Paty says she has de-veloped a strong sense of what she wants her art to accomplish. “I’m an artist who appreciates beauty and how it can impact a person. People’s souls can be renewed and spirits lifted by a piece of art that is created by a living, breathing person,” she says. “That’s what I want my art to accomplish.” —Bonnie Gangelhoff

Sunflowers, Blue Plate & Art Book, Oil, 20 X 16.

this content has been abridged from an original article written by Bonnie gangelhoff. © F+W. All rights reserved. F+W grants permission for any or all pages in this premium to be copied for personal use.

“Whether my painting is of a figure or an inani-mate object like a shoe, I am drawn to the rhythm and harmony of things.”


A visual ConversationLaura Robb captures the interplay between the subjects of her still-life paintings

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when An Artist works hard, the re-sulting painting can look like it involved a lot of effort. Or, an artist can work hard to make a painting look effortless—“as if blown on in one puff,” as painter William Merritt Chase once put it.

Still-life painter Laura Robb is of the latter persuasion, although she jokes that it may not be the best career move. “I like my paintings to look effortless, which is kind of a dumb thing to want because, really, the public is more impressed with things that look difficult to paint. Usually the more detail they see, the better,” the 54-year-old artist observes, her Oklaho-man drawl and unhurried manner coun-terbalanced by a quick, engaging wit. “To me, it’s exciting to make it look effortless, just because it is so hard to do.”

Robb’s observations may contain some truth, but viewers and collectors seem to

Lilies and Freesia, oil, 18 x 18.Sunflowers in Blue Teapot, oil, 17 x 13.


Crimson Poppies, oil, 24 x 18.

have no trouble appreciating—and pur-chasing—her richly hued, vividly expres-sive still-life arrangements of such ob-jects as flowers, vases, bowls, and Asian ceramic urns. The Taos-based artist’s work is widely collected and has earned numerous awards over the years, includ-ing the People’s Choice Award at the 2009 Western Rendezvous of Art in Helena, MT.

That award went to CRIMSON POPPIES, a painting of poppies and orchids in a vi-brant red glass vase beside an antique sug-ar bowl. Having the piece selected as the viewers’ favorite was a pleasant surprise for the artist, especially in an exhibition known more for wildlife and western art than still life. “You could have knocked me over with a feather,” she admits. “I really didn’t expect it at all.” The painting has been selected as the poster image for this year’s Western Rendezvous.

The award was a fitting tribute to an artist’s journey that began years ago in Tulsa. Robb describes her younger self as being fairly shy and waffling between act-ing out and trying to become invisible. “A lot of the time I was outdoors,” she recalls, “and I must have been pretty self-directed because my parents always insisted that I raised myself. I distinctly remember that my favorite activity in kindergarten was painting and that cats and dogs were my best friends. Same as today.”

These days, in the attractive home and studio she designed and built on the out-skirts of Taos, Robb’s circle of best friends includes two rescued dogs and three res-cued cats, most of whom came to her with physical disabilities. “Going to the vet is my social life,” she quips.

Scooter the cat, a longtime housemate with nerve-damaged back legs, gets around handily in a specially designed cart with wheels. A cat named Gray was partially paralyzed after being electro-cuted on a power line. She can walk now, although she still falls over sometimes, the artist explains. And Skyler, a cat with twisted hind legs, became part of the family after Robb drove a thousand miles to an animal sanctuary in Utah and paid an adoption fee to get him.

Robb’s own move to Taos came in 1986 after experiencing northern New Mexico on a painting trip, during which she vis-ited an artist in a compound of venerable adobes divided into apartments. “The

compound was built when [Russian paint-er Nicolai] Fechin was alive. It was part of the legendary old Taos,” she explains. “I said if I could get an apartment like that, I’d move here. The artist who lived there said, ‘The one next door is vacant.’ I walked over there, looked in, went home,

packed, and was back in a month.”

setting off on an adventure alone was nothing new for Robb. At 19, immedi-ately following high school graduation and having worked to pay her own expenses, she moved to New York City and spent a


year studying with acclaimed painter Mi-chael Aviano. She rented a series of apart-ments—one, the former home of prosti-tutes, brought unexpected knocks on the door—and worked as a waitress in jazz clubs where she met trumpet player Chet Baker and other musical greats.

Studying with Aviano had been the suggestion of a painter in Tulsa with whom she had started taking instruction at age 16. At that point in her life, painting partly served as an escape from school, which did not suit her temperament. “I wanted to drop out. I told my parents that Norman Rockwell dropped out when he was 13, but they said just hold your nose and get through it.” Needing only a half-time schedule for enough credits to grad-uate, Robb signed up for a daily half-day of art. The course offered a rigid, classical approach to painting, but it set her feet on a fortuitous path.

In New York, Robb gained technical

skills from studying with Aviano. And just as important, she absorbed his “real love and enthusiasm for art. He’s just one of those people who are artists even when they’re asleep,” she says. Aviano made suggestions to his students on museum shows to see, which introduced Robb to such artists as 18th-century French still-life painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.

Robb’s next major source of artistic encouragement was internationally re-nowned painter Richard Schmid, whom she met through a gallery near Tulsa after returning from New York. Sending him slides of her work, she received letters back with words of critique and support. “I think he was way, way over-complimentary of my work!” she insists. “But I lived to get those ’atta-girl letters. It was such a boost.

“And really, that’s the way it should be, because the technical information is out there; what you need most is the encour-agement to find it on your own,” she con-

tinues. “When I went back and visited Mi-chael Aviano about 10 years later, I told him I think the only thing a good teacher can teach you is how to teach yourself. He just kind of slumped and smiled and said ‘Ex-actly!’, happy that someone finally got it.”

Robb is on the other end of the teacher/student relationship these days, leading periodic painting workshops in Santa Fe. As she demonstrates her methods, she becomes even more aware of how her ap-proach to painting—and seeing—diverges from the academic model. For example, she never draws outlines of objects be-fore starting to paint. Instead her goal is to perceive and render her subjects purely in terms of color and shape and to “keep things accurate yet unrecognizable for as long as I can,” she explains. “My theory is that once you have enough information on your canvas that you can name the object, the wrong part of your brain starts trying to take over and run the show.”

Robb maintains this counterintuitive approach, as she describes it, through such tactics as focusing on the shape of spaces between and around things, rather than the form of the object itself. She also

Fish Bowl and Peppers, oil, 9 x 9.

Arrangement in Blue and White, oil, 12 x 9.


ful of sand. If you close your hand tightly all the sand pours out, but as long as your hand is open, it’s okay.

“My work is always moving in the direc-tion of leaving more of the details out, as a way of making the real story of the paint-ing more important,” she reflects. “To do that requires a lot of subtle judgment calls. So I find that as time goes by I’m painting slower, but I’m happier with the result.” F

Colorado-based Gussie Fauntleroy also writes for Art & Antiques, New Mexico Magazine, Native Peoples, and the Santa Fean.

this content has been abridged from an original article written by gussie Fauntleroy. © F+W. All rights reserved. F+W grants permission for any or all pages in this premium to be copied for personal use.

Pansies, oil, 10 x 10.

frequently squints, depriving her eyes of clear focus and preventing her mind from grabbing onto the idea of a flower or vase. “The best way I’ve come up with to de-scribe what I’m after is that when setting up the still life, I try to get the objects to ‘talk’ to each other. And then I try to paint that conversation.”

The result is an arresting mixture of vibrant movement and serene calm, with flowers and background alike sometimes appearing to dance to an intense yet com-positionally pleasing gust of wind. Some edges are sharp and well defined while others are amorphous and fluid, as if

parts of the image are moving in and out of focus. “Practically every student I have ever had has wanted to know how to lose edges,” Robb notes. “But in my approach, the edges that are lost are just the ones that never got found.”

PANSIES is among the artist’s favorite recent works. The painting of white and red blooms in a black vase was almost abandoned at one point. Yet after she ba-sically gave up on it, waited a while, and came back to it, the painting somehow shifted into gear. “Sometimes it works best that way—when you just let go,” she observes. “It’s like trying to hold a hand-


A Simple taleKyle Polzin highlights details to tell a story in his artful still lifes

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Call of the Trail, oil, 16 x 28.

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kyle polzin is a sell out. Every-thing he paints sells, and he is quickly becom-ing a sought-after and respected artist in the Southwest. From 2007 to 2008, he managed to sell every painting he pro-duced for three highly reputable shows. In November 2007, he had his first major one-man show at Southwest Gallery in Dallas, where all 27 of his original works sold on opening night. The following


year, he created a dozen paintings for a spring show at the Rockport Center for the Arts in Rockport, TX, selling all of them by the end of the first week. And in August, at Port A Gallery in Port Aransas, TX, all 12 of his new pieces sold by draw the night of the show.

How does the 36-year-old artist ac-count for his stellar success? “I’ve been really fortunate to have the amount of interest I’ve received,” he responds. “I’m just happy people appreciate the crafts-manship and quality of work I’ve put into my art.” Obviously, a good number of collectors do. They are especially drawn to the seductive attention to detail that defines so much of the Texas native’s art, particularly in his warm, rich still lifes. And then there is the undeniable techni-cal proficiency that emanates from each canvas.

polzin wAs born in Cuero, TX, to a family full of artistic talents. “My dad majored in art in college,” he says. “He

was always drawing.” As a child, Kyle re-calls that he, too, was “always drawing and playing with clay, working with my hands.” His parents frequently referred to their son as an artist. “Early on I had that identity,” he says. “I knew that ca-reer was in front of me.” In addition, both of his grandparents were skilled carpen-ters. “My paternal grandfather worked in stained glass and built furniture,” he notes. “We were always building some-thing together.” He adds that both grand-fathers were “very meticulous” in their work, a trait that would surface in his own methodical approach: “I’ve always liked to take things apart and see how they work. I appreciate ingenuity.”

Eventually, his family moved to Vic-toria, TX, where Polzin attended Victo-ria College for an associate’s degree. “At that point I was slowly starting to get more serious about my art,” he says, nod-ding to the efforts of Larry Shook, his art teacher. Shook took a hard line with the then-uncommitted Polzin, prodding him to develop his nascent talents. In an ef-fort to do so, and while still in college, the artistic youth decided to take a work-

Intermission, oil, 14 x 18.Hydrangeas, oil, 28 x 30.


shop in Austin with Dalhart Windberg, the established Texas artist renowned for his mastery of light and color. “I was already familiar with his work,” says Pol-zin. “That experience really solidified it for me. I knew I had to pursue it.”

After college, Polzin moved to Port Aransas, TX, where he began working in graphic and web design. To this day, his background in commercial art contin-ues to help him: “I can sketch out art—in color—on the computer and can compose a scene using those computer skills.” He adds that he can take a photograph of a still-life arrangement and manipulate it to the point “where I know I want to take it. I try to eliminate the guesswork so I can be more efficient.”

Maintaining a friendship with Wind-berg, Polzin eventually worked up the nerve to show him some paintings. “He told me to bring him my work and he would criticize it,” he remembers. The budding artist began to recognize the influence of the old masters on his men-tor’s paintings: “I would look at his paint-ings and wonder—what was the trick?” He soon realized there was no trick. “His idea was to paint like the old masters but find a technique to do so faster,” re-lates Polzin. Windberg employs a smooth

canvas, enabling paint to fill spaces more quickly and increasing the overall lumi-nosity. “I also use a smooth canvas,” ex-plains Polzin. “It gives my work a sheen and enables me to achieve a high level of detail.” Through studying Windberg’s approach to art, Polzin feels he, too, has become “influenced by the old masters—especially Rembrandt and Vermeer and their style of lighting.”

Polzin points out that a good 80 to 90 percent of his paintings are still lifes; the rest are mostly landscapes and water-scapes, inspired by his early days grow-ing up along the Gulf Coast. These equally deft paintings possess a somewhat looser style, and their perspective is surprising-ly broad. It is the attention to detail in his elegant still-life canvases, however, that truly reveals the artist’s astute painterly eye. “I love getting into detail,” he says. “I like to get up close and capture patinas and surfaces.”

Compositionally, Polzin keeps it rela-

tively simple: “I try not to clutter the scene.” Instead, he focuses in on his subjects, often filling much of the can-vas with just one or two items. “I ask myself, ‘What’s a good way to showcase this piece?’” In many of his paintings, ev-eryday objects appear bathed in a golden light, imparting a romantic and some-what nostalgic glow. “I want my still lifes to look like a memory you are recalling,” the artist says.

In this sense, a narrative evolves when looking at Polzin’s canvases. A cowboy hat and spurs, a weathered duck de-coy and shotgun shells, or a branding iron and worn work gloves—these ordi-nary items enter the landscape of mem-ory when rendered in his quiet, pensive paintings. “My subject matter often has a masculine feel to it,” he notes. Yet he also confirms an attention to presentation and a careful rendering of fabrics or porcelain and glass surfaces, like a wine carafe or flower vase. The spartan settings, with

“I want my still lifes to look like a memory you are recalling.”

Lookin’ for Eight, oil, 18 x 28.


their deep chiaroscuro and backgrounds in sepias and burnt umbers, set these ob-jects in relief, both visually and themati-cally. “I highlight details to tell a story,” he says.

This nostalgic, narrative effect surfac-es in a piece like BLUES KING, in which an electric guitar, an old amplifier, and a microphone stand out in relief against the somber tones and dark shadows sur-rounding them. “Those objects are not typically presented in that light,” says Polzin. The effect is arresting: The ob-jects appear as they would in recollec-tion, items once used but now abandoned to memory.

A similar quality pervades the textural painting titled THE PATH OF LEGENDS. In this piece, Polzin portrays old baseball memorabilia—vintage Americana. “I am fascinated with old things,” he comments,

“with that era of metal and leather—that pre-plastic era.” The objects, revealing signs of use and time, rest on a striped baseball jersey. “I like to add cloth to cre-ate movement,” says Polzin. “It softens the painting.” Compositionally, this piece also offers a prime example of the artist’s spatial sensibility. The horizontal bat and the medley of textures in the assembled objects keep the eye moving around the picture plane. “The objects tell their own story,” he adds. “It’s neat to compose those pieces together as a whole.”

The artist maintains a studio in his home, which he says can be challeng-ing as he, his wife, Leigh, and their two small girls are often home at the same time. “It can be tough to keep normal hours,” he admits. “So, I get a lot of work done at night.” He also confesses to being “always in a work mode, always brain-

storming.” Fortunately he gets help from Leigh, whom he refers to as his collabora-tor. “We’re always coming up with new ideas,” he says. “I couldn’t do it without her.”

Perhaps the best person to define the appeal of Polzin’s art is his former mentor. “There’s a feeling in his work that’s eas-ily identifiable,” observes Dalhart Wind-berg. “You can look across a room and know immediately that he painted it.” Windberg warmly recalls the burgeoning artist he first met many years ago: “I knew right off the bat that he had talent. You don’t run across it very often. He has a tremendous future ahead of him.” Those collectors who keep snatching up Polzin’s work would undoubtedly agree. F

Mark Mussari, Ph.D., writes frequently about art and design.

this content has been abridged from an original article written by Mark Mussari, Ph.D. © F+W Media, inc. All rights reserved. F+W Media grants permission for any or all pages in this premium to be copied for personal use.

The Path of Legends, oil, 16 x 26.

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