By Bonnie Gangelhoff
Five years ago, landscape painter John Taft experienced a life-changing moment. The former art director/designer for network television left his home in New Jersey to take a painting workshop with Scott Christensen in Jackson, WY. “I realized while I was there that there were artists making a living painting,” Taft recalls. “I could then see it as a possibility for me, and I felt called to pursue it.” For several years he devoted a few hours a week to painting, and then in 2004 he followed his dream, moving to Colorado to paint full time.
Taft’s paintings capture the majestic western landscape in all its seasonal glory, from winter’s snow-capped mountains to fall’s brilliantly colored aspen trees. Inspiration surrounds him, he says: From his home in Longmont, he views a dramatic panoramic sky to the east and the magnificent Rocky Mountains to the west. The artist’s love and appreciation for the West harks back to his student days, when he made cross-country treks back and forth from his home in New York to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.
Taft’s landscapes are on view April 9-May 14 at the Colorado Governor’s Invitational Art Show and Sale in Loveland, CO. He is represented by Piñon Fine Art, Littleton, CO; Keating Fine Art, Basalt, CO; and www.johntaftstudio.com.
Featured in “Artists to Watch” April 2006