Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 2 1 1 standing ground — pheasants by rosemary millette courtesy wild wings , inc. Grounded inAtmosphe As a young girl, Minnesota–born Rosemary Millette, the second-youngest of nine children, would draw alongside her sister Teresa—also a wildlife artist—for hours on end and during high school she pursued her passion for painting wildlife with the encouragement of an art teacher, Charles Pearson, who recognized her gift and helped her develop it. "David Maass, the renowned waterfowl artist, also lived in our little town, so I was surrounded by lots of talent," she says. She became a full-time wildlife artist in the 1980s, shortly after marrying her husband, David. They reside in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and she finds most of her wildlife subject matter within a 50-mile radius of home. Gamebirds—specifically pheasants and turkeys—star in Millette's wildlife paintings, the vivid plumage of cock pheasants by a fenceline or in a recently disked field dusted with snow is made all the more brilliant by the myriad muted shades of brown she utilizes to portray the fecund heartland prairie. Most of all, the quality of the air itself—the weight of it almost palpable, the fog-laden air laying in creases of the landscape—demonstrates her profound sense of place. Along with her masterful portrayal of individual animals and their environments, she paints the air itself. In one of her many paintings of whitetails, shards of sunlight poke through tall pines to pool in a meadow where a young buck and two does forage, and in another oil, the haze backdrops a sumac-studded meadow and reveals a heavy-bodied buck courting a doe as if they are emerging from a dream world. More than a dozen state conservation stamps feature Millette's work, and she seeks out relationships with conservation groups such as Pheasants Forever, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 2 1 1