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 5 2 the night the tickle of scorpions crawling across his sheets woke him, or the time a camel chased him? Or perhaps—reaching back to the middle of one night in Zimbabwe— the tale of his mother, who believed she was hounding the neighbor's scavenging dog out of the kitchen and into a makeshift backyard carved out of the bush? While standing alone in pitched blackness and wielding only a frying pan, she realized the nocturnal trespasser was actually a leopard. The White Mountains of New Hampshire, which he now calls home, are alluring. But wildness on a whole different level once lived larger and closer to Hacking and through the power of memory is never difficult to summon. "When I was growing up in South Africa and Zimbabwe," he says, "dinnertime in our house was not only about wolfing down my mother's beautifully prepared meals but coming together to reflect on and recount the experiences of the day—moments that often involved encounters with wild creatures. "To make them more vivid, we verbally drew pictures for each other. This instilled in me a sincere compulsion to communicate and share my world more permanently. And it's one of the reasons why I became a painter." Hacking today is in his prime as a wildlife and landscape artist. Positive critical attention only affirms what his collectors have long known. In February, he will be the featured artist at the 2015 Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston. He's been juried regularly into the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum's prestigious "Birds in Art" exhibition. He donated a smaller-format tiger painting to the Palm Beach Zoo that raised $20,000. Maybe most importantly, he is respected by those who have the means to buy works by any contemporary artist they choose—collectors such as Tom James, for example. The executive chairman of Raymond James Financial, Tom and his wife, Mary, have amassed a remarkable and unprecedented collection of Western and wildlife art—2,500 pieces half composed of Western and 25 percent composed of wildlife art from the best living artists of the last quarter century. "It is a profound honor to be included on the list of painters whose artwork Tom James THRILL SEEKER