Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
a child and go to their college graduation. But I can do a painting in one hundred, maybe one hundred fifty hours. That may seem like a long time to some people, but not to me. And that gives me great satisfaction in the meantime." Timm's work has been compared to Terry Redlin, but nobody can do songbirds like Pastor Sam. He captures them vibrantly alive, ready to fly off the canvas, like the little angels they are. M ichigander David Ruimveld is a believer too and sees his talent as a way of sharing the Good News. "I put Bible verses on my paintings, and if I can just get one person to wonder what in the world I was talking about, then it makes that art worthwhile. I mean if God doesn't love us, why would he surround us with such beauty?" You got that right, Brother David. God makes the rough road smooth and the crooked road straight the prophet Isaiah says and nowhere is it more true than in David Ruimveld's timeline. His family was in the chicken business for two generations, not raising them but frying them. Didn't I tell you this would be a wild story? Just out of high school, Ruimveld bought into a couple of his uncle's franchises. "But I always liked to scribble. One day I caught a nice landlocked salmon, brought it home, painted it, and hung it on the restaurant wall. Not long after, a customer came in and asked, 'Who painted that fish?' It was the famous western artist R. Scott. He encouraged me to take up art full time. When I told my wife I was quitting the chicken business and going to paint full time, she asked, 'Houses?'" You write what you know, Hemingway said, and you paint what you know and Hemingway was a trout fisher in his younger days in Michigan. Ruimveld's Famous Rivers series is of particular note, a novel shadowbox, maps of the most famous streams in North America: the Gallatin, the Clark's Fork, the Yellowstone, each with an exquisite rendering of the fish to be expected thereupon and three flies with which to catch them. Don't see your favorite water? Holler at him and send him the GPS. S cot Storm grew up in the scrub oak woods and sandhills around Freeport, Minnesota, about two hours northwest of Minneapolis, in an area renowned for savvy pheasants, giant corn-fed whitetails, and fantastic fall flights of waterfowl. His artistic flair was obvious very early which led him seek a "practical" outlet for his talents, the crooked road once again, a degree in architecture from North Dakota State in 1986. He went to work in Minneapolis and St. Cloud designing schools and nursing homes, painting in his spare time. In 1998 he entered the Minnesota duck stamp contest and placed second. "That was a wake-up call," Storm remembers. "Looking back, I don't think my piece was all that good but I placed higher than eleven or twelve artists whose work previously won the Federal Duck Stamp competition." His regular job kept him on the road too many days and he was missing his kids' best growing- up years. The following year he quit his job and took up his art full time. Storm has won nearly three dozen state, regional, and national awards since, including the 2004-2005 Federal RUT N STRUT BY SAM TIMM COURTESY WILD WINGS, INC. PARTRIDGE & PARKER BY DAVID RUIMVELD