Artist strives for authenticity

By LAURA BEHENNA

Bigfork Eagle

Brett Thuma of Bigfork chose his career early in life: He knew from the time he was a child that he wanted to be an artist.

At home he drew members of his family and local wildlife, including squirrels, raccoons and deer. His father took him along on fishing and hunting trips, where he observed and drew pictures of fish, pheasants and ducks.

"We always lived in areas between the country and suburbia," Thuma said of his upbringing in Illinois.His parents let him wander alone in the woods, where he developed his appreciation for nature.

"It was back in a time when people didn't worry about kids being snatched," he said, smiling. "It was like, 'Be home by dark.'"

Even though art class happened only twice a week in his elementary school, teachers often let the students draw in their regular classes, he said. By the time he was 15, he was already talking about moving to Montana and opening a gallery.

He graduated from Albion College, a small school in Michigan, with degrees in art and American studies. He appreciated the diverse background in drawing and painting his art instructors at Albion gave him.

"They didn't stifle our creativity," he said. "They gave us challenges and let us solve them with our own creativity."

During a summer school stint at the University of Montana, Thuma briefly considered a career in wildlife management - until a professor enlightened him about the low pay and scarce job openings.

Thuma opened his own gallery and studio on Electric Avenue in 1996. His subjects are mostly in northwestern Montana, particularly in and around Glacier National Park and the Swan Range.

"Most of the time I can paint what I want to paint and what the market wants," he said. His paintings are realistic and mostly true to life; Thuma strives to be accurate but doesn't hesitate to move elements around, adding a wild creature or subtracting a building if that's "what's good for the painting," he said.

"I generally don't make up too much; I try to be authentic, at least somewhat," he said.

His knowledge of wildlife helps him paint scenes that reflect nature accurately. He's seen famous artists — who should know better — paint a grizzly bear with a shaggy spring coat in an autumn scene.

His commitment to realism and attention to detail have caused him some artistic anguish more than once, however.

"I have a bad habit of picking subjects that are a nightmare to paint," he said, laughing. He showed a painting in which a shallow spot in a river shows stones just below the surface while also reflecting the sky. That image was extremely difficult to paint, he said. Painting the minute details of a turkey's feathers on a five-by-seven-inch canvas gave him some angst, too.

Lighting is a crucial part of a painting for Thuma. He tries to plan ahead for when the natural lighting will be optimal on a scene he wants to paint. He's developed an expertise at knowing when a fabulous sunset is about to happen.

"Then I try to put myself in the right place at the right time," he said.

"I'm about 95 percent accurate in predicting when it will happen," he continued. "Then I have about 20 minutes to race out to the lower valley."

A friend told Thuma about a Navy Web site that shows tables of when celestial events, such as a full moon rising, will happen at any given location. Thuma used the site to figure out when the moon would rise over a lovely wetland between Browning and East Glacier.

The sunset cast a rosy glow over the marsh and the sky around the moon.

"It turned out way better than I expected," Thuma said. "It looked like a scene from 200 years ago."

While Thuma doesn't often see wildlife close up, wild animals often appear in his paintings. Wolves, bison and bears are among his favorites. With grizzlies, he makes a special effort to portray them doing what they do almost all the time: digging for food, turning over rocks and eating berries. Grizzlies rarely go on the attack as they're often portrayed in artwork, he explained.

Thuma painted with quick-drying acrylic paint until about nine years ago, when he switched to alkyds, a type of oil paint that dries more slowly than acrylic but faster than traditional oil paint.

"I really like that it dries to a matte, even finish," he said.

He's kept his realistic painting style, but said his style has loosened a bit in recent years; it's a little more impressionistic now, and he's experimenting with different brushes.

Thuma paints as much as half of his work on commission. The rest of the time he paints subjects that particularly interest him, and he's in no danger of exhausting potential subjects.

"There's lots more cool stuff I want to paint that I haven't had time to do," he said.

On the Web: www.BrettThumaGallery.com