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About Us
We are a small gallery, located in the small town of Ironwood Michigan. Our Gallery has over 40 different artists, many of whom are also residents of the Ironwood and surrouding areas. Wilder Fine Arts is also the home of the Porter Family Original art pieces. This gallery was started by the Porter Family as a way to showcase their pieces, and has progressed into an art gallery, custom framing gallery, and art supply store. Wilder Fine Arts is now owned and operated by Katherine Wilder, who is a daughter of the Porter Family. We hope you enjoy our pieces, and if you are in our neighborhood, please stop in and visit.
Something About The Artist
We "the Porter Family" consist of a family team; James and Sally Porter, three sons, and two daughters. The family pets also play an important role. We work under the combined initials (JSP), which is the family signature logo on each piece of work. This logo alone identified our art for many years. Eventually, we began and presently continue to also sign "the Porter family", on each piece of work, along with our logo.
Multiple members of our family may work directly on the same work of art, simultaneously, or alternately. Sometimes it is convenient that one family member do the complete work of drawing, painting or carving a specific work of art, but any one of us may be in that position at some time. There are also other types of work involved in producing our art, which everyone participates in, these include; research, ideas, suggestions, citicism and general labor, etc.... Everyone contributes to the collaborative work in defferent ways at different times. Each member of our family has an artistic ability to one degree or another, and participates in accordance with his or her experience, abilities, and availability, which of course vary over time and circumstances.
We have produced and sold our work for 25 years as we traveled across this country. In 1995 we settled in Michigans's Upper Peninsula. We continue to strive to do the most quality work for the most reasonable price. Previously we have sold most of our work to art galleries, interior decorators, custom jewelry, custom gift, custom knife and gun, and other types of shops. Currently we sell most of our art through are family-run gallery (Wilder Fine Arts) here in Ironwood, Michigan.
We work in many mediums. We work in pastel, watercolor, acrylic, charcoal, pencil, and wood carving. Our pastel works are dry pastel, on acid-free, high rag content paper. We may use any brand and form of dry, soft pastel. We use a reasonable amount of fixative on finished pastel work to facilitate handling and framing. The pastel works of art, as well as any other work on paper, should be mounted and framed under, and away form glass. The materials we use to frame, lend themselves to museum/conservation type framing as the most enduring method of preservation.
We do a large repertoire of wildlife in the vignette style and arrangement. If several pieces portraying the same creature were compared, they may appear similiar, but obvious and subtle differences would be seen, both in the subject and in any habitat. Our vignette works may take from a few hours to a couple of weeks to complete depending on the complexities and difficulties, and may contain numerous layers of a particular medium (pastel, acrylic, etc...) consisting of thousands of marks, to acheive color, structure, depth and perspective in relation to reality.
We also produce works depicting full animals and full scenes, as well as miniature artworks of many kinds. Cost ranges greatly in our art. The more complex the composition or the more detailed, the more costly that piece will be. We try to fill genenral subject requests. All of our works are original. Each is started from scratch. We do not print or otherwise duplicate our work. We do not copy other people's work. Each piece of our art is a composite of our knowledge, experience and available reference material. Each piece of our artwork now has an individual number, consisting of one or more letters and numbers incorporated next to the signature logo.
We did not seek to be artists. We did not and do not follow any person's methods or teachings, regarding art itself, nor ways and means of art as a profession. In 1969 we were being led to Christianity from a veritable garbage heap of inhumanity, torment, turmoil, alcoholism, jail on felony charges and many of the pursuits mankind uses to destroy themselves and each other. In 1970 we became new-found Christians. In 1971 we were moved to go forth and share with others our new-found truth of Almighty God. We are living testimony that all can try Him and find Him to be real.
He truly sent a Man, His Son Jesus, to live, labor, die and live again in all our behalf. God's chosen plan is that humans be created as creatures with the capability of a freewill choice. Only two things occur in our lives which we have no direct control. One is; that we are born physically and the other is that we die physically. Because there are only two forces available to each of us within our lives, we can only choose right or wrong, which constitutes good or evil. The force of good available for our choosing is by God through His Son, Jesus Christ. The force of evil is manifested by Satan the devil, and his advocates. We are therefore allowed the power to choose freely which of these powers we want to control our lives. These two forces will not work together in our lives. God, our Creator allows us to choose Him or not. Satan labors to force himself on us by whatever means is necessary. If we choose to refuse God then we automatically permit Satan to be the controlling force in our lives. If we choose God, through Jesus Christ and through His Holy Spirit, to be the controlling force in our lives, not only will we live fuller, richer and more satisfying lives, but we will also join Him in spirit when we die to live life eternally.
We, the Porter family, have chosen God, and prayerfully have inquired of Him for a way to travel as Christian evangelists, to labor with others who knew little or nothing of Him. Within several months, art was revealed to us as a means to acquire daily bread so that we could travel and labor in His Name as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. Through circumstances involving unusual persons, other life forms, places and things, extraordinary happenings filled our lives. Having found truth and having a work begun in us, we won't refuse it nor turn back.
As Christians, we study and labor according to the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures, and as Artists, we labor prayerfully.
We hope our Art will serve as a reminder to you that a peculiar unseen Being has indeed wrought some wondrous creations in the facts of humankind and all else natural that is about us, and not without purpose.
Co laborers
The Porter Family