Mary Alice Hobbs

Brigham City Museum-Gallery

To complement its 2009 and future Peach Days Art exhibitions, the Brigham City Museum-Gallery is devoting wall space to a local full-time artist. The museum is currently showcasing six oil paintings by Michael Calles. The paintings as well as pieces submitted for the Peach Days Art Exhibition will be on view through Sept. 23.

The museum is located at 24 North 300 West. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free.

One of Calles’ pieces that encourages patrons to look closer depicts a grizzly bear seated in a stream at a “lunch counter” waiting patiently for his food. The artist says, “In this composition, I wanted to work with contrasting textures, namely the bear’s fur, the hard-edged rock and the water. Also, the gesture of the animal I used for reference was appealing.”

The painter is fascinated by the grizzly because it’s been an endangered species. He has sketched and photographed animals in the wild, but he prefers to view them up close at the zoo. The artist has visited the Bronx, Hogle and Pocatello zoos, to name a few. Calles’ The Lunch Counter toured for a year in the juried show “Endangered Species: Flora and Fauna” curated by the Wildling Art Museum in Los Olivos, California.

Other works by Calles on exhibit include A Movement in the Distance, In Search of, Ben Lomond Shadows, Days End and Below the Divide.

Calles has been interested in art since he was four years old. He recalls going to his mother in tears because he had difficulty drawing the trunk of an elephant. Calles says, “It meant a lot to me that the elephant look realistic.”

Two years later Calles discovered wildlife. He and his older brother Jamie built a box trap to catch animals and placed it in a swamp near the Connecticut River. They checked the trap every day for weeks, and it was always empty. Finally the boys captured a pheasant. When they released the trap door, the bird burst out. The young artist remembers saying out loud, “Wow!” Since that time, he has incorporated wildlife into most of his artwork.

Calles, who was raised in the lower Connecticut River Valley, pursued a career in the arts, earning a Masters at Utah State University in 2001.

The painter has participated in major exhibitions nationally, notably the 2009 Wild Horse and Western Art Show in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Calles won Best of Show with an entry featuring two pronghorn antelope.

He has also participated The Phippen Museum Show in Prescott, Arizona, and the Collectors Covey Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

Calles currently resides in Brigham City with his wife Sherrie and daughters Arianna and Sariah.