The Call of the Wild
He Wanted to be a Painter. Instead Art Wolfe Broke the Boundaries of Nature Photography, Turning It into an Art Form.
Mount Rainier, Photo © Art Wolfe
By Jon Marmor
If things had worked out as , '75, planned, chances are we would never have gotten to see the works of one of the most renowned nature photographers in the world. He would have been spending his time in a high school classroom instead, teaching art.
A double major in painting and art education at the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, he had pretty much given up on a career in painting after seeing the struggles of his faculty mentors. After all, they weren't making their livings exclusively as painters; they had day jobs, too.
So Wolfe figured he'd teach art, and continue to paint on the side. But just as his hope to be a painter went by the wayside, so did his teaching career. A double levy failure and resulting budget cuts made teaching jobs scarce in Seattle. Then a teachers' strike forced him to consider crossing picket lines as a substitute teacher. If that weren't enough, there was his one year in the classroom:
"I hated it," he says. "I didn't have the patience to put up with teaching and the kids. I would have slugged someone. I only looked at teaching to put bread on my table. I really wanted to be a painter."
So he quit teaching and started spending more time on photography, a hobby he picked up in high school, and shot photos of his favorite subject--the outdoors.
