Artist Maria Ryan, has hand painted him with bold colorful Spirit Bears or Fetish Bears. The horse and the bear have always had strong spiritual connections in the West. Spirit Bears, or Fetish bears, are considered the guardians and protectors. Each Spirit Bear on the colt represents traditional symbols of strength, courage, power, and healing. They also all have the traditional 'heartline' across their bodies representing LONG LIFE. "StrongHeart" also carries his own 'heartline,' and honors the Spirit Bear's powerful medicine. Hand painted acrylic on aluminum, this life size colt's dimensions in (inches) are: 52 x 48 x 14. Separate from the auction, StongHeart the Spirit Bear Colt is FOR SALE! It is an original - one of a kind - by Artist, Maria Ryan. If interested, please contact Artist: Maria Ryan direct at: (208) 667-9490.

ABOUT THE ARTIST...

Maria Ryan is an accomplished artist and designer who has been winning awards and pleasing collectors around the world for the past thirty years for her paintings and designs of all types of wildlife and its habitat. She is a graduate of the Graphic Arts Preparatory School of New York and received her formal art education at C.W. Post College in New York. She has completed 540 workshop hours at Huntington Fine Arts School in New York and studied with many internationally renowned wildlife artists in workshops in the United States and Europe. following six years residence in Europe, she lived in Tampa, Florida and in 1998 moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Her studio overlooks an extensive wilderness with abundant wildlife for continual inspiration.

She travels throughout North America studying her subjects and gathering reference material for her paintings. Her major research trips have included the Everglades, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Banff, Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, plus many wildlife centers and wildlife rescue organizations. For several years, she was a docent at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, which further broadened her knowledge, creativity and dedication to wildlife purposes. She is an active conservationist supporting numerous organizations with fundraising, teaching and donations of artwork. The Nature Conservancy commissioned Maria Ryan to create the artwork for its brochure and the many pictorial trail signs at the Cougar Bay Preserve on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Her paintings have consistently received accolades of the highest order. Her work has been exhibited in the Tampa Museum of Art and she has received top show honors in many national and regional shows in the United States and Europe. She was selected into the Top 100 and Top 200 two consecutive years in the prestigious Art for the Parks national competition in Jackson, Wyoming.

Maria Ryan has recently taken her wildlife art to a new medium, transcending it into the three-dimentional Trail of Painted Ponies with a Masterwork Pony as well as original figurine size ponies. She was a Top 20 winner in the 2006 'Native Art of Horse Painting' competition. Her embellished Masterwork Pony "Native Jewel" also graces the cover of the new 2006 Trail of Painted Ponies Collector Edition book. To further extend her new and exciting direction, she has added her beautifully hand painted wildlife and horse figures as a continuation of her artwork. Maria has also contributed her artistic skills to the painting of several life size animals for public art projects in Idaho and Washington.

Her work has been published in U.S. Art ,Wildlife Art , Informart Magazine and numerous newspaper articles. She is one of the artists featured in "Wildlife Art: 60 Contemporary Masters and their Work", published in 2001 by Portfolio Press. Her paintings can be found in private and corporate collections in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Special Achievements:

P2007 - New Tubbs Hill Signs in Coeur d' Alene Maria Ryan has painted 32 detailed illustrations in full color of all the birds, wild flowers, shrubs and trees located within the Tubbs Hill nature trails for the new sinage which will be installed by the parks department in the very near future. The signs will be located at the beginning of the trail system ajacent to the Coeur d' Alene Resort. These three large format signs have been produced beautifully on metal in full color with detailed descriptions and information about the trails.

You can also see the 10 large full color information signs that Maria was commissioned to paint a few years ago for the National organization - The Nature Conservancy - Cougar Bay Preserve trail system in Coeur d' Alene. These signs are also on metal, in full color showing the flora and fauna and other geological depictions of this area with paintings and photos by Maria. They are easy to read and beautiful.

2006 - Top 20 Winner in The Trail Of Painted Ponies Native Art of Horse Painting Competition http://www.trailofpaintedponies.com One of the 20 painted ponies chosen (out of 400 entries) across the US for the first Native Art of Horse Painting competition by The Trail of Painted Ponies. See their web pages for photos of my pony- "Native Jewel Pony" and other photos of the big awards event held in Scottsdale, AZ this May.

2006 - Bucks For PACE, Public art project, Bellevue, WA. http://www.bucksforpace.org Two of my designs were chosen to paint on TWO LIFE SIZE Whitetail deer fiberglass forms. "Shared Spirits Buck" and "Buck n' Broncos" will be displayed in Bellevue,Wa. for the summer and auctioned at a gala event in October this year to benefit the Performing Arts Center Eastside in Bellevue, Wa.

2004 - EXCEL Foundation Public Art Project - "No Moose Left Behind" Painting a life-sized Moose model for public auction for charity.

1998 - Art exhibit in Tampa Museum of Art