As a wildlife conservation artist, Vickie McMillan-Hayes is closely attuned to the cycles in life, the metamorphoses and the evolutions, the ebb and flow of the seasons. To speak of her current life metaphorically, Vickie is perhaps in the late summer or early fall, in a period when she is extremely active, tending to the explosive growth all around her and reaping the rewards of early plantings. Yet her life has balance, as she shifts back and forth between her quiet time alone in the studio creating art and her interactions with others through her collaborative events and outreach programs. It is a full and rewarding season in her life, dedicated, as she likes to say, to “changing lives one painting at a time.”
After graduating from the University of North Texas where she studied both graphic design and painting (even convincing the dean to award her a degree in watercolor—a first at the university), Vickie felt called to Africa to do missionary work. Naturally, however, she took her art materials with her. She can still recall the pivotal moment, the swing into a new season of her life, that happened there. “I started painting en plein air out in the wilds,” she explains, “and it made me come alive. I felt at that moment a pressing desire—an overwhelming urge that couldn’t be denied!—to articulate through the use of brush and art all of the beautiful textures, colors, and details of the environment. I wanted to tell the story of my experience through my work.” Her passion for wildlife art was unleashed, but as it has turned out, that was only the beginning.
In the years since discovering her desire to paint animals and nature, Vickie has blossomed into a true wildlife conservation artist. As such, she is driven to paint accurate wildlife paintings for others to better understand their responsibility to protect endangered wildlife and their habitats. “With each body of work,” Vickie notes, “I become more keenly aware of the negative impact man has on all species, and how strongly I feel a need to educate the public on how we can all contribute to protecting our animals and environment for the next generations to enjoy.”