Cover Artist: Mike Wurman

By Gina Malone

In 2011, Mike Wurman might have described himself as still contemplating the idea of being an artist—having taken classes and working at a job that required artistic skill but didn’t allow creativity. It took insight from a friend to make him—and his wife Rhianna, also an artist—consider life going forward. “Life is too short to live and work in a windowless cubicle,” Mike Schikora, the singer/songwriter/furniture maker and best friend said to them. “You gotta follow your dreams, pursue your passion.”

Art had always been in the periphery of Mike Wurman’s life—something he loved doing but hadn’t considered as a career. He grew up, moving around the country and overseas with his Army officer father, a mother who worked as a nurse and four siblings. In second grade, impressed by a classmate with artistic ability, Mike asked to take drawing lessons. The Clark Air Base recreation center was offering classes, and his mother signed him up. “I still remember the day she dropped me off,” he says, “and with charcoal sticks and a drawing pad in hand, I marched into class, not realizing that this eight-year-old boy was about to begin his career as an artist.” Assignments in the class consisted of copying increasingly more difficult drawings and eventually being introduced to watercolor. Mike still has the sketch pads from that first class.

As he grew older, he had passing thoughts of working as an animator, but enrolled in a military college in Georgia. While a student, he was injured when his car was broadsided by another vehicle. “Those who saw the car said I never should have lived, but live I did,” he says. He endured a complete separation of his left shoulder, which involved surgery and months of recovery. During this time, bored, he picked up a pencil and began to draw. “For the first time, I wasn’t just sketching but doing complete drawings,” he says. “Also for the first time, I was being asked by others why I was going into the military when I should be pursuing a career as an illustrator.” He graduated from college, and awaiting the Officer Basic Course in Oklahoma, moved in with his parents in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay area.

He had had some success drawing commissioned works of homes and historic sites in Virginia by the time he reported to Fort Sill, and then Fort Bragg, and now art was calling to him. Federal budget cuts allowed him to resign his commission and be released from the Army, but he soon realized that, without art schooling, he couldn’t find the illustrating job that he wanted. He became a production assistant at a label company, where he would meet his wife and where he was still working—after a disappointing attempt to get into the field of animation with Disney—when challenged by Schikora.

That evening and the friends’ words led them both to leave the label company and move to Asheville in 2013. Held back by self-doubt, Mike needed one more pivotal moment to move him forward in his art career. “In May of 2014, we took a hike across the summit of Max Patch,” he says. “When I knelt to take a photo of a weatherbeaten post with the white blaze upon it marking the iconic Appalachian Trail, I was immediately overcome with the desire to draw once again, but it took a couple of days to realize the trail itself was also calling me. Two months later, with no backpacking experience and carrying two sketchbooks and an assortment of pencils, I left Springer Mountain, GA, and headed north. My journey on the trail not only strengthened my belief in myself but it also gifted me with an undying love for nature that I was eager to share with others.” His trail name on the AT was “Sketch.”

He continued to work in pencils, then moved to graphite and, eventually, pastels. He now focuses primarily on landscapes, with many paintings of his beloved Max Patch. It was Mike who, during the pandemic, took the drone image of the summit crowded with campers and trash that went viral. “Because of that photo, the US Forest Service closed the summit to camping,” he says. “I’ve returned to Max Patch many times since the closing, and each time I see a definite improvement as nature reclaims the many social trails and multiple firepits that were scattered about on its summit. The painting A Rebirth – Max Patch was inspired by my visit to the summit on the one-year anniversary of the photo being taken.”

His work is exhibited at Number 7 Arts, in Brevard, where fellow member artist Laurie Davis admires his paintings showcasing the AT. “Mike works plein air using his pastels to capture the magnificent AT,” she says. “His skies are stellar and so realistic you could walk right into his paintings.”

The trail holds a special place in his heart. “My career as an artist began the day I picked up a No. 2 pencil after the car accident,” Mike says. “But the real journey began the moment I set foot on the AT. I needed to step outside to discover what was within. Through my hike, I learned that art is not just a product of creativity: it is an expression of experiences. When I paint, I’m not merely capturing the beauty of what I see: I’m also capturing the emotions behind the subject. To the viewer, this invokes a personal connection, so I encourage them to find their paths of inspiration to follow and embark on their own self-fulfilling journey.”

Learn more at MikeWurmanFineArt.com, and follow on Facebook (Mike Wurman) and Instagram (asketchandaprayer). Find Wurman’s work at Number 7 Arts, 2 West Main Street, Brevard.