Michael Blessing's story is as interesting and astounding as the work he does. "I enjoy portraits," he says, carefully laying the tip of his brush to the green carpet of grassy shadows. "It comes naturally. I look for the places between the lines. The blurring places, the mystery."

Blessing's portraits are more than what can come across with a photograph; they harbor a piece of that mystery as well. "It used to be mechanical," he says. "I was so focused on accuracy - but it's not as important anymore.

However, his portraits are very accurate. His ability to bring across, not only the physicality of the person, but the inner beauty is what makes his work stand out.

Chaparral Fine Arts co-owner Eleanor Roche represents Blessing in Bozeman. "I love the freshness and unstudied quality of his portraits. They're beautiful encapsulations of faces and personalities. He's creating likenesses, but it's deeper than that. He's distilling. And by reducing the composttion like that, he ends up communicating much more about a person, He's capturing their likeness on a deeper level, it's just not physical, it has an emotional component."

Which reflects Blessing's own personality, his musical and intuitive background.

He's a listener," Roche says. "He lives life on an emotional plane. He absorbs things. He's able to discover feeling and express it."

Roche appreciates Blessing's unusual path he's taken to the fine arts. "I believe so many of us have talents that are yet to be tapped, just by virtue of not being exposed to the entire range of possibilities," she said. "How wonderful for Michael that he has discovered this within himself. To have discovered this talent is such a lucky thing, And to have the vision to nurture it, study it and work it."

On the other hand a close friend and musical associate Ann Tappan felt the discovery was almost spiritual.

"I just don't see any other explanation - it's like an enlightenment," Tappan says. " I can remember very distinctly when he drew his first picture and I was doing some work at his studio and he said, 'Check this out' I was astonished. It was like watching a person's life stopping on a dime and taking on a different direction - and he was brilliant from the get go. That's what is really amazing."

It also speakes to Blessing's character that he felt so strongly about his undiscovered talent for drawing from life that he devoted himself to it entirely.

"It's another aspect of his vision," Roche days. "It takes courage and vision to say I'm good at this and I'm going to invest more of myself into it and see where the path leads."

For Tappan, it's all a mystery. "How did he get all this technique right from the moment he started - that's the thing. He's kind of an obsessive person. I've known him about 10 years and done a lot of music with him. And when he had his studio he'd work non-stop on a project and he's transferring that to his artwork."

The response his work gets is tremendous, from people who want a portrait of their own kids in his style," Roche says. "A lot of painters use photographs as jumping off points, but he crosses over. It's a rare talent. Sometimes when you see a painter who works from photographs you see the photographs, but with Michael's work it could have been from life."

Tappan watched Blessing's work mature and admires the leaps he's taken in so little time. "The work is more complete now," Tappan says. "Certainly his portraits have more detail, more expression, more background and movement. It's from looking inside his subjects."