Joe Baltich, Jr. found a woodburning pen that his dad wasn't using when he was a kid at Jasper Lake Resort. He started drawing and burning images into wood and selling them at the resort. One day, a lodge guest who owned a private art school in Mountain Home, Arkansas saw the burnings and suggested to Joe that he try painting on Lake Superior beach rocks and the like. She told him the basic paint and brushes and painted him a rock with a deer on it for an idea of what to do. He painted in high school, through college, and took a long break from it. In Summer 2015, he painted two fund-raiser Adirondack chair for the Incredible Ely organization and headed back into the world of art.

I formed a new Art Program called Into The Brush, Inc. is a 501 (c3) non-profit organization whose goal is to provide art educational programming in a wilderness setting, particularly that of Ely, Minnesota.

It's founder and president is Joe Baltich, Jr., wilderness fishing guide (ret.), resort owner/operator, outfitter and lifetime resident of Ely, Minnesota.

Art education has always been a major ambition of Joe, because he has always believed in the life enhancing qualities unique to painting that can be achieved by everyone. Into The Brush is the culmination of Joe's desire to enhance and enrich society by introducing more people to wilderness through art education. A self-taught, accomplished artist of many years, Joe brings a lifelong exposure in all things Minnesota wilderness and offers the new artist a gentle but challenging perspective in learning a skill and enhancing a talent that can be applied with confidence for a lifetime.