Smooth bands of soft light, in the language of landscape, whisper calmly against the unembellished contrasts of a dark subtext. Richard Pence’s watercolors speak to the inevitability of nature, as well as to the medium itself, exploring the boundaries of color and form. With stark...
When Mark McKenna was in second grade, his teacher assigned the class to make scarecrows out of construction paper. McKenna remembers the teacher complimenting the roundness of his scarecrow’s head. “Looking back on that experience, it really made me feel good, and it kindled my...
Dana Boussard’s work balances the personal and political, as evidenced by her subject matter, which broaches topics of women’s issues and the environment through a deeply intimate lens; and her method of working, which ranges from solitary studio time to large public artworks installed in...
Western Art Week in Great Falls has become something of an artistic haven for Montanans. Each March, the town of 58,000 is converted into a miniature Santa Fe, New Mexico, with hotel rooms serving as open studios, prominent Western artists exhibiting work at the town’s...
Try this one on for size: One measure of an artist can be found in how well he or she teaches us to see, how well their particular vision informs our own. Van Gogh’s starry skies. Modigliani’s nudes. Hokusai’s wave. Just try to look at...
On any given day, Jackson Hole, Wyoming-based sisters Sara Dykema and Anna Haworth might meet up at a local trailhead for a hike, at the ski area for a few runs, at a lunch spot downtown, or at Dykema’s kitchen island for a chat. And...
The first sandhill crane I saw close up was mounted in the corner of an old hotel in Jackson, Wyoming, the top of its head and its back covered in dust, and the skin on its legs peeling off, as if some ornery, 40-pound housecat...
During the decades that he worked at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, legendary paleontologist Jack Horner consistently sought one sculptor more than any other when he needed a dinosaur. Not only was Matt Smith among the best practitioners of his trade in...
If Great Falls, Montana, had a ghost, it would be one of the city’s founders, Robert Vaughn. And if he roamed the floors today of the building that he envisioned in 1890, he would approve of the crisply painted and meticulously restored rooms of the...
Along the trail I think how risky the venture, the signs that say don’t go alone into bear country. I can see miles except in aspen. Walking uphill in sage I think of Yellow Woman, of the stranger who finds her and takes her into another life. It’s after that,...