Anna Paige

Dr. Melissa Ragain is an Associate Professor at Montana State University, where she teaches courses on modern and contemporary art history, specializing in environmental aesthetics and the intellectual history of art.Based in Livingston, Montana, her latest new research considers the importance of environmental emplacement to artmaking in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.

The Paul Harris and Marguerite Kirk Gallery is located in Belgrade, Montana, and is open by appointment and on the evening of opening art exhibitions. The gallery and storage facility houses over 500 pieces of Paul Harris’ art after they were transported from Bolinas, California. Paul Harris and wife Marguerite adored Montana, and Paul spent the last years of his life here before passing in 2018.

Ellen Ornitz has been a practicing ceramic and mixed media artist for nearly fifty years in the Gallatin Valley. She earned a B.A. in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Masters in Secondary Art Education from the University of Indiana, Bloomington.

In February 2024, the board of directors at Tinworks Art appointed Jenny Moore as the gallery’s founding director.The board selected Moore after a national search for a director. Previously, Moore was a curator at the New Museum and at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York City. From 2013-2022 she was director at the contemporary Chinati Foundation Art Museum in Marfa, Texas, where she led the museum through a period of significant growth.

Douglas W. Smith, the well-known wolf biologist from Yellowstone National Park, has taken on a new and slightly smaller and less dangerous species for his most recent book. Yellowstone’s Birds: Diversity and Abundance in the World’s First National Park is a beautifully illustrated survey of Yellowstone’s breathtaking bird life, edited by Smith and written by a team of renowned ornithologists and wildlife biologists.

Bending Towards the Light . . . A Jazz Nativity has its Bozeman premiere on November 30th and December 3rd. The plot is a traditional Christmas story told through the medium of jazz. The show has been performed in New York City and other cities in the US since 1995 and has a lengthy history going back to 1985, with a parade of jazz greats having played the parts of shepherds, angels, and kings.

Michele Corriel is the author of Montana Modernists: Shifting Perceptions of Western Art, focused on the modernist art movement in Montana and six artists who came to define the art landscape for generations to come.

Jim Dolan, a metal sculptor based in Belgrade, Montana, has spent more than 50 years creating large-scale art. Jim’s art is found around the world, from his 39 steel Bleu Horses in Montana to his 36-foot wingspan Golden Eagle in Osaka, Japan.

Megan Karls, based in Great Falls, is a professional violinist and the co-concertmaster of the Great Falls Symphony and the Cascade Quartet. She is the first woman in classical music in Montana to be awarded the Montana Arts Council’s Artist Innovation Award for her video album entitled “Decommissioned: Solo Violin in Cold War Relics,” filmed live in military structures across Montana. In 2022, she debuted her video album of place-based compositions performed in the state's historic mission churches, and she is focused on increasing awareness of Montana composers.Grammy and Emmy nominated composer Philip Aaberg of Helena, Montana, is known worldwide for his compositions that evoke the spaciousness and beauty of the Western landscape. By translating Montana’s farms, ranches, and native cultures into musical concepts, he’s forged a unique keyboard style that paints an audible portrait of his home state.

Brad Orsted’s story is a classic American tale of healing and redemption. Emotionally wounded by the loss of a child, he is driven to near madness accompanied by drugs and alcohol. Fortunately, encounters with the wild help him not only recover, but lead him to a new profession as an author and wildlife filmmaker.