Hours: Tuesday: 10 am- 5 pm ; Wednesday- Saturday, 10 am–4 pm

The Artist-Wilderness Connection

Artist-In-Residence Program

About

The goal of the Artist—Wilderness—Connection Residency is to connect artists with the public and our wild lands in Northwest Montana. In 2003, the Glacier Art Museum, Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, Flathead National Forest, and (formerly) Swan Valley Connections joined forces to create this unique residency. In 2024, the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest was added to the partnership. During the summer, selected artists hike into a remote backcountry cabin 5-15 miles from the trailhead in the Flathead National Forest or Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest for 5 and up to 16 days to create work in a beautiful, remote setting, which is then shared in a public presentation or workshop with the community. To date, 56 artists have participated in the program, which consists of three components: Artist Residency, Forest Experience, and Community Extension. Artists benefit from having a remote setting to focus on their art and the community benefits from the work and presentations created from the artists’ experiences.

Apply

Apply for the 2025 Artist Wilderness Connection Residency here -> using our google form. No cost to apply! For any questions regarding your application, please email info@glacierartmuseum.org or call (406)-755-5268. Deadline to submit an application is January 10, 2025. Thank you!

Note: no residencies took place in 2024 as we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Artist Wilderness Connection program with a museum exhibition, tours, programs and more! See below for info on our most recent 2023 program participants.

2025 Artists

Sydney Boveng is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in her hometown of Kalispell, Montana. Curiosity, a passion for trying new mediums, and a fierce love of nature are driving forces in her creative practice. She works outside and in studio, focusing on landscape, color relationships and detailed drawing. She is particularly excited by dark skies, glowing horizon lines, and the shapes at the tip-top of evergreen trees. Boveng makes work for her childhood self, the mountains, and anyone who could use a moment of joy. She also organizes local community art events. AWC will be her first official artist residency. During her shared time with Tarek Penser at Gates Park, Boveng hopes to gain a fresh perspective in her work and provide the community with an opportunity to view the intersection of art and wilderness in an approachable way.

Elena James based in Austin, Texas, and has been a professional touring musician for almost thirty years, primarily as the fiddle player and vocalist with her band the Hot Club of Cowtown. She also loves guiding, packing, wrangling, cooking and exploring the back country and wilderness of Montana on horse or muleback and was previously a packer apprentice with the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation in 2019. She has worked as a wrangler for outfitters in Montana, California, and Colorado over the years and enjoys opportunities to blend her passion for fiddle and traditional music with time in nature sharing music and community with people and animals. During her residency, James plans to record soundscapes of deep wilderness and compose songs inspired by and intertwined with the natural world—rivers, wind, birdsong, hoofbeats, bells, and whatever she may encounter.

Tarek Penser Tarek is a printmaker born and raised in Sweden and now based in Whitefish, Montana. He makes painted linocut prints inspired by nature. His prints are hand carved, hand pressed and hand painted in small batches. Tarek’s road to full-time artist was slightly unconventional– A childhood in Sweden, a decade working as a guide in Glacier National Park, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, combined with an endless curiosity for the natural world. “My subject matter is the great outdoors, but my process typically involves me taking a lot of photos while outside and then spending hours, by myself, in my studio carving blocks. I applied to this residency for the opportunity to challenge myself to bring my art practice outside and to work in collaboration with artist Sydney Boveng. I think this opportunity could have a great impact on how I work.”

Adi Rex is a potter and ecologist working in western Montana. Rex’s focus is creating ceramics and everyday pottery with the intention of representing a natural story of a specific moment in time and place. Rex’s work seeks to remind people of the beauty in nature surrounding and supporting us and its inherent worthiness of protection as the climate crisis worsens. Their art exists as a raw expression for the profound awe, love and respect for the natural world. Through a residency with the Artist Wilderness Connection, Adi Rex seeks to deepen roots in the Bob Marshall, a wilderness that has extensively shaped their life individually and artistically. During the course of the residency, Rex will create a collection of small ceramic tiles of experienced landscapes, seeking to be fully present and enmeshed within them. Following the residency, Rex plans to offer a community workshop discussing the intersection of local ecology, botany, and art.

2023 Past Artists

Bri Dostie is a multidisciplinary artist, and outdoor cultural strategist with studio practice spanning visual arts (drawing, watercolor, painting, illustration, digital) and writing. She is also a member of the newly founded Northwest Montana Feminist Birding Club. Her work follows lines of inquiry around identity, environmental influence, queerness, interconnected existence, and maps relational dynamics through observation and celebration of the natural world. Dostie’s visual expressions are reflective and detailed, often exploring narratives of relationship and reclamation. After her residency, she plans on creating coloring pages, identification guides, and sharing stories through visual and written responses through small group experiences.

Griffin Foster is a painter and muralist working as lead artist for a landscape architect in Bozeman. His background in hand drafting, analog rendering, and admiration of historic graphic techniques has shaped his style and view of the world. Foster spends his time trekking into the backcountry with his oil paints. Packing out wet panels reminds him of simpler times without the internet and smart phones. From small on-site sketch studies to large scale urban mural work, he is in constant pursuit of mastering diverse styles and media. During his residency, Foster plans on site analysis of his cabin location, inventory of existing drainages, native and invasive plants, sun angles, viewsheds, topography and observed wildlife create botanical illustrations of native vegetation as well as hand drafted maps that present these layers merged into hybrid drawings and paintings that evoke the feeling of being fully immersed in wilderness areas.

Check out this recent special TV news coverage of Artist—Wilderness—Connection Residency by KPAX news HERE!

2016 AWC Artists Richie Carter and Kenneth Yarus show how fun and productive ten days in the Great Bear Wilderness can be. https://youtu.be/gpcFkU8FxxA
2016 AWC Artist Marilyn Feather takes you on a tour of her wilderness experience. https://youtu.be/hpfKCu8nxJc
Check out: ‘Artist Wilderness Connection .Celebrates 20 Years’ exhibition and events at the Hockaday Museum of Art in 2024: https://glacierartmuseum.org/exhibition/artist-wilderness-connection-celebrating-twenty-years/?back=ago

Visit Us

Summer Hours:

Tuesday: 10 am- 5 pm; Wednesday through Saturday 10 am- 4 pm

302 2nd Avenue East – Kalispell, Montana 59901
Call Us: (406) 755-5268
Email Us: info@glacierartmuseum.org

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