All Montana traditional artists are invited to apply for the 72nd National Folk Festival, to be held in Butte July 9-10-11, to sell their work as part of the Montana Arts Market. The festival adheres to the following definition:

Traditional arts are those art forms that are learned as part of the cultural life of a group of people whose members share a common ethnic heritage, language, religion, occupation, or culturally united geographic region. Folk and traditional arts are shaped by the aesthetics and values of a shared culture and are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community through observation, conversation and practice.

More information and applications are available on the Festival web site. The Festival is also soliciting applications from Native American artists for a First People’s Marketplace. Deadline for receipt of applications is March 31.

The Bozeman Public Library Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of Collages, an exhibit of original work by Margaret Emerson, which will be displayed in the Library’s Atrium Gallery until February 28. A free, public reception will be held on Friday, January 8, at 5:30 at the gallery.

A long-time Bozeman resident, Margaret Emerson has been a weaver, spinner, dyer, painter, and basket maker. She began working in collage during a trip to Spain in 1988-1889. Living in a city apartment, without her art supplies and far from her beloved mountains, she used materials at hand, including fragments torn from glossy magazines, to create beautiful images. Since then, Emerson has created more than 100 collages inspired by her travels, and informed by her intimate knowledge, and love for the outdoors.

Ms. Emerson’s proceeds from this exhibit will be donated to the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, conserving southwest Montana’s heritage of open landscapes, and creating trails to connect people, communities and the land. For more information about the Library exhibit or the opening reception, please call Laura Prindiville at 582-2425.

This acorn-shaped bowl, in the Fine Arts Collection of Luther College, is an appropriate symbol of the foundational role played by Frances Senska in the development of modern art at (now) Montana State University and in Montana generally. Her long and eventful life ended on Christmas Day. An extended interview conducted in 2001 is available in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

The Montana Arts Council, a state agency, awarded Aunt Dofe’s Hall of Recent Memory a 2009 award for innovation in the arts. The award singled out Aunt Dofe’s approach to presenting art as a unique experience that the artist shares with the rest of us.

Aunt Dofe makes some assumptions in presenting work. There are a lot of rooms in the house we call ‘contemporary art’. And we often take a certain pride in “knowing what we like”. But, by dismissing work that falls short, we have sadly excluded one more person, one more experience from our lives. Maybe, with a little effort we could expand our community. That effort becomes much easier if we can think of it as taking a walk through the world with another person, the artist. One artist might be taken by a sunset, by a mountain valley, or by every hair on a bobcat; but others are just as taken by a leaf, the horizon, or by the way gray wax separates from white lines etched into it. Aunt Dofe has always tried to give such artists a place to present those experiences, but even more importantly she has tried to give us a place to experience along with them.

Aunt Dofe is acknowledging the Montana Arts Council award by beginning the new decade with a special show. Rather than emphasizing one artist or a medium; the show presents work by 20 artists. “It’s meant to be more like fireworks than an art show,” says curator Dave Kirk. “Unrelated images are crammed together. Each one has its own glow or report. Some days one will hit you harder than another. The next time through that one will seem quiet, and another will sing out. I hope that experiencing this show will be a lot like experiencing the world the way an artist does.”

The show is up now and will be constantly changing until early March. Call Aunt Dofe’s at 285-6996 to get directions or arrange an appointment.

During the month of January the local artists of the Artists’ Gallery will be displaying small pieces inspired by this snowy season. Since winter lasts at least half the year here in Bozeman, it is sure to bring about some creative imagery. Though some people can find things to dislike about this season, this show will prove there is so much more to love.

Join us for an artists’ reception January 8, 2009 from 5:00-8:00pm at the Artists’ Gallery in the Emerson Center, 111 S. Grand.

Show runs January 4th – January 25th, 2009.

Josh DeWeese and Rosalie Wynkoop will hold their 2nd annual Holiday Pottery Sale at their studio/home south of Four Corners, just past Bozeman Hot Springs (turn right on Lower Rainbow Rd., then right on Magenta Rd. to 2513 Magenta). The studio is open Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 12 and 13, from 10:00 – 5:00. Call for information at 586-9800.

The Artists’ Gallery at the Emerson invites the public to a reception for featured artists Sarah Angst, Mary Jane Corrigan, and George Dunbar, to be held on Friday, December 11 from 5 to 8 PM. Their show will be on display from November 30 through December 26.

Printmaker Sarah Angst will be featuring a selection of her new, never seen before, hand painted linocuts.

Mary Jane Corrigan will be showing a selection of 2009 paintings, with a focus on simple kitchen still-lifes in water soluble oil on linen.

Local potter George Dunbar has fired two kilns for his show of beautifully thrown vessels, sinks, dinner ware and functional hand thrown pieces, with colors as varied as a Montana skyline.

Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate is a visual arts exhibition encouraging a re-examination of international social justice. The exhibit features works by forty artists from across the United States reflecting upon and transforming volumes of white supremacist propaganda into thought-provoking, relevant works of art.

The impetus for the Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate exhibit came from the Montana Human Rights Network that acquired a large quantity of white supremacist books from a defector. The books were used as a catalyst for change through collaboration with curators at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Montana. The Holter Museum issued a national call to artists to participate in the exhibition to create art from the hate books and turn them to constructive, positive use.

These artworks will be on display at the Emerson’s Jessie Wilber Gallery (see earlier post) from October 15 – December 15 and the Helen Copeland Gallery at Montana State University from November 23 – December 18. There is a reception at the Helen Copeland Gallery on Thursday, December 3, 7-9pm.

Contemporary native artist DG House celebrates the season with her 15th annual Holiday Print Sales on two Saturdays, December 12 and December 19, 2009, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This festive tradition takes place at House’s Big Medicine Art Studio near Four Corners west of Bozeman. DG House’s studio is open to the public for the events and everyone is welcome to view the prints and visit with the artist.

There are 80 different limited edition prints, signed and numbered, featuring the wildlife and native peoples of the Rocky Mountain West. Also, for the first time, House will offer very limited edition block prints. These linoleum prints will be premiered at the Heard Museum’s Indian Market in Phoenix, AZ, March 2010.

House is artist in residence in Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. She was recently named to the Board of Directors of the Native American Residency Program for the Montana Artist’s Refuge, Basin, MT, and was honored to become an associate member of the Woman Artists of the West (WAOW.)

The Big Medicine Art Studio is located in Four Corners, west of the 191 interchange at 97 Shepherd Trail, #10. Drive west through the intersection and watch for signs. For more information call the studio at 406.595.0113 or email dg_house@hotmail.com.

ASMSU Campus Entertainment presents OST.ONE, a collection of oil paintings by Liz Compos. The exhibit will be showing in the Exit Gallery November 30 – December 11. There will be a free public artist reception Wednesday, December 9th from 5 – 7 pm.

Liz Compos is currently a student at Montana State University, working towards graduating with a BFA in painting. Last May she returned from a semester of studying in Italy, and also worked on her Bachelors degree at The Art Institute of Boston in Boston, Massachusetts.

The works shown in the exhibit are oil paint and mixed media on canvas.  They are part of a larger body of work that is still in progress. Through her work, Liz responds to the struggle between mankind and the manufactured object to create paintings that reflect the state of human culture and the age of technology.  According to Compos, in this day and age people are no more important than their increasingly complex inventions. She demonstrates the battle between the human organic state and the surroundings we have fabricated for ourselves with an intricate layering process of structurally correct charcoal drawings, sculptural, fleshy masses of oil paint inspired by the human form, fields of flat artificial color, and a geometric breakdown of the space.

The Exit Gallery is located in Strand Union Building room 212, Montana State University, Bozeman. Hours are Monday – Friday, 9 am – 5 pm.