Bozeman, Mont. \u2014 Plein Air Montana is entering its final days at the Bozeman Art Museum, wrapping up a summer exhibition featuring hundreds of works created across southwest Montana by artists from around the country.<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven artists traveled to the area in July and were given one week to create their work. The resulting exhibition includes roughly 240 pieces, many depicting recognizable locations in Bozeman, Paradise Valley, Yellowstone National Park and other parts of the region.<\/p>\n
Emlyn Harris, associate director of the Bozeman Art Museum, said every piece was created during that one-week period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe really special thing is that every single painting was made over the course of one week,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Plein air is French for \u201copen air,\u201d and the style requires artists to work outside and on location rather than relying on photographs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe artists are actually not allowed to use any photo references to accomplish all of these pieces,\u201d Harris said. \u201cSo they\u2019re actually standing outside, setting up their easels outside and completing it mostly on site.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artists could travel throughout the region as long as they could reach their destination and return within a day.<\/p>\n
That produced work featuring everything from landscapes and buildings to animals and people. Harris said painting subjects that move can be particularly difficult without a photograph to reference.<\/p>\n
Many of the locations may also look familiar to people who live in southwest Montana.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you come in to see the show, a lot of the paintings are actually from really recognizable places in town,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Several artists even painted \u201cMike,\u201d the Tyrannosaurus rex outside the Museum of the Rockies.<\/p>\n
Other works depict Bozeman\u2019s Main Street, Paradise Valley, Yellowstone and locations throughout the surrounding region.<\/p>\n
The exhibition has also become a significant marketplace for the artists involved.<\/p>\n
All roughly 240 pieces are available for purchase, and Harris said the show has generated approximately $50,000 in sales this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re probably around $50,000 in sales,\u201d Harris said. \u201cSo the artists get 60 percent of that. We get 40, which is really amazing. That\u2019s how the artists find their ability to build these skills and mastery in the arts and keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris said this year\u2019s sales are roughly where the museum was last year, despite what she described as a difficult period for the art market.<\/p>\n
She said artists have increasingly struggled to get their work in front of buyers and find people with enough disposable income to purchase fine art such as oil paintings.<\/p>\n
For Harris, that makes community support particularly important.<\/p>\n
She described Bozeman\u2019s art community as strong and passionate but said artists and organizations can sometimes exist in separate pockets around town.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of artists kind of hiding in the woods, making really incredible things, but a little bit on their own sometimes,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Harris is part of that community herself.<\/p>\n
In addition to serving as associate director of the Bozeman Art Museum, Harris is also a working artist in town and is involved with several local arts and nonprofit efforts.<\/p>\n
She said one of her recent projects involved creating a laboratory installation for a local fairy-village art project. She is also involved with Tinworks Art through its Rising Leader Board and said she occasionally participates in local art shows.<\/p>\n
Harris is expected to have work included in the museum\u2019s BAM Booster show at the Bozeman Public Library in December, which will feature artwork from community members available for purchase.<\/p>\n
She said one of the challenges for emerging artists is not necessarily that Bozeman lacks resources, but that those resources can be difficult to find.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of resources growing,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI think just not everyone knows how to find it or where to go to learn all these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also pointed to the cost of living in Bozeman as a challenge for working artists, although she said more affordable studio options have begun to emerge around town.<\/p>\n
While exhibitions may be the most visible part of the Bozeman Art Museum, Harris said roughly half of its programming is focused on education.<\/p>\n
The museum works with about 12 elementary schools and provides a six-week art education program at no cost to participating schools.<\/p>\n
The museum supplies the teachers, curriculum and materials.<\/p>\n
Harris said many of the schools served by the program are rural, although the program also works with schools closer to Bozeman.<\/p>\n
Lessons focus on developing specific artistic skills rather than simply providing one-time craft activities.<\/p>\n
One example Harris gave involves teaching students how to take a two-dimensional shape and visually transform it into a three-dimensional object using perspective, shadow and horizon lines.<\/p>\n
She said those lessons can have value far beyond preparing students to become artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it not only as building the next generation of artists and creatives, but also there\u2019s a lot of professional careers that require that type of thinking,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
She pointed to architecture and engineering as examples of professions where spatial reasoning and an understanding of how objects exist in space are important skills.<\/p>\n
Harris said there is limited public funding available for the type of skill-based elementary art instruction the museum provides.<\/p>\n
The museum\u2019s education program is funded almost entirely through grants and individual donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a really great community of art enthusiasts here that really care about getting art education back into our schools,\u201d Harris said. \u201cAnd thanks to them we\u2019re able to do it for free.\u201d<\/p>\n
The museum also offers classes and programming through organizations and locations including Eagle Mount and the Bozeman Public Library.<\/p>\n
The current Bozeman Art Museum operates from a relatively small location on West Main Street, where Harris said the organization has been located since around 2020.<\/p>\n
However, the organization has longer-term plans for a standalone permanent museum.<\/p>\n
Harris said there are still details she cannot publicly discuss, but the museum is currently looking at architects.<\/p>\n
She expects the organization to know more about that process within the next several months.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur next step is a capital campaign which we haven\u2019t fully announced yet, but it will be coming in the next few months,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
She said the eventual timeline for a new museum will depend largely on the success of that capital campaign and the support the organization can build within the community.<\/p>\n
Harris said she hopes the museum will be able to make a larger announcement within the next year, with more specific information potentially becoming available within three to five months as the capital campaign begins taking shape.<\/p>\n
One of her hopes for a permanent facility is that it could become a place where Bozeman\u2019s different artistic communities come together.<\/p>\n
Harris said she frequently sees individual artists and organizations build strong communities of their own but believes there is room for a more centralized space connecting those groups.<\/p>\n
She also sees the potential museum as another year-round community space, especially during Montana winters.<\/p>\n
Harris said families in Bozeman often need more indoor spaces where they can spend time when outdoor recreation is less accessible.<\/p>\n
She hopes art can help fill some of that need.<\/p>\n
The Bozeman Art Museum operates year-round and generally hosts four to five exhibitions annually, according to Harris.<\/p>\n
Most exhibits remain on display for around three months.<\/p>\n
The museum also holds several special events throughout the year, including a summer art fair and a miniature art auction scheduled for Nov. 6.<\/p>\n
Plein Air Montana will hold its closing reception Friday, Sept. 18, from 5 to 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Harris said the reception will include snacks and drinks while giving visitors another opportunity to see and purchase the artwork before it is returned to the artists.<\/p>\n
The exhibit\u2019s final day is Saturday, Sept. 19, with the museum open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019ll be the true last chance to see all the artwork and purchase anything from the show,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
The museum will then close temporarily while staff take down the exhibition, ship artwork back to the participating artists and prepare the next show.<\/p>\n
The next exhibition, \u201cFoundations of Vision,\u201d is scheduled to open Oct. 9.<\/p>\n
Harris said that exhibit will focus on architecture in Bozeman and include work connected to architect Fred Willson, whose designs include the Baxter Hotel, the Ellen Theatre and the Armory.<\/p>\n
The exhibit will also feature work from a Montana State University architecture class imagining what a future permanent Bozeman Art Museum could look like.<\/p>\n
A third component will feature artwork created by architects outside of their professional architectural work.<\/p>\n
For Harris, those programs are part of a larger opportunity for Bozeman to continue developing a cultural community alongside the outdoor recreation that already defines much of the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what I found most special about Bozeman is the passion that everyone has here in town,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWhether it be for the outdoors, skiing, snowboarding, conservation, anything at all. People are just very, very passionate about what they do. And I see that in the arts as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bozeman, Mont. \u2014 Plein Air Montana is entering its final days at the Bozeman Art Museum, wrapping up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-627048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}