Join Open AIR every Thursday at the Philipsburg Public Library this Summer!

Explore watercolor, soft pastels, poetry, interactive art and more! Featuring Open AIR alum Amanda Bielby and Taylor Stein.

Audience: These workshops are suitable for ages 6+.

What to bring: Everything you need will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated!

 Plein Air along the Clark Fork Watershed - Amanda Bielby Workshop Series 

Five guided sessions with artist Amanda Bielby

When: Every other Thursday from June 26th - August 21st, 2025 

• Session One: June 26th - Enhance Your Soft Pastel with Watercolors

• Session Two: July 10th- Find Your Color Palette With Grey Scale 

• Session Three: July 24th- Loose Watercolor Landscapes 

• Session Four: August 7th- Nature's Molecular Abstract Patterns in Watercolor

• Session Five: August 21st- Speed-Scapes

Session Time: 9am - 12pm 

Place: Varying locations along the Clark Fork Watershed- each destination will be approved by MT FWP. All locations will be sent out via google maps leading up to the workshop.

Audience: This workshop is suitable for individuals 18+.

What to bring: Camp chair, water bottle, sunscreen, all workshop materials will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated! All participants will need a MT FWP issued conservation License. 

https://form.jotform.com/251315585689166

Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

Open, Open, Open!
Missoula Symphony
200 N Higgins Ave
5-8pm

It’s First Friday, and the Missoula Symphony is hosting Open AIR’s exhibit Open, Open, Open! Join us downtown between 5–8pm!

Enjoy live music, great company, and a sneak peek at our upcoming annual fundraiser—a one-of-a-kind, artist-designed Mini Golf course! Our participating artists are currently building their imaginative mini-golf obstacles in preparation for the big event on September 21. Come check out their sketches, explore the history of golf at Fort Missoula, and play a little putt-putt while you're at it!

Big thanks to Missoula Mini-Golf for their support and to the Missoula Symphony for hosting us.
See you downtown!

Open, Open, Open! Artists:

Casey Schachner, “Shrimping Ain’t Easy” (*featured above)

Mo Burki, “Empty Nesting”

Kelly Kling, “Zenith”

Zola Kell, Kaitlynn Webster, Alyssa Kennamer, Yve Holtzclaw, Sarah Cook, & Taylor Stein, “Jurassic Putt”

Lauren Norby & Caitlin Hofmeister, “The Three Billy Goats Grolff”

Abby Meyer, Rachel Hutchins, Ken Rand, Alyssa Kennamer, “Vultures' Just Desert”

Taylor Stein, KRad, Jules Lucero, “PeliCAN not PeliCAN’T!”

Gilmore McLean, KRad, “How it Feels to Love in 2025”

Shanley Swanson, Kim Brown-Campbell, “Mini Mental Health”

Amanda Krolczyk, “Beaver Hole”

Kimberly Spence & Family, “The Best Nest”

Jennifer & Matt Ogden, "Be Nice 2 Mice"

Free kids workshop ages 6+

More info coming soon!

MINE: Excavating Ecologies
Closing Reception and Panel Discussion
Monday, July 28 6-7:30 pm
co-presented by Open AIIR and the Clark Fork Coalition
4th floor, Missoula Public Library

Join us for a closing reception of MINE: Excavating Ecologies. MINE is an exhibition inspired by the Upper Clark Fork Ecosystems featuring artists Eric Jensen, Lane Chapman, and Manette Bradford. 

We will celebrate with food, drinks, and a facilitated panel discussion with the artists and representatives from Clark Fork Coalition.

Artists, Jensen and Chapman completed their residencies in partnership with the Clark Fork Coalition, where they shared a studio space at the Cottonwood Field Station, allowing for close collaboration and creative exchange. Manette Bradford held her residency at the Hungry Hill Art Center in Butte, Montana, a location rich with the mining heritage that continues to shape the region’s identity. The Clark Fork Coalition’s impact reaches beyond restoration, employing a wide range of science-based strategies to tackle the complex challenges facing the Clark Fork Watershed. In this case, CFC collaborated with Open AIR in support of creative interpretations of those challenges, evidenced in the artworks featured in this exhibition.

The panel discussion will feature reflections on the artists' residency experiences and the role of art in engaging with environmental narratives.

Panelists

Manette Bradford, Artist
Lane Chapman, Artist
Stoney Samsoe, E.D. Open AIR
Brian Chaffin, E.D. Clark Fork Coalition

Open AIR is best known for its unique place-based Artist-in-Residence program that connects artists from all disciplines and origins, with culturally, historically, and ecologically significant locations through collaborative partnerships in Montana. With innovative opportunities available in places such as remote wilderness areas to historically significant sites closer to town, artists have the opportunity to draw inspiration from a regional community dedicated to preserving place, environment, and the arts.

The Clark Fork Coalition, founded in 1985, works to restore and protect the Clark Fork River and its tributaries. Montana’s largest river by volume and the headwaters of the mighty Columbia River, the Clark Fork River serves as a critical lifeline for communities, fish, and wildlife across the region. CFC aims to bring Western Montana’s rivers and streams back to health and protect them in perpetuity.

Join Open AIR every Thursday at the Philipsburg Public Library this Summer!

Explore watercolor, soft pastels, poetry, interactive art and more! Featuring Open AIR alum Amanda Bielby and Taylor Stein.

Audience: These workshops are suitable for ages 6+.

What to bring: Everything you need will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated!

 Plein Air along the Clark Fork Watershed - Amanda Bielby Workshop Series 

Five guided sessions with artist Amanda Bielby

Register Here: https://form.jotform.com/251315585689166

When: Every other Thursday from June 26th - August 21st, 2025 

• Session One: June 26th - Enhance Your Soft Pastel with Watercolors

• Session Two: July 10th- Find Your Color Palette With Grey Scale 

• Session Three: July 24th- Loose Watercolor Landscapes 

• Session Four: August 7th- Nature's Molecular Abstract Patterns in Watercolor

• Session Five: August 21st- Speed-Scapes

Session Time: 9am - 12pm 

Place: Varying locations along the Clark Fork Watershed- each destination will be approved by MT FWP. All locations will be sent out via google maps leading up to the workshop.

Audience: This workshop is suitable for individuals 18+.

What to bring: Camp chair, water bottle, sunscreen, all workshop materials will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated! All participants will need a MT FWP issued conservation License. 

Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

Join us on Wednesday, July 23rd, at the Lolo Brewery & Grill for an artist presentation with Open AIR's Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Artist-in-Residence Kelsey Dzintars. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if you'll be joining us with the optional registration form linked here.
https://form.jotform.com/251314891218153

Kelsey Dzintars is a versatile fine artist, tattooist, muralist, and illustrator rooted in Bozeman, Montana. Growing up pursuing art and music in Rapid City, South Dakota, she followed her creative passion to Montana State University, earning a BFA in Graphic Design in 2009. Dzintars’ acrylic paintings draw from her personal experiences in the wilderness, weaving together expressive landscapes and surreal portrayals of nature’s divine feminine essence. Her work often merges with the mission of outdoor-centered brands and nonprofits, aiming to nurture and protect both the wilderness within us and the wild places beyond. She also spent time as a guide on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, which deeply influenced both the visual and symbolic narratives of water in her work. When not creating in her studio at the Emerson Center in Bozeman you'll find her snowboarding, on the river (probably in costume), or engaged in a deeply philosophical—yet entirely pointless—Seinfeld-esque debate with her partner, Aaron, and their mischievous mutts, Neko and Ripley.

Join Open AIR every Thursday at the Philipsburg Public Library this Summer!

Explore watercolor, soft pastels, poetry, interactive art and more! Featuring Open AIR alum Amanda Bielby and Taylor Stein.

Audience: These workshops are suitable for ages 6+.

What to bring: Everything you need will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated!

Join us on Thursday, July 17th, at Home Resource for an artist presentations with Open AIR's Home Resource Artist-in-Residence Molly Burki. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if you'll be joining us with the optional registration form linked here.
https://form.jotform.com/251314891218153

Molly Burki is an artist, educator, baker, and friend who is passionate about creating uplifting environments through community building and intentional and accessible resources. They are a weaver of many forms, primarily floor loom and basket weaving, and are committed to spreading awareness of accessible death care options and how weaving can guide us during those transitions. They are inspired by patterns, cycles, and the natural world's ease of flowing through them. Through playful exploration and devoted connection, they have hope we can, too.

Join us on Tuesday, July 15th, at the G.W. Marks Exploration Center in the Balsomroot room for two artist presentations with Open AIR's Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium Artist-in-Residence Eleanor Qull and Rocky Mountain Gardens Artist-in-Residence Deborah Dohne. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if you'll be joining us with the optional registration form linked here.
https://form.jotform.com/250627326609156

Eleanor Qull - [Alias Eleanor Tullock, Delano Roosevelt] is a maker, sound artist, and Australian exile based in California and the western states.
After graduating with a Master of Architecture in Design, Eleanor has put formal design training under scrutiny and intense stretching  - to experiment with free-form creative practice in experimental audio, sculpture, writing and theoretical inventions. This has included large scale projects such as ‘Flog’ (an architecture magazine), the Graham Foundation supported ‘Never Discuss Politics at Home’ (an attempt to make architecture TV) and a daily practice of making objects both small (dueling gloves, horns, instruments) and large (a 40 ft X 28 ft hand painted kabuki drop curtain, ‘The Mountain’ for a performance in the Festival of New Works, Red Cat Theatre 2021).
She moved to the Western states to explore the complex intersections between the landscape, the built world, ecology, and diverse, and sometimes secret, communities.

Deborah Dohne -  is a visual artist and environmental advocate with an art practice rooted in sustainability. Her artwork is a reflection on the meaning of place, its histories, truths and interconnected human and ecological communities. She works with fibers, mixed media, beach plastic, wood, and other biodegradable materials. Deborah also engages place through participation in public science research projects.MFA, Ohio State University. Recognitions: Greening USA Community Advocacy Sustainability Award, Levine Award for NYS Ornithological Association illustrated journal article. New York State Council on the Arts Grant, Artist Trust Grant, Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship.

Join Open AIR every Thursday at the Philipsburg Public Library this Summer!

Explore watercolor, soft pastels, poetry, interactive art and more! Featuring Open AIR alum Amanda Bielby and Taylor Stein.

Audience: These workshops are suitable for ages 6+.

What to bring: Everything you need will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated!

 Plein Air along the Clark Fork Watershed - Amanda Bielby Workshop Series 

Five guided sessions with artist Amanda Bielby

When: Every other Thursday from June 26th - August 21st, 2025 

• Session One: June 26th - Enhance Your Soft Pastel with Watercolors

• Session Two: July 10th- Find Your Color Palette With Grey Scale 

• Session Three: July 24th- Loose Watercolor Landscapes 

• Session Four: August 7th- Nature's Molecular Abstract Patterns in Watercolor

• Session Five: August 21st- Speed-Scapes

Session Time: 9am - 12pm 

Place: Varying locations along the Clark Fork Watershed- each destination will be approved by MT FWP. All locations will be sent out via google maps leading up to the workshop.

Audience: This workshop is suitable for individuals 18+.

What to bring: Camp chair, water bottle, sunscreen, all workshop materials will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated! All participants will need a MT FWP issued conservation License. 

https://form.jotform.com/251315585689166

Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

Join us on Wednesday, July 9th, at the Moon Randolph Homestead for an artist presentations with Open AIR's Moon Randolph Homestead Artist-in-Residence Anne Yoncha. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if you'll be joining us with the optional registration form linked here.
https://form.jotform.com/250627326609156

Anne Yoncha - Anne Yoncha (US) is currently Assistant Professor of Art + Painting Area Coordinator at Metropolitan State University Denver. She was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. After earning her MFA at the University of Montana in 2019, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, working with restorationists to make collaborative art-science work about former peat extraction sites outside Oulu. Her practice combines digital sensing technology, such as bio-data sonification, and analog, traditional processes, including painting with ink she makes from locally-sourced plant matter. Her ongoing research with the HAB (High Altitude Bioprospecting) working group began in Fall 2019 at Field_Notes, a residency of Finland’s Bio Art Society at Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in subarctic Lapland, where she worked with artists, biologists, and programmers to detect high-altitude microbes using a heli-kite. Outside the studio she can often be found doing another kind of environmental “research” via bicycle.

Join us on Tuesday, July 1, at Garden City Harvest (GCH) for an artist presentation with Open AIR's GCH Artist-in-Residence Nikki Culley. Snacks will be provided. Let us know if you'll be joining us with the optional registration form linked here.
https://form.jotform.com/251314891218153 

Nikki is a documentary photographer from Manchester UK who shares stories of people, place and community. Nikki first learned manual photography on an art foundation course at Sunderland University in 2004 but pursued a first career as a journalist in London.
In 2015, Nikki returned to visual storytelling, studying a masters degree in History of Art Photography at Manchester University and building a darkroom in her home.
Currently, Nikki is working on long-term projects with; women working the land and at sea in remote areas of Iceland; and, with male fighters in mixed martial arts communities in UK cities. She has had on-location assignments across the UK, in Tanzania, India and Iceland, with photographs published in a raft of magazines, for the BBC and shown at exhibitions for various galleries and festivals.

Free workshop for kids ages 6+

More info coming soon!

 Plein Air along the Clark Fork Watershed - Amanda Bielby Workshop Series 

Five guided sessions with artist Amanda Bielby

When: Every other Thursday from June 26th - August 21st, 2025 

• Session One: June 26th - Enhance Your Soft Pastel with Watercolors

• Session Two: July 10th- Find Your Color Palette With Grey Scale 

• Session Three: July 24th- Loose Watercolor Landscapes 

• Session Four: August 7th- Nature's Molecular Abstract Patterns in Watercolor

• Session Five: August 21st- Speed-Scapes

Session Time: 9am - 12pm 

Place: Varying locations along the Clark Fork Watershed- each destination will be approved by MT FWP. All locations will be sent out via google maps leading up to the workshop.

Audience: This workshop is suitable for individuals 18+.

What to bring: Camp chair, water bottle, sunscreen, all workshop materials will be provided!

Cost: The workshop is free, but a suggested donation is appreciated! All participants will need a MT FWP issued conservation License. 

Register Here: https://form.jotform.com/251315585689166

Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

| Improvisations With The Trees: Drawing, movement, sound, and taste explorations in collaboration with Moonrandolph Homestead Orchard |


More about the workshop:
Join artist Anne Yoncha for 12 immersive experiences combining drawing, movement, sound, and taste in the Moon Randolph Homestead Apple Orchard. Through these experimental exercises, you'll explore deep listening and use elements like sound, shadows, and wind to inspire your drawings among the trees.

About the artist: 
Anne Yoncha (US) is currently Assistant Professor of Art + Painting Area Coordinator at Metropolitan State University Denver. She was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. After earning her MFA at the University of Montana in 2019, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, working with restorationists to make collaborative art-science work about former peat extraction sites outside Oulu. Her practice combines digital sensing technology, such as bio-data sonification, and analog, traditional processes including painting with ink she makes from locally-sourced plant matter. Her ongoing research with the HAB (High Altitude Bioprospecting) working group began in Fall 2019 at Field_Notes, a residency of Finland’s Bio Art Society at Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in subarctic Lapland, where she worked with artists, biologists, and programmers to detect high-altitude microbes using a heli-kite. Outside the studio she can often be found doing another kind of environmental “research” via bicycle.


Register Now: https://form.jotform.com/251314933108148 Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

FRAGMENTS FIND FORM: Glimpses, Story, & Creative Play with Taylor Stein
Thursday, June 19
6:00 - 7:30p
Philipsburg Public Library
Philipsburg, MT
18+
Free

Register: https://form.jotform.com/251605864385161

Free kids workshop ages 6+

More info coming soon!

| FLY: a kite-making workshop to explore the shapes and sounds of insect futures |

About the workshop: 

Learn to make a singing kite and maybe communicate with local insects and butterflies.

Findings about insect wing patterning, flight, and behavior can suggest new approaches on how we cohabitate with insects and can apply to a creative kite making process – experimenting with pattern, shapes, movement and sound.

This workshop is an open discussion through direct insect observation, conversation, and three-dimensional hands-on kite making, on xenobiotic and environmental changes that are affecting and changing insect behaviours and biology, and how we can respond to those changes.

About the Artist:  

Eleanor Qull [Alias Eleanor Tullock, Delano Roosevelt]

Maker, sound artist, and Australian exile based in California and the western states.

After graduating with a Master of Architecture in Design, Eleanor has put formal design training under scrutiny and intense stretching - to experiment with free-form creative practice in experimental audio, sculpture, writing and theoretical inventions. This has included large scale projects such as ‘Flog’ (an architecture magazine), the Graham Foundation supported ‘Never Discuss Politics at Home’ (an attempt to make architecture TV) and a daily practice of making objects both small (dueling gloves, horns, instruments) and large (a 40 ft X 28 ft hand painted kabuki drop curtain, ‘The Mountain’ for a performance in the Festival of New Works, Red Cat Theatre 2021).

She moved to the Western states to explore the complex intersections between the landscape, the built world, ecology, and diverse, and sometimes secret, communities.

Register Now: https://form.jotform.com/251475301226146
Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

| CYANOTYPE HAND PRINTING at GARDEN CITY HARVEST |

About the workshop: 

Come and join documentary photographer and artist Nikki Culley at Garden City Harvest this summer to learn the cyanotype process and make your own photographic prints. We will have a wander across the garden to collect plants and flowers that are most interesting to us and use the natural sunlight to make individual and group prussian blue holographic prints together. All materials will be provided and you can take your prints home or leave them behind to be included in an exhibition that will share the story of the garden’s community in photographs.

About the Artist:  

Nikki is a documentary photographer from Manchester UK who shares stories of people, place and community. Nikki first learned manual photography on an art foundation course at Sunderland University in 2004 but pursued a first career as a journalist in London.
In 2015, Nikki returned to visual storytelling, studying a masters degree in History of Art Photography at Manchester University and building a darkroom in her home.
Currently, Nikki is working on long-term projects with; women working the land and at sea in remote areas of Iceland; and, with male fighters in mixed martial arts communities in UK cities.
She has had on-location assignments across the UK, in Tanzania, India and Iceland, with photographs published in a raft of magazines, for the BBC and shown at exhibitions for various galleries and festivals.

Register Here! https://form.jotform.com/251315634095152

 Questions? Email program@openairmt.org

Open AIR invites artists, designers, tinkerers, and builders to design and construct one-of-a-kind mini-golf holes for our inaugural Open AIR Open, a wildly imaginative fundraiser where art meets play.

Using the base forms from MiniGolf Company, each selected artist or artist team will create an interactive, artist-designed mini-golf hole that celebrates creativity, community, and joyful engagement. This is your chance to bring your wildest ideas to life—whimsical obstacles, unexpected materials, or kinetic features are all welcome!

Application Form - Register today! 

FAQ

Timeline: 
● Call Opens: May 15 
● Applications Due: June 17 
● Notification of Selection: By July 1 
● Installation + Artist Pizza Party & Test Round: September 20
● Event Date: Saturday, September 21st from 10a-8p at Fort Missoula Iris Gardens

MINE: Excavating Ecologies
June 13-July 28
4th floor
Missoula Public Library

MINE: Excavating Ecologies, showcases both new and existing work by Montana-based artists Eric Jensen, Lane Chapman, and Manette Bradford, all participants in Open AIR’s 2024 Artist-in-Residence program.

Jensen and Chapman completed their residencies in partnership with the Clark Fork Coalition, where they shared a studio space at the Cottonwood Field Station, allowing for close collaboration and creative exchange. Bradford held her residency at the Hungry Hill Art Center in Butte, Montana, a location rich with the mining heritage that continues to shape the region’s identity.

The exhibition, titled MINE, explores themes of place, extraction, ecology, and personal connection to the land. It will be on the fourth floor of the Missoula Public Library through July 28, 2025. The exhibition will conclude with a closing reception and panel discussion, featuring the artists and representatives from the Clark Fork Coalition, reflecting on their experiences and the role of art in engaging environmental narratives.

If you are in Helena, MT - join us for a screening of Scarabic Serenades, a film about beetle courtship and the folks it inspires.

Get your tickets now for Scarabic Serenades: A Documentary!
Click here for tickets.

The film will screen on Thursday, May 29, at The Myrna Loy
7:00 pm
followed by a Q&A

Watch the movie trailer HERE!


Screening - begins at 7:00 
$12
All ages
Screening includes a brief introduction and a Q&A with filmmakers after the film.
 
Scarabic Serenades chronicles two artists’ collaboration inspired by the mating songs and dances of the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle. Part documentary, part art film, this film braids together researchers from the Emlen Biology Lab at the University of Montana, music by composer Jessi Harvey, and dance by choreographer Julynn Wildman into a story as captivating as the beetle itself.

With their oversized, pitchforked horns and an enigmatic mating ritual that includes both battle and a courtship song/dance, the Japanese Rhino Beetle captures hearts and  imaginations alike. 

Scarabic Serenades is a tongue-in-cheek film featuring over 20 Montana artists and researchers exploring the quirks of and questions about these charismatic critters.

A brief artist Q&A will follow the premiere screening.

This project is made possible in part by The University of Montana Emlen Evolutionary Biology Lab, Open AIR, The University of Montana School of Music and Dance, the National Science Foundation and the Prop Foundation, the Awesome Foundation, and the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium.