MINE: Excavating Ecologies showcases work from Lane Chapman, Eric Jensen, and Manette Bradford. All three Montana-based artists were participants in Open AIR’s 2024 Artist-In-Residency program and spent five uninterrupted weeks creating and exploring their residency sites. Bradford was in residence at the Hungry Hill Art Center in Butte, Montana, while Jensen and Chapman were tucked away at Cottonwood Field Station.
All three artists, passionate about the natural world and ever-changing climate, found themselves making work inspired by landscapes, wildlife, and the effects of mining contamination on the flora and fauna around them. The exhibition features new and existing work that explores themes of place, extraction, ecology, and personal connection to the land.
Lane Chapman
OPEN AIR RESIDENCY: Clark Fork Coalition
While I was in the Upper Clark Fork River Valley I learned about the extensive history of mining contamination in the Anaconda region. This exposure deepened my understanding of the environmental impacts of the Upper Clark Fork River. In addition to these issues, I was thinking about the Victorian era and how they romanticized nature while actively destroying it. The Upper Clark Fork River valley is still contaminated to this day, I have seen it first hand. My work depicts these concepts as well as a way to process the ecological grief I felt and still feel.
Quality is Our Future
relief print on kozo, embroidery thread
2025
Scavengers
Stoneware, terra sigillata
2024
OPEN AIR RESIDENCY: Butte, Hungry Hill Art Center
This work is the result of a few influences, primarily my research during the residency of the massive, perpetual environmental impact of mining and smelting operations in Butte and Anaconda on fish and other wildlife in and around the Clark Fork River system. Another primary influence was the psychological impression that contemplating the monstrous scale of the Berkeley Pit made during our tour of the Berkeley Pit on the second day of orientation.
Manette Bradford
Our Lady
Ceramic, Acrylic, Wood
2024
Hydra 2
Ceramic, Arcrylic, Wood
2025
Eric Jensen
Slopes of Mt Powell
Oil on Panel
2024
The Way Within the Cottonwoods
Oil on Panel
2024
OPEN AIR RESIDENCY: Clark Fork Coalition
Being in residence at the Clark Fork Coalition’s Field Site gave us an uninterrupted opportunity to immerse ourselves in a new landscape. There was easy access to the Continental Divide Trail nearby, and we did a backpacking trip along the rim of the mountains that lined the eastern edge of our valley. We had sweeping views of the upper Clark Fork drainage framed by sage, wildflowers, and alpine conifers.
Oneness
Oil on Panel
2024
