Permanent Collection

WANXIN ZHANG was born in ChangChun, China, and spent his formative years in the 1960’s and 70’s under Mao’s regime. He was part of the first generation to receive a formal art education in college after to the Cultural Revolution in 1976. In 1985 he graduated from the prestigious LuXun Academy of Fine Art with a degree from their sculpture program.

The West has a storytelling history, and everyone has a story. This is artist Theodore Waddell’s—an illustrated mosey through the landscape, livestock, and colorful characters that made up his life as a cattleman in a remote part of Central Montana. The essays that compose this memoir have much in common with his art. They are frank, evocative sketches that deftly combine the abstract and the literal to effectively communicate the persistent struggle and beauty of ranch life.

Each essay is accompanied by a painting and line drawings. Though these illustrations share DNA with the super-sized abstract impressionist paintings for which Waddell is known, they are more narrative in nature. The words and pictures found in Cheatgrass Dreams are an authentic distillation of life in the West’s rural and remote corners: unflinchingly heartfelt,  surprisingly wry and brutally honest.

Bold, often-colorful shapes spill across the canvas of Sheila Miles’s work, telling stories from her life. And even though her style has evolved since she moved to Montana in 1980, the essence of the art – its imagery based on metaphor and mood – remain at its core. Miles said she expects her paintings to take her to a new place. Like a runner waiting for the endorphins to kick in, Miles paints in the moment, offering every ounce of her being to her work, eager to see where it takes her.

Rudy Autio is one of the most masterful and influential artists working with clay in the United States today.

During the past thirty-eight years, my ceramic sculptures and sculptural teapots have explored the complex environmental, political and economic impacts of contemporary human civilization upon the ecological and spiritual condition of our planet, and the quality of life of individual human beings. I present these concerns — about which I am passionate (some might say obsessive) — by visually manipulating and juxtaposing various objects, images and symbols to create narrative sculptural works which stimulate the viewer to examine their own innermost feelings.

Peter Voulkos was an American sculptor of Greek heritage. His large clay sculptures, often took the form of ice buckets, plates, and stacks, which he then cast in bronze. A participant in the resurgence of American studio crafts, he helped change the viewpoint that ceramics were merely utilitarian objects.

Paul Harris studied with Johannes Molzahn at the New School for Social Research, New York City and with Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  His work has been exhibited in the New York Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum and in various museums in Europe and South America.  He was a Fulbright professor in Chile, a MacDowell Colony resident, a Guggenheim recipient and a visiting artist at the Rinehardt School of Sculpture, Baltimore. He taught at New York University, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Art Institute prior to becoming a faculty member at California College of Art 1968, where he taught until 1992. His home and studio were in Bolinas, California. Paul Harris died in Bozeman, Montana, in 2018.

A native and lifelong resident of Montana, Monte Dolack grew up surrounded by the same sweeping vistas and big sky as artist Charlie Russell. Monte’s love for the diverse landscapes and wildlife of the west are evident in the images he creates and the commissions he undertakes.

Her many vinyl and plastic pieces are evidence of how her early influences advanced to a mature organization of color and form.  These works absorb the viewer in a playful and imaginative aura that creates a feeling of joy.  And that is what her work really is about – sharing and joy these works illustrate using the power of color, material and form to give viewers great pleasure.

Josh DeWeese is a ceramic artist and educator. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art teaching ceramics at Montana State University in Bozeman, where he and his wife Rosalie Wynkoop have a home and studio. DeWeese served as Resident Director of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana from 1992-2006.  He holds an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred, and a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute.  DeWeese has exhibited and taught workshops internationally and his work is included in numerous public and private collections.