2025 AWC application now open!
A partnership between the Flathead National Forest, Hockaday Museum of Art and Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation.
Each summer this program places artists from various disciplines, media, and styles in remote backcountry cabins in the Flathead or Helena Lewis and Clark National Forest. During their one- to two-week stay, selected artists create work in a beautiful, remote setting. In return, the artists share a public presentation or workshop related to their residency experience with the community.
The residency provides the unique opportunity for artists to reside in historic cabins within designated Wilderness. Cabins are anywhere from five to 15 miles from the nearest trailhead, and offer a variety of experiences depending on the cabin chosen.
Wilderness values, natural processes and features, history, wildlife, resource management issues, and other topics related to Wilderness and wilderness management are used as themes around which artists' residencies are organized. All media of art work is encouraged. Since the program’s first summer in 2004, 56 artists have participated in this program.
Artists are invited to apply for the Artist Wilderness Connection program each winter. The program hosts two artists in cabins on the Flathead and Helena Lewis and Clark National Forest during the months of July, August, and September. For more information about how to apply as an artist, click Apply below. If you have questions, please contact the BMWF at 406-387-3808 or Teresa Wenum with the Flathead National Forest at 406-758-5218.
To apply, click the ‘How to Apply’ button below.
Meet our 2023 Artists*
*Note: no residencies took place in 2024 as we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Artist Wilderness Connection program with a museum exhibition, tours, programs and more! See below for info on our most recent 2023 program participants.
Bri Dostie (she/her) is a transdisciplinary creative, multidisciplinary artist, and outdoor cultural strategist with studio practice spanning visual arts (drawing, watercolor, painting, illustration, digital) and written word. Her work follows lines of inquiry around identity, environmental influence, queerness, interconnected existence, and maps relational dynamics through observation and celebration of the natural world. Bri’s visual expressions are reflective and detailed, often exploring narratives of relationship and reclamation through dynamic composition and surreal interactions between subjects.
Bri is currently based between Missoula, MT and Portland, ME. Outside of studio practice, she is a Maine Recreation and Fishing Guide and founder of Confluence Collective, dedicating her time and energies to facilitating individual and community experiences in nature primarily through fly fishing. After her residency, she plans on creating coloring pages, identification guides, and sharing stories through visual and written responses through small group experiences.
Griffin Foster is a painter and muralist working as lead artist for a landscape architect in Bozeman. His background in hand drafting, analog rendering, and admiration of old school graphic techniques has shaped his style and view of the world. When away from work, Griffin spends his time trekking into the backcountry with his oil paints to capture scenes while studying virgin landscapes. Packing out wet panels reminds him of the old days, simpler times without the internet and smart phones. From small on-site sketch studies to large scale urban mural work, he is in constant pursuit of mastering diverse styles and media.
During his residency, Foster plans on site analysis of his cabin location, inventory of existing drainages, native and invasive plants, sun angles, viewsheds, topography and observed wildlife create botanical illustrations of native vegetation as well as hand drafted maps that present these layers merged into hybrid drawings and paintings that evoke the feeling of being fully immersed in wilderness areas.
Past Artists’ Projects
Filmed in August 2012 for the Artist Wilderness Connection. Artist Residency program through the Hockaday Museum of Art, U.S. Forest Service, Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, and the Swan Ecosystem Center. This artistic collaboration was filmed at the Spruce Park U.S. Forest Service Cabin in the Great Bear Wilderness, MT.
Mandy Mohler. Director of Photography. www.MandyMohler.com
Bettreena Jaeger and Josh Harvey of Betty and the Boy. Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin. www.BettyAndTheBoy.com
Kati O'Toole. Vocals, Guitar. www.KatiOToole.com
Alex Hogle. Mandolin.
The film was edited by Jeri Rafter. www.jerirafter.com
2016 Artist in Residence - Artist-Wilderness-Connection: A Collaborative Project managed by Flathead National Forest, Hockaday Museum of Art, Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation and the Swan Valley Connections
This short recap video is from Kenneth Yarus' and Richie Carter's last 10 days of painting and adventuring in the Great Bear Wilderness as participants in the 2016 Artist-Wilderness-Connection program.