Arts & Culture

  • Artist Carol Hartman's Heritage

    Montana's rich heritage is near and dear to my heart. My desire to learn about that history through the early inhabitants of the land leads to the opportunity to help tell the story of the growth of our society in the West. Reflecting upon the difficulties early peoples faced as they developed a civilization helps tell the story of 19th and 20th century America.
  • Wild West Words: Cast, Eddy, & River

    By Chrysti the Wordsmith
    Cast was first printed in an English document as long ago as 1230, borrowed from an Old Norse verb kasta, “to throw.” This original sense carries through in our modern phrases cast the first stone, cast a net, cast the dice.
  • Wild West Words: Hygiene, Ballistic, & Survey

    By Chrysti the Wordsmith
    But amidst the Olympian chaos and drama was a goddess who worked quietly on behalf of humanity: Hygiea, the Greek personification of good health. Hygiea learned the healing arts from her father, a powerful god of medicine.
  • Montanan You Should Know: Lauren Korn

    "My favorite kind of book to read is one that skirts genre in interesting ways. I received my M.A. in poetry, and I began studying writing seriously as an undergrad by writing non-fiction; but I find that the books and the writing that I’m drawn to most are those that refuse categorization."
  • Deborah McKenna: The Essence of Inspiration

    McKenna has this to say: "I have traveled the world widely, and I can say with absolute honesty that there is nowhere else in the world I'd rather live than Montana! Montana embodies my spirit, my breath, and my life. Most days I need look no further than out my window to be inspired."
  • Butte’s Dimple Knees Sex Scandal

    By © 2018 by John Kuglin
    Beverly Snodgrass owned two of Butte’s leading houses of prostitution. In 1968, the talkative madam, her affections scorned by an official she called “Dimple Knees,” who stole her heart and then her money, decided to tell her story to a newspaper reporter.
  • Pam Little: The Fine Art of Bending & Blending Reality

    Funnily enough, I started the "After Humans" series in the fall of 2019, before 2020 dropped the hammer on us. I had photos of Lake Hotel in Yellowstone and The Stanley Hotel outside Rocky Mountain National Park where I wanted to add wildlife, which made me think, what would the buildings look like after humans left, and the landscape and animals took them back? It's been a fun challenge to "deconstruct" the hotels' interiors and exteriors and imagine where the buffalo, birds, etc. would roam.
  • Montana in 30 Years: Rural Libraries

    As Montana continues to see growth in its population, rural libraries will need to grow as well. Many libraries that are currently considered “rural” may well be urban. Conversely, if populations within Montana gravitate toward larger urban centers, some rural libraries may find themselves losing service populations. 
  • Montanan You Should Know: Dr. Gretchen Minton

    Montanans should pay attention to Shakespeare because he was a huge hit with the mountain men, miners, women’s reading groups, and so many others in Montana’s history, and he continues to delight people across our region with wonderful performances by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.
  • Wild West Words: Hike, Nocturnal and Flammulated

    By Chrysti the Wordsmith
    Hike, it seems, has been very difficult to trace, with no apparent Latin, French, or Germanic ancestry. The Oxford English Dictionary tentatively suggests that hike may be related to another dialectal British word, hoick, meaning “to haul or turn out; to
  • Annie McCoy: Serenity in the Wild

    I look for paintings everywhere.  I see something interesting and try to imagine how I could make a painting from that I see.  I approach every painting from one of two aspects… are there interesting patterns of light and dark, or is there an interesting
  • The Wreck

    By Maria Anderson
    On the day of the wreck, Kate endures the early-morning conversation by fixating on stuff she wouldn’t normally notice: wind blowing the grass so that each piece of it snags the morning light; tiny birds going cheeseburger,
  • Montana's Indie Bookstores

    By Joseph Shelton
    According to a 2013 study by Publisher's Weekly, Montana has the highest rate of bookstores per capita of all 50 states -- one bookstore for every 15,705 people.  While we at Distinctly Montana don't want to gloat about the perceived superiority of our state, we do invite you to consider the plight of those poor New Jerseyites, who have to suffer through their lives with only one bookstore for every 40,851 people.