Is Montana a good place for an artist?

[jenzebel]

Originally Posted by pivatic1

MY wife is a 28 yr old oil on canvas artist. She paints landscapes and classic automobiles and is just amazingly talented. Curious as to what she paints?
www.mensingfineart.com . My question is, are there good towns in MT for artists? We have been to Missoula and are curious about Bozeman, Helena, Livingston, the western part of MT. We will be going back to Missoula here shortly. I talk to everybody and their grandpa and most MT residents seem polite and educated. Me? I am a maintenance technician, a tech guy that would like to give up the fast paced "life" and maybe try some farming. We don't make a lot of money here in SC and I don't plan on making as much money in MT. But peace and quiet seems to exist in MT. Any input is helpful. Thanks in advance.

Montana is a hard place for artists unless you are already well established or are rich. Housing is expensive compared to the wages paid for the few jobs that are available. Sure you can buy a house for as little as $150,000 in some towns but it is tough to make those payments when most of the jobs available only pay $8-$11/hour (and many even less). And what many consider the artsy towns--Missoula and Bozeman are out of the question for most of us (the cheapest SF house in Bozeman right now is @$224,000 for 2 bed, 1300sf). There are some well known artists that live here and manage to make a living but they are truly the exception. Most artists I know, myself included are not well known or established and have had to work at two or three jobs just to keep our heads above water, and then there is no time for making art. In fact, I am looking at moving to where I can afford to buy a house, slow down to just one job and do my art.

[grizzfan]

Grizzfan, I was just wondering if you have any photos of your art collection. Please post them if you do, I think it would be interesting.

Haven't been to this site for a couple of days. I'll take some photos and put them up this weekend. Hopefully they'll be "on topic" Mr Moderator Man!!

[townsendmt]

Hello pivatic1,
Coming from an Artist couple, Montana is a good location today, and is getting better. My wife and I, have been working artists for 12 years, based out of Montana. Remember selling art can be done in many ways. We live in Montana, and travel to 20-25 outdoor art shows a year. We have 20 different state tax id numbers. We have done a lot of traveling. It has been very enjoyable and rewarding. Our 3 best shows for sales have been San Francisco, New York, and Bozeman Montana. Now the details, if you are looking for sales (community/tourists) look in the Bozeman or Kalispel area. Artsy towns, look in the Helena, or Missoula areas. Overall if I was to make a suggestion, live outside of Bozeman, (good central location to get to Denver/Salt Lake/Seattle) look in a smaller town like Harrison, Townsend, maybe Whitehall. Close to galleries but can be inexpensive to live. Look at examples like Goosebay Glass in Townsend. The owners have had 6 days off in 4 years. They are that busy. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't make money being an Artisan!

[Farmdog]

Originally Posted by pivatic1

MY wife is a 28 yr old oil on canvas artist. She paints landscapes and classic automobiles and is just amazingly talented. Curious as to what she paints?
www.mensingfineart.com . My question is, are there good towns in MT for artists? We have been to Missoula and are curious about Bozeman, Helena, Livingston, the western part of MT. We will be going back to Missoula here shortly. I talk to everybody and their grandpa and most MT residents seem polite and educated. Me? I am a maintenance technician, a tech guy that would like to give up the fast paced "life" and maybe try some farming. We don't make a lot of money here in SC and I don't plan on making as much money in MT. But peace and quiet seems to exist in MT. Any input is helpful. Thanks in advance.

To answer you briefly, yes this is an awesome place to live A good friend of mine is a very talented artist and moved here for the same reason you are pondering moving here. Whitehall is an awesome town to live in and it is very affordable to live here you will find all you are looking for and then some. e-mail me if ya want to. good luck Terry

[rickers]

Consider Hot Springs. If you're an artist of the "high brow "variety you may not like it but it's a funky little town on the west edge of the Flathead Res. Lots of artists and crafters, musicians and such. Nobody really calls it an artist community but it is. Prices are low here compared to surrounding areas. Hot springs is sort of between Kalispell and Missoula.

[JoeJoeMan]

Western Montana - from my perscpective has lots of artist, the bigger towns are, as they say, artsy fartsy. Is that good or bad for artist wanting to move here ? - Beats me !
So you will find loads of other artists to be around, but you will also find lots of competition.
I can't really speak of the visual art scene here, but I can relate it to the music art scene here, as I have lots of musician friends that relay stories and thoughts to me.....they say, everyone seems to be a musician around here, they are just crawling out of the woods/towns, and they all have a band, so there is lots and lots of competition to get gigs. They also say, and I'd seem to agree, that most of them have no business being in the business. But oddly as it may be - talent doesn't even figure into the equation, the lousy bands get as much work or more so than the quaified pros, because it's more about who you know than what you know and also the average listener doesn't have a clue about what they are listening to. As such the good musicians get pushed aside and discouraged.
It seems that every time I stop to hear a band in Missoula (the so called hip town) they are so bad as to the point of being laughable and just passable at best, I attended the Missoula City Roots Festival last week, I found myself saying..."geez can't they find any better talent than this", don't get me wrong it's not that I didn't like the style of the music being played, but seriously if it wasn't for modern day electronic tuners I think most of the people on the stage wouldn't have been able to tune their instruments. It's really a sad comentary on a town that likes to portray itself as 'artsy' 'hip'.
I'm not sure how much of this relates to visual art - but I'd bet you'd find the same things exist in the art world - that is lots and lots of bogus talent cornering the market because of who they know and bs'ing the average person. Having gone to some art/craft type shows around here, I'm always amazed how the, what I'll call 'egg-smashers' (phoney artist) get all the attention and the true artist are pooh-poohed. And yea that seems to be true in the muscial scene to around here. And you know I really don't know if that is unique to this and or other areas or how much so.
In short I find that the so-called artsy hip people in western montana have a serious lack of perception and will eat just about anything you put on a plate if you just springle enough hype and hip sause all over it. The saying "pearls before swine" comes to my mind for some reason now......so I guess it all depends on where you are coming from (artisticaly speaking) if this is a good place for art or not, but it does s*ck for music.

[pivatic1]

Thanks everybody for your input. We updated the site Mensing Fine Art and went to visit my sister in HI. Lots of art out there, too. But we still like MT. Again, thanks for your help.

[countess1166]

Red Lodge MT is an artists dream town.