From Haikus to Hatmaking: One Year in the Life of Western Montana

by Jayce Rutherford

In a great new book by Montana writer Brian D'Ambrosio, some of the state's great artists, musicians, and writers get the credit they deserve. Here are a list of the locals profiled: John Well-Off-Man : Multimedia Artist;

David Boone: Obsessive Art of Songwriting Mike Bader: Blues Scholar Immersed in Subject

Rich Adams: Graphite Pencil Artist

Lee Kierig : The Merry Man and His Mighty Machines Rudy Autio: Master Ceramicist

George Gulli: Totemic Art

Richard Paup: Street Photographer

Skip Horner: Adventure Guide

Josh Smith: Knife Maker

George Ybarra: Alloy Artist

Greg Pape : Montana Poet Laureate

Steve Wilson, Corvallis, Montana: Art as Life

Jimmy "The Hat Man" Harrison

Jim Agnew

Guy Bingham Carl Haywood: Tracking David Thompson

Bill Whitfield : Ghost Towns and Gold Camps

Lemuel Oehrtman: Blacksmith

Mike Gouse: Gun Engraver

Larry Townsend: The Cowboy Way

Aaron Crowder: Hope in Haiti

Carl Bock: Dances with Wolves

Andrew Maisel: Mission Mountain Joinery

Sean Kochel: Kochel Apiaries

John Walker Guitars

Ram Murphy: Seizing the Subcontinent

Talk about a list of stories. As described in the book, "t he presence of a continuous stream of artistic, literary, and scientific individualists and transplants makes Western Montana a remarkably self-sufficient place from a cultural point of view. That very same self-suitability exists in the peerless personality of the state itself and of its people. The visitor who has been there once tends to return again and again. Newcomers get so infatuated with its alluring charm that they usually remain there for life."

So it seems that this book has captured that charm. It's a large book loaded with hundreds a pictures and images of great art and people. The author shows that lif e in Western Montana is a wide variety of actions and intentions, a a lifestyle of everything from pottery, ranching, gun engraving, photography, film making and painting, to writing, drawing, hat making, saddle making, furniture construction, and sculpting a certifiable gamut of crafts, callings, and disciplines.

In one year of working as a journalist, from June 2007 to June 2008, Brian D'Ambrosio met and spent time with but a few of the many eclectic personalities that make this part of Big Sky Country so unique. During this period, he was first struck with the idea of gathering such stories a diverse potpourri of subject matters and materials and placing some of the most interesting ones all in the very same book.

The reader is glad that he did.

Article submitted Monday, August 24, 2009 & read 69 times.

Leave your comments through Blogz:

» left by Marijo Phelps (2 years 259 days ago.)

First book review I have read on SW - enjoyed reading your perspective. Marijo
Respond to this comment

» left by Anonymous from Montana (2 years 253 days ago.)

Nice preview of the book. Don't forget to tell people its independently published at lulu.
Respond to this comment

15-2-0-0-2-ADSO

Most Recent