UM hosts ‘Threads’ Exhibition featuring women artists

The University of Montana is hosting a ‘Threads’ Exhibition featuring artwork by nine women, working as artists, mothers and art teachers.

The exhibition, located at UM’s Montana Museum of Art and Culture, kicks off with a public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on March 6.

The exhibition runs through May 15, with work displayed in the museum’s lower-level gallery.

The following artists’ work will be displayed:

  • UM Art alumna Aria Berry, who embeds coding in her work, leading to poetry that elaborates on visual imagery and touches on digital strategies for communication and finding meaning in contemporary lives.
  • Professor Combe, who explores the relationship between her matriarchal line with her children’s tattered clothing and art room and studio scraps as she learned rudimentary sewing skills.
  • Cortni Harant, whose installation of photographs and domestic items gives homage to her Swedish heritage and migration.
  • Shonteé Johnson, whose inspiration came from her great grandparents, Thunderpipe Woman and Bill Wagner, as well as the ponokamita, or “horse” – the main source of Blackfeet transportation.
  • UM Master of Fine Arts candidate Crystal McCallie, who led a multiday workshop at the 2022 retreat on sewing and printmaking textile and paper collages. She makes sewn paper collages that refer to rare and quiet moments in life.
  • Cailtin Shelman, whose materials combine detritus from Bannack State Park, her children and an art classroom.
  • Monica Thompson, whose sewn textiles reference her midwestern upbringing and with Montana flora and fauna.
  • Maura Whalan, whose fabric works touch on the fragility of the first few years of parenting, referencing the swelling belly and sleepless state.
  • Radium Woolf, whose works honor her love of her ancestral land and her daughter, Mamia’tsikimi, which translates to “Magpie.” Woolf describes her process as oyiisskimaa – “making of a nest” – a way of building support for our children and students.

The University of Montana sent out the following:

UM Museum Hosts ‘Threads’ Exhibition – An upcoming exhibition at the University of Montana will feature artwork crafted by nine women who work as artists, mothers and art teachers.

Located at UM’s Montana Museum of Art and Culture, the exhibition “Threads” will present collages, assemblages, textiles and ecoprints. “Threads” opens with a public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 6, and runs through May 15. Works will be displayed in the museum’s lower-level gallery.

“We are pleased to be the first museum to host this exciting exhibition traveled statewide by MAGDA, the Montana Art Gallery Directors Association,” said Dr. Rafael Chacón, MMAC Suzanne and Bruce Crocker Director. “These works invite our visitors to ponder heritage through a female lens, elevating the domestic, the home and the land.”

“The artist-mother-teachers in ‘Threads’ weave together perspectives around identity, place and heritage,” UM Art Professor Jennifer Combe said.

The exhibition was inspired by a retreat hosted by the Montana Art Education Association in spring 2022 at UM. The artists in the show were retreat participants or organizers, as well as proud MAEA members.

The featured artists are:

  • UM Art alumna Aria Berry, who embeds coding in her work, leading to poetry that elaborates on visual imagery and touches on digital strategies for communication and finding meaning in contemporary lives.
  • Professor Combe, who explores the relationship between her matriarchal line with her children’s tattered clothing and art room and studio scraps as she learned rudimentary sewing skills.
  • Cortni Harant, whose installation of photographs and domestic items gives homage to her Swedish heritage and migration.
  • Shonteé Johnson, whose inspiration came from her great grandparents, Thunderpipe Woman and Bill Wagner, as well as the ponokamita, or “horse” – the main source of Blackfeet transportation.
  • UM Master of Fine Arts candidate Crystal McCallie, who led a multiday workshop at the 2022 retreat on sewing and printmaking textile and paper collages. She makes sewn paper collages that refer to rare and quiet moments in life.
  • Cailtin Shelman, whose materials combine detritus from Bannack State Park, her children and an art classroom.
  • Monica Thompson, whose sewn textiles reference her midwestern upbringing and with Montana flora and fauna.
  • Maura Whalan, whose fabric works touch on the fragility of the first few years of parenting, referencing the swelling belly and sleepless state.
  • Radium Woolf, whose works honor her love of her ancestral land and her daughter, Mamia’tsikimi, which translates to “Magpie.” Woolf describes her process as oyiisskimaa – “making of a nest” – a way of building support for our children and students.

For more information, call Tracy Hall at 406-243-2019 or email tracy.hall@mso.umt.edu.

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