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Jim Madden
Jim Madden is a painter, architect, conservationist, and non-profit director. He moved to the valley thirty years ago and at that point had already studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Iowa in painting. When Madden first moved to the Springhill Community, the Gallatin Valley Land Trust was just being formed, and he met some of the founders who had him join as a board member. He soon was an active employee of GVLT, working as a conservation planner. He hadn’t studied conservation, so he attended lots of training seminars and learned all he could. His job was essentially to talk to landowners and make them aware of how to protect their land from development. “That training,” Madden says, “has given me skills in problem solving and looking at things from different perspectives.” This allowed him to see issues in the community and approach them with new eyes. Throughout his time with GVLT, Madden was an avid painter in his home studio. He took what he learned about conservation and problem solving, and applied it to his future projects, which strayed from painting and moved towards activism and public art. Today, Madden is the director of Mountain Time Arts, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance social and environmental justice. They do this through storytelling, specifically performances and installations throughout the valley. “Our mission is to engage people in a deeper way, and thereby be a catalyst for change,” says Madden. He hopes rather than bombarding people with facts and information, that they can reach and inspire people through performance art and storytelling. During his time in the valley, Madden has been commissioned to do public art installations all over town.
Over the past twenty years, Madden has also been volunteering as the facilitator for the Food Co-op, assisting with board meetings and company retreats. “In the Bozeman community it seems to me there’s lots of opportunities to get involved and volunteer,” says Madden.
