Montana Woman Magazine, Issue No. 12, May/June 2021 by Montana Woman Magazine

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montana woman magazine

I S S U E NO 12, M AY/J U N E 2021: M O N I C A G I L L E S-B R I N G S Y E L LOW / CO M M U N I T Y

table of contents VIGNETTES |

THE CHILDREN

Sarah Harding

CONCUSSION

Chloe Nostrant

JUST A THOUGHT

Emily Adamiak

FOUND

Jenny Evans

FOOD & SPIRITS |

APPLE BERRY CRUMBLE PIE

Fresh flavors for spring

POTLUCK POTATO SAL AD

Grandma Twila’s Specialty

JUS TWON EMORE: PART III

French 75

EDITOR'S DESK |

3, 7, 104

SELECT WRITINGS

Letters & poems ALONG AVALANCHE LAKE 4

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44 58 70 from gold: monica gillesbringsyellow

a badass rodeo of women: red ants pants foundation and the girls leadership program

erin bolster: tamarack dispensary

ART & DESIGN |

CONVERGENCE

The Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art

BEARHAT MOUNTAIN

A cross stitch pattern

LIFE |

TO BE KNOWN

Small towns in a city

A MEADOW FULL OF SUNFLOWERS

Navigating your river

UNEXPECTED SOLUTIONS

Finding your inspiration

MINDFULNESS MATTERS

Power of the people

SEEKING DEFINITION

More than a buzzword

WELLNESS |

LEVITATION NATION

Movement communities that transcend fitness

KALISPELL REGIONAL HEALTHCARE

The importance of heart health

AMSKAPI PIIKUNI, KOOTENAI, SÉLIŠ, & Q'LISPÉ LANDS | MEGAN CRAWFORD mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

montana woman

OWNER & EDITOR

megan crawford

Montana Woman is a platform. It’s a place to celebrate our achievements, a place to support each other, a place to acknowledge the resilience of the women of this state. It doesn’t necessarily matter where you’re from, you’re here now. In all of your loudness, your boldness, your fearlessness— you are here. We’re here, together. We publish a statewide magazine every other month that features women across Montana— the movers and shakers, the go-getters, the rule-breakers, the risk-takers. We all have a story to tell.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

megan crawford

BUSINESS MANAGER

carrie crawford

Montana Woman Magazine as you know it began in October 2019. Right out of the gate with photographer Alexis Pike as the first cover feature— clad in fringe pants and a motorcycle helmet in a Bozeman alleyway— we’ve always been authentically ourselves. We believe in showing up as you are. You don’t need to change who you are to have a seat at the table. No matter your age, your identity, your hometown, you are welcome here. We believe in creating a publication that’s worth reading because we have stories worth telling.

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BACK COVER

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EDITING DEPARTMENT

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ADVERTISING, DISTRIBUTION, & SUBMISSIONS

Contact the editor at info@montanawoman.com or (406)260-1299. Submissions are not accepted through the phone, postal service, or social media.

Montana Woman is a registered trademark and may not be used without permission. The information contained in this magazine is provided as is. Neither Montana Woman or the publisher make any representation or warranty with respect to this magazine or the contents thereof and do hereby disclaim all express and implied warranties to the fullest extent permitted by law. Montana Woman and the publisher do not endorse any

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LETTER

from the

EDITOR In this last year, we have missed. We’ve missed the big things— weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, funerals— all of life’s moments and celebrations and in-betweens. But there’s been the small things, too. Running into a friend you haven’t seen in a while at the local coffee shop, hugging as you catch up. Dancing together at the farmer’s market, sharing shelter from the rain with a stranger, standing shoulder to shoulder at a concert. Everything can be missed— there is no prerequisite for missing. You can miss your family, and you can miss the smell of a friend’s home. This last year has been three years long. But here we are, now, that much closer to filling all those cracks with gold. The weddings will be even happier, the concerts louder, the funerals kinder, the graduations more bittersweet. Separation creates space for longing, and we’ve longed a long while. Soon enough, all of that longing will

burst out like wildflowers. Spilling down from the alpine forests, down into the beds of the valley, floating on the wind of the prairie, drifting down the river. A world covered in flowers. We will be together again. We have always been together, even when we’ve felt miles and worlds apart, in all the small ways. I believe that someone, in some way, can sense when you think about them. Even if you don’t call or text or send a letter— it shows up in other ways. You see each other in the world. Maybe it’s a book you’re reading or a song you hear on the radio, trees turning in the fall or the first robins of spring, the shade of lilac the mountains turn at dusk, dewdrops on fresh grass at dawn. You may not realize it in the moment, and they might not either, but it’s all connected by an invisible cat’s cradle. Pull on one thread and move another. Like the roots of an aspen grove, we’re together— even when we feel apart.

contributors

KELSEY MERRITT

SYDNEY MUNTEANU

STEPHANIE MOSBRUCKER

NICOLE MARIA EVANS

CHLOE NOSTRANT

NICOLE DUNN

LAUREN WILCOX

JESSLYN MARIE

MEAGAN SCHMOLL

SARAH HARDING

BARBARA FRASER

AUTUMN TOENNIS

JENNY EVANS

EMILY ADAMIAK

MINDY COCHRAN PHOTO BY KIRALEE JONES

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behind the cover

Minnie Hollow Wood. Monica Gilles-BringsYellow, 2020. MIXED MEDIA . ACRYLIC PAINT, RESIN, COPIC MARKER, AND LIQUID GOLD LEAF.

Learn more about this piece in “Behind the Art” on page 54

read about Monica Gilles-BringsYellow & Origin Stories on page 44 mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

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| FOOD & SPIRITS

apple berry

crumble pie BY L AUREN WILCOX

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| FOOD & SPIRITS

rowing up in a small, rural community, I greeted any opportunity that provided other kids to play with who weren’t my siblings. My family’s farm sat at the end of the gravel road in Kinsey, and the nearest kid to my age was 6 miles away. Spreadout neighbors created a historical need to build a community that spanned the length of our agricultural community along the Yellowstone River in Eastern Montana. When I think about the foundations of the community that raised me, I think about the never-ending presence of food in its center. Whether a freezer meal brought to a neighbor going through a hardship, a casserole brought to a funeral of a community member, a pan of brownies sitting on the counter when you came for coffee (read: conversation), or the long line of rectangular tables on the edge of the Kinsey School Gym piled with everyone’s potluck offerings— food was always present when everyone came together. A potluck at the Kinsey Elementary School meant two things: all of the farming and ranching kids would convene to create mischief and we were going to eat really, really well. My own family models much of the same philosophy in how we come together. There’s

always a little mischief, a lot of noise, and too much food. As with many families, there are recipe staples that are simply understood to be givens when we come together. Aunt Tracey’s artichoke dip, my mom’s stuffed mushrooms, Uncle John’s shrimp dip, and Grandma Twila’s potato salad. The community and family that raised me provided me with a full recipe box of favorites. As we all begin to come together again following over a year of quarantines, self-isolations, and social distancing, I think seriously about community coming together through food. Whether it’s a birthday we’re finally able to celebrate in person instead of over zoom, a reunion of siblings and cousins we’ve so desperately missed, or a potluck at the local school gym, I am eager to see us all gather over the shared communion of community food again. I hope you enjoy Grandma Twila’s recipe and share it with others, too. KELSEY MERRITT lives in Belgrade with her husband and son, where they play scoop ball frequently and yell at their dogs for eating the lawn. She is a photography instructor at MSU and is learning to be kind to herself as a mother. mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

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PART THREE — what's in a name

The light slowly grew stronger— all of the latter hours had seemed to take so long, yet here it was; that glow of green flash announcing the end of the shift. It would grow brighter soon and the weight of the brightness would become a time of stillness and quiet for the mind and soul on this planet. Predictably there would be a sip of ingredients, tasting of earthy pine, a bright twist of citrus, a rich surge of sweetness, and the effervescent bubble of laughter predictably following that sip. Chawm took a moment to contemplate the planet it lived in… on… around… it was known as the planet of naming. Oh, the sheer joy of having a word to what something was. That something would then give a name back, which is how Chawm came to be. Chawm reveled in these ideas, these words that were sounds that were empty without the something that it was given to. In this state of contemplation, Chawm cracked its way to the communal lever (pronounced “hleeeever” (in this story)) and turned it with anticipation of the familiar bubbly drink. All that happened, or “did not” happen, was the drip of an unfamiliar voice from far away on another planet and in another time, sparking a weighted astonishment that surprised Chawm into cognitive dissonance, producing thereof a laugh. The voice drippily inquired persuasively, “Mind if I have a sip…Jus Twon Emore?”

IN THIS WORLD:

When something unexpected happened, and that unexpected “something” did not result in the need to fight or flee for their lives, a sound bubbled out. That sound was, for lack of a better word, or without any words before it, termed “cognitive dissonance.”

CHAWM: Crack in the ground caused by dry weather. MEAGAN SCHMOLL is the owner and creator of Raskol Drink, a Cocktail Creation and Spirits

Education resource designed to expand your knowledge and bar around the curios thirst of history, lore, and spirited adventures that make up the ingredients in your drink. raskoldrink.com

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FRENCH 75

| FOOD & SPIRITS

1 part Gin 0.5 part Lemon Juice 0.5 part Simple Syrup

Combine all ingredients into your mixing glass, then add ice. Shake for a short time, ‘bout 5 seconds. Strain into a fancy glass and top with 2 or more ounces of sparkling wine. Garnish with a twist of lemon. Take a sip and allow a chuckle to bubble up and out. Sparkling wine, in short, is created by capturing the bubbles of carbon dioxide in a tightly sealed bottle or tank. There are a couple of ways to do this: the Traditional Method & the Tank Method. TRADITIONAL METHOD:

More time-consuming and so tends to be more expensive. A still base wine is made and bottled. Sugar and yeast are added to the bottle, then it’s tightly sealed and aged. During this aging process, the yeast eats the sugars emitting that effervescent fizz we love. When the yeast is out of sugar to eat, it dies. These dead yeasts are called “lees,” and as the bottle ages “on the lees,” it adds complexity. After aging, the lees rise to the neck of the bottle. The neck is frozen, the seal removed, and with the pressure from the bubbles created during aging, the now frozen gorge of lees shoots out. Before the wine is resealed, sugar is added to the bottle. The amount of sugar used depends on the desired level of sweetness. TANK METHOD:

A less time-consuming process resulting in a sparkling wine that is intended to be drunk young and fresh. The soon-to-be sparkling wine is made in a pressurized tank capturing the bubbles from the initial fermentation. This now sparkling wine is then bottled and ready to drink. COMMON ST YLES:

Where they’re from and the typical methods used to create their effervescence. Champagne: made in Champagne, France, using the method that they pioneered; traditional Prosecco: made in Italy; tank Cava: made in Spain; traditional English Sparkling: made in the UK; traditional California Sparkling: made in California; traditional mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

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Adhering to social distancing guidelines. Appointments Recommended. Capacity is limited. The health & safety of our customers, staff and community continues to be our top priority. 6 3 25 H I G H WAY 93 S O U T H , W H I T E F I S H M T 4 06-862-24 5 5 | wrightsfurniturestore.com

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ART & DESIGN |

CO N VER BEV BECK GLUECKERT ELLEN ORNITZ SUSAN THOMAS

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R GENCE

BY NICOLE MARIA EVANS CURATOR OF ART | PARIS GIBSON SQUARE MUSEUM OF ART

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Bev Beck Glueckert, Ellen Ornitz, and Susan Thomas are kindred spirits. They are

artists whose works intersect on a common level that is inquisitive and intrinsically oriented at understanding the world around them. Connected through friendships and their shared dedication to the arts as artists, curators, and educators in Montana, they come together to exhibit separate and distinct bodies of work in a cohesive exhibition titled Convergence. The similar yet different themes, materials, and techniques presented in the exhibition demonstrate how each artist explores universal concerns about existence or transformation while responding to their shared but regionally varied Montana environment. Susan Thomas lives and works in Great Falls, Montana. She is a practicing artist and served as Director of Education at Paris 24

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TOP LEFT: POLLINATORS 13B MIXED MEDIA: MONOPRINT, STENCIL, PHOTO TRANSPARENCY, PHOTO COLLAGE. 2018, 25�×32� TOP RIGHT: BEV BECK GLUECKERT AT HOME ABOVE: CONTINUUM #11 MIXED MEDIA PRINT COLLAGE: RELIEF, INTAGLIO, GRAPHITE, PHOTO TRANSPARENCY. 2020, 24�×36�

SUSAN'S HANDS

Gibson Square Museum of Art for many years until retirement. Over the years, her work changed but has stayed rooted in her interest in form and natural materials. Today, her Boats, exhibited like hanging constellations, cast shadows and shapes in the form of drifting leaves on the gallery walls. Her boats create a feeling of evanescence as they interact effortlessly, through movement and shadow with Ellen’s grounded ceramic body of work and Bev’s mixed-media works on paper which exist somewhere between ether and earth. Some boats are light and airy, as seen in Bright Yellow Willow Boat, 2020, while others seem robust, weighty, or sorrowful in their construct, like Deep Purple Cottonwood Boat, 2019. The aesthetic integrity of the object is most important to Susan, and it is first and foremost a sculpture. She describes how she arrived at her approach: I was in my mid 20s living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I rented a small space in a building’s basement downtown. My need to make art at that time intensified, as I went through a divorce, and I began a series of work created from tree roots collected along the shore of Lake Michigan. I began tying them together into large, three-dimensional forms that felt like skeletons to me. A “skin” of paper was applied over them, and the surface was shellacked. They were suspended from the

water pipes on the basement’s ceiling. These were the first works that I made that had a life of their own separate from me and transcended the materials they were made from.

Susan’s work is not created with a metaphorical intention, but she admits that it lends itself to interpretation. Susan believes making this work is an essential part of her being, but knowingly gives away the responsibility of finding meaning. She is aware that her interest in these ancient, basic, and archaic forms comes from a curiosity she has with prehistoric technology, particularly shapes and materials found in ancient boats like the reed boats of ancient civilizations in Egypt, Asia, and the Americas. Susan’s work negotiates a space between objectivity and immateriality, because despite its tactile existence, there is an indescribable aspect to it that gives space to the idea of transformation or transition. This makes sense considering the metaphysical relationship vessels or ships have in ancient rituals of passage as bringers of sustenance and riches or vehicles that grant entry to god inhabited realms. Susan herself is still experimenting, and that is part of the beauty the work holds: I love working with forms in space and seeing the effect of light while considering its relationship to the space within and around the form. Most of my work has dealt with mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

SUSAN THOMAS IN HER STUDIO

the vessel form, which is comforting and lifegiving. Boats are a type of vessel. The empty vessel is my choice as it doesn’t pin down what the vessel contains: light, air, infinity— all of that. I began with the boats just as our son was leaving for college in 2008, and symbolism of boats and journeys was especially meaningful then. That symbolism is still important, but the boats have changed, and I am still trying to figure out how they have changed. Seeing them installed and in relationship with Bev and Ellen’s work may offer more understanding.

The very objecthood of the sculptures, the material, and form persuade Susan to repeat the process. Susan is careful in her choices and deliberately selects specific-colored handmade papers that enrobe her boats ever so delicately. The same process occurs with the harvested willow and cottonwood branches she finds along the Missouri River. Soaking, bending, 26

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finding the right malleableness, as she guides the material into a sculpture. Despite this, it is the material’s own volition that determines how far it will bend and where it will bend. Susan understands this; she does not control the final result. Instead, the materials help her to know when a work is completed. For Ellen Ornitz, there is a direct correlation between her primitive fired ceramic vessels and the natural elements harnessed to bring the works into being. Like Susan, she grapples with taming the primitive firings of her vessels, or manipulating the plaster molds and clay slabs she creates to produce her pieces. They are her own, yet they retain their own natural power: The physical nature of the clay records an interaction with the artist, which is personal by nature. The clay seems malleable and free at first, but really it has a mind of its own, just like the fire.

Ellen lives in Bozeman, Montana, where her spirit of investigation is fed by daily treks outdoors, then scavenging animal and plant material, and returning home to make art. She served as Curator for The Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture in Bozeman for over twenty years, where she helped grow artists’ careers across Montana. After years of service in the arts, she retired to relish in the opportunity to create art and spend time working in her studio. The pandemic made creation even more inevitable as she hunkered down at home throughout 2020. In her studio, she has time to experiment and engage her curiosity for materials, forms, and firing techniques. I’ve lived in Montana since 1973. I studied painting and printmaking at the University of California, then explored painted wood sculpture as a graduate student at Montana State University. However, working with wood, I sometimes could not achieve the form I envisioned. A fellow artist friend suggested

clay. After that experience, I started making ceramic and mixed media sculptures and ceramic vessels, but I was never interested in functional pottery or throwing on the wheel. After retiring, I thought making pottery would be transitional until I got back to sculpture. But vessel-making and firing proved to be too engaging to stop. The possibilities of ceramics are endless, and the dialogue keeps me interested and gives me joy! It is a great opportunity to be showing with fellow artists Susan Thomas and Bev Beck Glueckert, whose work I have always admired.

Ellen’s vessels are dark, detailed, and smell of fire and smoke. Bringing the visitor closer to the ash and dirt of the earth, a direct reference to the creative and destructive elements of life. Dirt and soil for growth, and fire for destruction and transformation. Within the space of the gallery, Susan Thomas’s boats float above Ellen’s ceramic vessels, which are oriented closer to the mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

ELLEN ORNITZ IN HER STUDIO

PF25.CX10.5H LOW FIRE CERAMICS . 2020. 8�×10.5�

ground and resting on low-lying pedestals that lift them perfectly into the light to honor their position in the space.

has existed throughout human civilization used to hold, carry, and preserve life-giving libations and nourishment or safeguard human remains.

Her ceramic pieces depict fossil-like formations of decaying flesh, bones, and plants embedded into the body of the vessel. Even the shape of Ellen’s own hands protrudes from petal-like layers, as seen in her ceramic vessel titled, pf25cx10.5h from 2020. This result is due to her mold making process, where she presses garden cabbage leaves, moss, rocks, animal bones and flesh, as well as her very own hands into plaster. This allows her to extract the natural shapes of the materials she gathers on her treks. The final ceramic works are at the core a functional object, used to hold something, possibly a potted plant at its most foundational level of understanding. However, the exterior of her vessels depict pressed natural forms which reference archaeological digs where layers of earth are penetrated to unearth shards of pottery or fossilized bones. It is in those layers of visual information that meaning can be extended through thought and observation. There is no mistaking it— a vessel/container is an archetypal form that

Firsthand viewing of Paleolithic handbuilt pottery influenced my approach to the vessel form. I am attracted to the not quite symmetrical, yet elegant, shapes and the environmental degradation of the surfaces. The primitive firing techniques of Southwest Native artist Maria Martinez have also been an inspiration. Experiencing the timescoured artifacts and architecture of ancient cultures has shaped my aesthetic. I also have an enduring appreciation of natural forms and their residue. These primitive-fired vessels are intended to look unearthed and fossilized.

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It’s evident that nature’s bounty presents each artist an opportunity to experiment and ponder the more esoteric notions about human existence and coexistence with nature on the planet— a balancing act between the concrete and the intangible. This includes spiritual, transformational, and scientific notions of

conservation, and the archaeology of remains over the course of time. It is a very human practice to ponder what can’t be fully explained. Gathering information from the world around us is a way to organize and formulate a question that hopefully leads to a potential explanation. This is especially palpable in the arranged grid-like multi-media works created by Bev Beck Glueckert: The past several years, I have been utilizing a horizontal triptych-type of format for much of my work. The intent is to achieve a sort of flowing narrative, with the inter-related segments being put together by the viewer. I’ve been attracted to collage as a means of working since pre-school and enjoy the challenge of problem-solving in a composition. I am interested in the issues and challenges facing us here in Montana, globally, and in our natural world; those topics motivate me to think about certain issues and create work. There is the aspect of preserving or recording important information— certain animal or plant species, icons of the West like

tumbleweeds or meadowlarks. And then, in the last few years, we have had an abundance of celestial events— eclipses, supermoons, blood moons, blue moons, new information on black holes, etc. It has certainly caused me to look at the sky more and to be more attentive to these occurrences. I have really enjoyed incorporating some of these events into my work. Bev is an established printmaker and member of the SALTMINE artist group. She calls Missoula, Montana, home but developed her passion for art in Great Falls, Montana. She grew up in Havre, a rural area that influenced her interest in nature and wide-open spaces. As a seasoned arts educator working with adults and children of varied abilities for over 30 years, including organizations like Living Art of Montana, a nonprofit that offers art classes to terminally ill people or those dealing with loss, she understands how art gives people a chance at recovery and healing. Symbolically, her work hits on topics of transformation, mortality, and healing.

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ART & DESIGN |

Bev, like Susan and Ellen, weaves a thread of cathartic expression that is influenced by nature, the places she has lived, and her place in that shared experience called life. Her work provides a feeling of wonder, and her preparation stems from research rooted in science, conservation, and observation. It may not be apparent, but this balance between order and surprise provides an abundance of freedom: My life is busy and involved, so it’s not common for me to have a whole day or two in the studio. Rarely do I have a piece entirely envisioned or pre-planned and then execute it. I think the techniques that I employ are unusual for the most part and not often seen— a combination of print and drawing techniques, layering, transfers, and collage. As a printmaker, I really only create a traditional edition when I am participating in a print portfolio. And that is generally a fun challenge. Most of my works are one of a kind. The freedom to introduce play and chance might appear contrary to the seemingly controlled grid-like arrangements found in Pollinators 13B or Continuum #11, which seem categorically organized in their portrayal of honeybees, celestial anomalies, ornithological imagery, and human biology. However, upon looking closer, Bev Beck Glueckert’s varied, lively approach is visible in her images. Rather than forming a straightforward grid system, they are slightly staggered compositions, comprised of various textures and combinations of printing techniques like monoprint, stencil, photo transparency, or photo collage. Balance is produced through the variety of materials that are highlighted in a muted color palette of greys, yellows, ochers, and umbers. A visual conversation is born between images and composition. Conceptually, this is

where meaning forms in visual art. The images, composition, and material provide order and directly communicates to the viewer her concerns about healing the world we live in, while investigating the overall meaning of our existence in the universe. It is through Susan Thomas, Ellen Ornitz, and Bev Beck Glueckert’s unique investigation of the shared yet varied environment they live in that led them to draw upon the concept of Convergence. As we draw upon the intensity of this word, it makes sense that the different and varied works form a fluid visual conversation that intermingles conceptually and visually— each utilizing materials, methodology, or imagery from their natural environment to answer timeless questions about life that are formed separately to become one cohesive body. Convergence is a featured exhibition at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art located in Great Falls, Montana. The exhibition runs from March 5, 2021, through June 2, 2021. For more information, visit the museum online at www. the-square.org. This exhibition is curated by Nicole Maria Evans, Curator of Art at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art. Exhibitions presented by Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art are supported in part by the Montana Arts Council, a state agency funded by the State of Montana, Humanities Montana, National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding is provided by museum members and the citizens of Cascade County, and generous support from Montana Credit Union and D.A. Davidson. Special sponsorship by Montana Woman Magazine.

C O N V E R G E N C E M AR C H 5 , 2 0 2 1 - JU N E 2 , 2 0 21 BEV BE C K G L UE C K E RT

E L L E N O RNI T S

S U S AN T HO MA S

TH E PAR IS GIBSON SQUA RE MUSEUM OF A RT 30

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see the art & make the art at the square a contemporary art museum

The Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art (The Square) in Great Falls, Montana has been exhibiting art, teaching art and supporting the development of contemporary art and artists since 1977. Housed in the historic Great Falls school built in 1896 by Paris Gibson, the founder of Great Falls. The Square is known for its exceptional rotating exhibitions showing local, regional and national contemporary artists, in addition to its outdoor sculpture garden and educational gallery programing. The museum offers outstanding onsite studio classes to the community in ceramics, printmaking, painting, drawing and more!

PARIS GIBSON SQUARE MUSEUM OF ART

1400 First Avenue North Great Falls, MT 59401 (406)727-8255 www.the-square.org www.facebook.com/PGSMOA/

HOURS OF OPERATION

Open Monday-Friday 10am to 5pm, including Tuesday Evenings 5-9pm, and Saturday Noon to 5pm. Closed Sundays and Select Holidays.

free admission!

Exhibitions presented by Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art are supported in part by the Montana Arts Council, a state agency funded by the State of Montana and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding is provided by museum members and the citizens of Cascade County, and generous support from Montana Federal Credit Union and D.A. Davidson.

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IMAGE BY JUSTIN KAUFFMAN

BY MEGAN CRAWFORD

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earhat Mountain sits at the edge of Hidden Lake, along the Continental Divide. It rises up from behind Hidden Lake Overlook, one of Glacier’s most popular trails. The hike is three miles round trip and follows the rise of Logan Pass, often over snowpack, small creeks, and mud puddles— even in late summer. The boardwalk is lined with a sea of wildflowers: Glacier lilies, daisies, columbines, toadflax and harebells, among others. You can start the hike in bright sun and end up running down to the parking lot in thunder and hail as storm clouds spill down the mountains into the valley (I know this as someone who’s run down the boardwalk trail in Birkenstocks, hands acting as a visor against pelting hail). This stretch of mountains is often referred to as the Swiss Alps of America. After driving the first half of Going to the Sun Road and gaining nearly

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3,500 feet in elevation, you do genuinely feel like you’re at the crown of the continent. There really isn’t one good way to describe it— the best way is to experience it. I’ve seen the pass on bright bluejay days, smoke days when the air feels too thick to breathe, hiked stretches of snowpack in my trusty Birkenstocks, crossed paths with mountain goats, made the drive at night to see the stars, only for the clouds to swiftly roll in. Of all the times I’ve been to the park, I have never seen the same one twice. If you’re venturing into Glacier this summer— or anywhere, for that matter— be a student. Learn from the land, from the people; learn about its history and cultural significance. Know the land you’re on and how you can commune with the world around you, how you can be a steward of environment and culture. Bearhat Mountain sits at an elevation of 8,684’ in Glacier National Park’s Lewis Range on the land of Amskapi Piikuni, Kootenai, Séliš, and Q'lispé People.

IMAGE FROM GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

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ART & DESIGN |

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PATTERN BY MEGAN CRAWFORD

SUPPLIES AND SPECS ⩕ DMC embroidery floss, 1 skein per color ⩕ use 2 threads for stitches ⩕ 18 count Aida (14 count will make a 67/8˝ x 65/8˝ piece) ⩕ 6˝ embroidery hoop (8˝ if you use 14 count cloth) ⩕ needle & scissors ⩕ 96 stitches wide x 93 stitches high ⩕ 53/8˝ x 51/8˝ finish size on 18 count cloth

THREADS 310 This is a great pattern for using up leftover thread. Make each element a different color, use metallic thread for the stars— DMC even makes glow in the dark thread that's white in daylight, so if you stitch on white cloth, you'll only see the stars in the dark. Run wild with it, and happy stitching!

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WILDFLOWERS ISSUE NO. 10

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White Sulphur Springs, Montana

LIMITED Tickets Available > > > www.RedAntsPantsMusicFestival.com The festival is a program of the 501(c)(3) Red Ants Pants Foundation. Our non-profit mission is to develop and expand leadership roles for women, preserve and support working family farms and ranches, and enrich and promote rural communities. We use proceeds from the festival to fund our community grants and run our timber skills workshops and Girls Leadership Program.

Learn more >>> www.RedAntsPantsFoundation.org

IMAGE BY NATE FOONG

VIGNETTE |

The Children

BY SARAH HARDING

I planted the orchards so the children could lie in the shade and eat apples as a pastime. We scratched holes in the glacial till past stones cemented in clay. Not into the straight rows of a farmer but the fairy circles of a mother. Dragged hoses during naptime on dry summer days. Kept the deer off them long enough for the pathetic sticks to grow a few leaves. Then need pruning. Then need picking. One died, pushed over by a black bear who didn’t linger to eat the bitter, hard, green pears. Mice girdled another, gnawing a slow death to stave off winter. The pride of the upper orchard got backed over with the truck by my nephew who assured me he knew how to drive. One Easter after brunch I slipped with the pitchfork while weeding around the darlings driving the steel into my shin. Ten weeks of antibiotics later the medical bills could have bought bushels of fruit.

Even as time made the trees more bountiful the reason they exist lost interest in farm life. Started driving, Coding videogames, Thinking about foreign exchange, College, and after. We let the fences get run down, while we were in Mexico. We leave the gate open when we drive to ballet. Now the does and the fawns step tentatively into the orchard grass. Pulling down the apples growing glossy and round. I only planted the trees so the children could eat fruit whenever they got hungry. Should it matter whose children? mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

FEATURE |

FROM GOLD MONICA GILLES -BRINGSYELLOW AND THE RECLAMATION OF LIVING HISTORY BY MEGAN CRAWFORD

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onica Gilles-BringsYellow fell into her artwork. The act of creating had always been there— some classes in high school and college, a go at ceramics, supplies always at the ready. It was necessity that allowed the space for her to develop her style. After grad school in 2019, she began looking for a piece of art for her therapy office, but everything either wasn’t right or was too expensive. So, she set out to teach herself how to paint and make her own piece instead. It was art for the sake of art— making because you want to, because you need to. GillesBringsYellow’s work started out with abstracts, and sure enough, friends started asking if pieces were up for sale. “If I was selling it, how much would you pay for it?” she laughs. As Gilles-BringsYellow continued to explore new techniques and work in landscapes, the 2020 pandemic began. Navigating lockdowns and work as a child therapist lead to a twomonth pause from art. “I went from painting every day to not painting at all,” she recalls. But, that hiatus cultivated space to develop new ideas and techniques and led to the style that GillesBringsYellow calls 3D collage. “There’s no time but now, I might as well— I don’t want to go out not knowing what happens if I combine resin with alcohol ink!” We laugh again, me knowing all too well as a fellow artist that some creative ideas are itches you have to scratch. Layers of resin, ink, gold leaf, photographs, text, and marker create the pieces in Origin Stories. Portraits of the Native and Indigenous women who sit as proud subjects of her work are encircled in halos of her creation: the resin creates depth that a canvas otherwise lacks, alcohol inks create swirls of stormy atmosphere— it’s like looking at a diorama, except the surfaces are still flat. Pieces like The Exchange look like they’re floating, suspended in space, going on forever, as if they could burst forth from the canvas at any moment. Origin Stories began as a traffic box art piece in Missoula, where Gilles-BringsYellow lives. After being commissioned to create a piece to cover its otherwise industrial surface, Kalico Art Center in Kalispell reached out about the possibility of mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

an art show— her first solo show. “I just started thinking about what I wanted to present and how I wanted to present it, because in this new iteration of my art I wanted to honor Native people.” Inspired by her and her husband’s ancestral Salish roots and stories, teaching history in Missoula, and seeing a lack of representative histories of Montana, Gilles-BringsYellow set out to create these pieces of living history. “I have a connection to everyone in the show,” she notes— from the Flathead Reservation, Northern Cheyenne, relatives of family and friends alike. That connection is clear in the reverence with which each subject is treated. Living, breathing Origin Stories.

“When you do see Native and Indigenous people represented in the art world, they’re represented as background actors— especially women.” As Gilles-BringsYellow and I talked, I was reminded of turn-of-the-century photographers like Edward Curtis and L.A. Huffman, who both captured images of Indigenous people, often with little to no information— nondescript 48

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titles like “Cheyenne maiden,” “Navajo weaver,” “Hopi mother.” And more often than not, Curtis embellished the dress and props, as well as the settings in which subjects were presented and offered nothing in exchange for the time of those sitting for a portrait. For Gilles-BringsYellow, this historical erasure was a subject to confront in her art through empowered representation. “I want to bring historical figures into the present day— they weren’t just people that lived 100 years ago… these are people’s grandparents, their ancestors, and their descendants are living today.” Each canvas comes with the subject’s name and story, providing important context of each subject of the artwork. Gilles-BringsYellow empowers her subjects, from Dusty Dress of the Qlispel Tribe to Minnie Hollow Wood, who was present at Greasy Grass (colonially known as the Battle of Little Bighorn)— something that those 19thcentury western photographs often lack. She gives names and stories to those who had otherwise been photographed without either. “As a history teacher, you don’t really get the

| FEATURE

[woman’s perspective]. It’s few and far between that you get women included in the narrative.” In both history and art, women are often excluded, minimized, or forgotten— they’re present as tropes or tokens, there for the sake of being there, without relevance or intent. I was reminded of the iconic artists that represent the American West and its image. Like Curtis and Huffman, Montanans are fiercely aware of C.M. Russell’s work. But, I am reminded of how pieces like Waiting and Mad and Keeoma completely take Indigenous women out of context. It’s a representation of Indigenous women from a White male perspective devoid of the context needed to tell us who these women really were. In the canvases of Origin Stories, every subject is placed in the past, present, and future. They are acknowledged for who they were, they exist now in art, and their stories will continue to be carried on. They breathe as the ribbons and waves of resin and ink breathe. Backed with gold leaf and encircled with gold marker that mimics Byzantine art, the women of Origin Stories are front and center, reclaiming back that narrative. “It’s a way of giving them

respect— you don’t normally see that. You don’t normally see murals of Native women,” GillesBringsYellow points out, alluding to the ornate gilded murals that grace walls and ceilings of the Byzantine era. “[Gold] is a precious metal. To me, it’s saying— when I include it in my paintings— that these people are also precious.”

Born and raised in Great Falls, Montana, Monica Gilles-BringsYellow is aware of the historical disconnect presented in the communities we live in. “You have someone that’s coming in from out of state to a place like Missoula, and the way Missoula presents itself, for the most part, is that people just kind of moved in here. They don’t really always acknowledge that there were people here before them.” The same goes for cities like Bozeman, Kalispell, Billings, Helena; mountains renamed after White men, stripped of their true names and histories (the Bridger range; Reynolds, Cleveland, and Grinnell, among others, in Glacier); Montana’s valleys, plains, rivers, lakes. There is a deeper, richer history beneath the names we are so often familiarized with.

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“I look at Missoula, and I think, ‘oh, my husband’s great-grandma was born over there, by the footbridge; my husband’s family used to pick bitterroot, and now there’s a Shopko there’— our presence here has affected others, even though we might not necessarily realize it,” she acknowledges. Gilles-BringsYellow’s painting of Dusty Dress, for example, shares Kalispell’s history. Before the signing of the Hellgate Treaty in 1885 and the following creation of the Flathead Reservation, Kalispell was Qlispel, named after the tribe that lived on this land. “It’s history that’s unseen— I didn’t know that until I was an adult, right? It’s named after a people!” That’s what Gilles-BringsYellow wants people to take away from her work. These places have histories— and we should work to know them. To know the names, the people, and the land, for the names and the people that existed here before the settlements that became our cities did. Monica Gilles-BringsYellow encourages us to learn about where we live and to acknowledge its living past. “Look into the history [and] understand the fuller experience of Natives in the United States.”

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And likewise, seek the history, art, and stories from Indigenous people. “Seek them out! There’s a lot of talent in Indian Country and Native America. See what their perspective is… everyone has a unique perspective and an interesting story to be told.” As I wandered through Kalico Art Center, I was drawn from piece to piece of GillesBringsYellow’s. The stories of the women on the canvases seemed to reach out, asking me to engage, to read, to know. Each piece lifted off the white walls— a mirror at one angle, deep water of the lake one way, inky night another. Layers of resin, gold leaf, ink, history, all gathered in a canvas home. Origin Stories is more than a collection of work showcasing Indigenous women— it’s a call to action for us to learn the stories hidden from us for so long.

Monica Gilles-BringsYellow

@ BRINGS_YELLOW_HORSES FACEBOOK.COM/BRINGSYELLOWHORSES MEGAN CRAWFORD is an artist & workshop instructor based in the Flathead Valley. She’s also the owner, editor, and designer of Montana Woman Magazine.

BEHIND THE ART DESCRIPTIONS BY MONICA GILLES-BRINGSYELLOW

MINNIE HOLLOW WOOD

MIXED MEDIA. ACRYLIC PAINT, RESIN, MARKER, AND LIQUID GOLD LEAF. 10�×20�

In 1876 the Lakota had been forced into treaties with the U.S. Government that the government was no longer honoring. Unauthorized gold miners and non-Indian encroachment on lands that had been promised to remain undisturbed created tension between the U.S. Government and the allied tribes of the Lakota, Arapaho, and Cheyenne. The government dishonored the treaties that had been established and continued to not stop illegal settlement from Non-Indians on guaranteed lands to the tribes in an effort to force the tribes to cede territory. Upon seeing that none of the allies, particularly the Lakota, showed interest in further giving up land, the U.S. Government attacked the allied bands at a summer encampment along the banks of the Little Bighorn River. Minnie Hollow Wood, the subject of this painting, was present at the attack, which is now known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Minnie Hollow Wood is said to have alerted people of an oncoming flank of the attack as well as having participated in the actual fighting that ensued. Due to her bravery during the battle, Minnie was bestowed with the honor of wearing a headdress by the Lakota. She was the first woman to be given the honor to do so. Minnie would eventually marry Hollow Wood, a Cheyenne man, and would live on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation.

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QLISPEL / KALISPELL

MIXED MEDIA. ACRYLIC PAINT, RESIN, MARKER, AND HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF KALISPELL AND DUSTY DRESS. 12�×24�

The woman in the painting is named Dusty Dress. Dusty Dress was a member of the Qlispel Tribe. The pronunciation of Qlispe'(which translates to Camas People) anglicized would become Kalispell, which of course, is the name of the town we are in today. The Qlispel people have always lived in the areas of Northern Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Canada, although their multi-millennia presence in the Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park area generally goes unacknowledged by the broader society. The creation of the Hellgate Treaty displaced the Kalispell people and removed them from this area to the Flathead Reservation and other reservations in Western states. The Tribe did not have a choice in removal, and the two bands of Kalispell that lived in the area would be split. The Upper Band of Kalispell would become part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, while the Lower Band would be moved out of state.

EATS NO MEAT (CAYUSE)

MIXED MEDIA. ALCOHOL INK, RESIN, GOLD LEAF, AND PAINT ON YUPO AND CRADLED BIRCH PANEL. 10�×14�

It is not unusual in the U.S. to hear someone say that they are Native American but “can’t prove it” and to hear stories of people of all ethnicities claiming Native American ancestry. Sometimes these stories come complete with tales of great-grandmothers who were “Cherokee princesses” and grandfathers who were Lakota warriors. In reality, the concepts of kings and princesses are primarily a European construct. Modern tribal enrollment usually falls on a complicated and documented system imposed by the U.S. Government called blood quantum. Additionally, it is a normal practice across tribal lines for tribal members to know specifically who their ancestors are and the relationships between members of their family tree, and how that affects modern-day descendants. However, broad claims of Native ancestry continue to persist as part of American culture and folklore. The woman in this painting has been specifically named as part of that folklore. Her name is Eats No Meat. Eats No Meat is often credited with being the grandmother of Elvis Presley. It is unclear as to why that claim exists, but it is unfounded. Eats No Meat was a Cayuse woman, which is a tribe that often interacted with the tribes in this area. mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

THE WOLF YOU FEED MIXED MEDIA. ALCOHOL INK, RESIN, GOLD LEAF, MARKER ON YUPO PAPER, AND CANVAS. 18�×24�

The Wolf You Feed is a painting about choices and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. We all have origin stories. Some of them can be supported by facts and documents, some cannot. Some stories have been passed down through generations, and other stories we patch together ourselves to make sense of our environment. In the creation of these stories, we have to make choices about what information we include, as well as what information we ignore. Often the information we ignore, push aside, and don’t tell can shed light on what our value systems are and how we want to be perceived. In that process, we are essentially choosing, as the old parable says, between two wolves and which wolf to feed and which wolf to starve. The Wolf You Feed incorporates a mirror image of a woman named Agnes. Agnes lived on the Flathead Reservation in the early 1900s. She has many descendants and relatives throughout the Reservation today.

The men playing cards in this painting are Antoine and Michael, members of The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. During the creation of reservations, tribes were often put together according to proximity and not necessarily the strength of inter-tribal relationships. The Salish, Upper Pend d’Oreille (Kalispell), and Kootenai Tribes knew of each other and may have intermittently overlapped in land usage, but at the time of the Hellgate Treaty, they were friendly but not necessarily in an alliance.

THE EXCHANGE MIXED MEDIA. ACRYLIC PAINT, RESIN, AND MARKER. 10�×20�

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There are still cultural and linguistic differences among the three Tribes that make the Confederation, but through proximity over the years, there are also many similarities. Today, many members of all three Tribes that make up the CSKT take part in each other’s ceremonies, celebrations, cultural events, and past times. Games in general and games of chance are a big part of these interactions.

After bitter negotiations between the U.S. Government and the Salish, forged documents, broken deals, and the imposition of non-Salish leaders as treaty signing Salish Chiefs, the Hellgate Treaty of 1855 was ratified and implemented. In 1891 the last of the Salish holdouts still living in the Bitterroot were removed via military escort to the Flathead Reservation. The woman in this painting, Mary Sophie, was part of the first generation of Salish people to grow up on the Reservation instead of the traditional homelands. This generation would learn to adapt to a vastly different way of life. Reservations were initially touted as places where Native Americans would remain undisturbed. In fact, the pieces of the Hellgate Treaty that are included in the painting state explicitly that Reservation lands were for “the exclusive use and benefit” of the Tribes. However, the reality was that Mary Sophie and the generations after her would undergo a process of forced assimilation. This process included the outlawing of Salish religion, the removal of Native American children from their homes to attend boarding schools, and the opening up of “excess” land to settlement on the Reservation. The goal of this assimilation plan was to destroy and replace Native cultures with American society.

AGREEMENTS

MIXED MEDIA. ACRYLIC PAINT, RESIN, MARKER, AND HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF KALISPELL AND DUSTY DRESS. 20�×20�

KALICO Art Center invites you to come join a Saturday Session from 11-1. Saturday Sessions are led by local artists and include an introduction to their work and move into an artmaking session. Saturday Sessions are for all ages and abilities and are free. In addition, KALICO offers a variety of classes for all ages and recurring artmaking events each month. Check us out online at kalicoartcenter.com

149 Main Street, Kalispell, MT 59901 (406) 471-2832

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FEATURE |

a badass rodeo of women

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the red ants pants foundation girl's leadership program

IMAGE BY AMANDA SWEENEY

BY MEGAN CRAWFORD

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he Red Ants Pants Foundation has been cultivating a network in rural and agricultural communities across Montana by creating grants for small businesses, empowering women through self-reliance, and for the past three years, teaching young women how to be leaders in their communities through the Girls Leadership Program (GLP). Open to female Montana residents starting their junior year of high school, the GLP pairs 8 mentees with 8 mentors and professional facilitators to develop a community leadership project. In developing their project, participants are provided with an inclusive space of support, accountability, and assistance as needed through their one-on-one mentorships. Over a series of three weekend retreats and the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, mentors and mentees come together to learn from each other and take new skills and knowledge back to their Montana communities. That’s the powerful thing about effective mentorship— it’s a two-way street. It’s more than a teacher and a student; it’s nurtured space, tended to like an early spring garden. Tomatoes provide the shade that carrots need, carrots aerate the soil for healthy tomato roots, carrots repel onion flies and onions repel carrot flies. The best mentorships exist in symbiosis, and it’s clear that the Girls Leadership Program has grown a much-needed garden. A network of young women and mentors who are connected across the state, across disciplines, backgrounds, and experience. Talking with three mentee alumni over a zoom call made me look back at my last two years of high school, and I can confidently say that even in just one meeting, it’s apparent that these women have learned and grown in ways that took me years to figure out. They are community leaders, full stop.

IMAGE BY STEVEN CORDES

I spoke with Sarah Calhoun, owner of Red Ants Pants and founder of the RAPF, mentors Krystle and Amy, and mentees Ruby, Jadyn, and Maida. All three mentees are now part of the newly launched RAPF GLP Alumni Network. Through that conversation, I learned about the abundance of female empowerment this program encourages and the ways in which mentorship is being grown across Montana through programs like the GLP.

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“It was really empowering to be united with other women around the state,” Maida, a mentee alumni, points out. “I think, in Montana, we have this big sense of community… but we are separated.” With a landmass of 140,040 square miles but a population of about 1,080,000, Montana is spread out— there are about seven people per square mile. So, how do you build a community that spans the vastness of the state? You meet in the middle. White Sulphur Springs sits in the Smith River Valley and is home to the Red Ants Pants company. Over three weekends, the RAPF GLP hosts retreats at a ranch in central Montana— fall, winter, and spring— and members are welcomed to the Red Ants Pants Music Festival in the summer. Between the retreats, participants work one-on-one with mentors, attend webinars, and develop community projects. And the connections live on beyond the program year, as Ruby, another mentee alumni, notes: “the community has been absolutely amazing— getting to come together three years later and still have that mentorship and still have these friendships and everything that comes with it is amazing. It’s really changed my sense of community… it gave me a little family.”

taught— no one knows it all. But when people can come together in a communal environment, a safe space, and learn from each other, the cracks of those unknown answers can be more easily filled. “More women deserve to learn these kinds of skills and lessons at a younger age so that we can have more justice in the world,” Krystle points out. Amy began her Red Ants Pants journey as a chainsaw training instructor, part of the Timber Skills Workshop— Calhoun welcomed her into the RAPF GLP as a mentor this year. “For generations to come, we can have this foundation of women who are in this support group… we all have this commonality and place to come together,” she reflects. That again, despite differences in hometown or age, a rural network can flourish and the garden can continue to grow.

“More women deserve to learn these kinds of skills and lessons at a younger age so that we can have more justice in the world”

It’s a common theme in our zoom call: community, empowerment, unity, leadership, learning. An accountable support system— a good ol’ girl’s club in Montana. Connected despite distance in land or age. “It’s a societal norm, oftentimes, for women to compete with one another or not hold one another up,” Krystle, who’s been a mentor for three years, points out. “This program really does an incredible job of shattering that and creating a different collective.” Learning from fellow mentors is an added layer to the RAPF GLP. But, of course, there’s the other side of mentorship: “what’s cool about being a mentor is not having the answers and being okay with that,” Krystle says. You can simultaneously teach and be

* * *

Over the course of the program, participants design service projects and learn the intricacies of idea development, planning, and management. Of course, this is with the addition of being young women in a traditionally maledominant state. Ruby planned a basketball camp for junior high girls and kids in Manhattan, Montana, and worked with Amy on building the idea. “We planned for months and months,” she recalls, but with a change in coaches and obstacles along the way, the basketball camp fell through. “Amy was there to help me with my community project, but she also helped me through life stuff, and I’ll forever be so thankful for that.” Ruby also spoke about growth mindset at camps and assisted in community service projects, including the role of assistant basketball coach for the local junior high during her senior year. “Even though I didn’t get a project done, I still completed a lot and gained a lot from the mentorship I had with Amy.” “I think it just evolved!” Amy chimes in. “You did mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

FEATURE |

2018-2019 MENTEES

it; it just evolved throughout the year.” * * * Outside of Ennis, Maida built a 1.5-mile long trail along a pond system for her community project. She had three goals: create an area for community members to safely recreate, enhance the wildlife habitat, and educate the community about the surrounding wildlife habitat. At her high school’s shop, she led a class to make birdhouses for the trail, and there’s a memorial bench for one of the community’s members. The trail also has bridges that are wheelchair accessible, creating a space the entire community could enjoy. “When Maida did her trail opening, I got to go,” Ruby recalls, “and she gave a super amazing speech— we got to walk the trail, and it was 62

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really wet and rainy, but she made it so much fun. You could really see how much her community supported her.” The trail, called Willow’s Trail, is located just a couple miles from Ennis and is open to everyone. * * * Initially, Jaydn wanted to designate a KidsPack food program for her local high school— there were meal provisions in place for elementary and junior high students, but nothing available for high school students. They had free and reduced lunches at school, but nothing was provided outside of school. After working with her mentor, Krystle, and her community, Jaydn set out to make a food pantry for the high school in Boulder, Montana.

2019-2020 GLP

“I didn’t have a lot of community support,” she points out. “There were many mornings when I’d get up at 6am and go to the school, work on the food pantry, and stay for hours after school.” Starting out with county-wide food drives, Jaydn placed drop boxes wherever she could. While there was still some reluctance from towns in Jefferson County, Jaydn got the community together and raised 280 pounds of food donations.

a grant called Cole’s Pantry (a nonprofit based in Billings). Through her work with the food pantry, Jaydn was able to apply for scholarships, was named a State Honoree for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, and received a US Presidential award.

After that food drive, Jaydn reached out to food banks to build partnerships. Gallatin Valley Food Bank made weekly donations and ended up signing a partnership at the end of the year, but other food banks weren’t so accepting.

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Now, three years later, the food pantry is fully sustainable, has yearly drives, is still partnered with Gallatin Valley Food Bank, and is under

“Krystle was so awesome through it all,” Jaydn adds, “she helped me not give up.”

Through the alumni network, attendees have been able to connect despite not being in the same program year. “It’s been neat to see the crosspollination between the different cohorts,” Sarah Calhoun, owner of Red Ants Pants and founder of the RAPF GLP mentions. In the distance created by COVID, the RAPF GLP has still mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

flourished through zoom meetings and webinars. “It was really intimidating at first,” Krystle notes. “We haven’t met the girls or fellow mentors in real life.” But despite the distance, screens, and zoom burnout, the online retreats still created a unique collective space. The foundation created by the Girls Leadership Program transcends cohorts— despite not knowing everyone involved, there’s still a welcome space to talk with one another because of the established groundwork the program allows. Ruby wisely noted how “we all carry unique things with us— it’s cool to be able to bring those powers to the table and talk about them, too.”

collectively for the group, I think we were all a little uncomfortable being called ‘women;’ we preferred to be called girls… Throughout the year, we really embraced that. Embracing that identity helped me grow into my womanhood.” RUBY: “It’s life-changing, and I don’t say that lightly at all— it just simply is life-changing. Deb Newman came to one of our retreats… and something that really stuck we me that she spoke over us girls was ‘You are the world. You are the future. Where you go, people will follow.’ That’s something I took with me— whether you’re a public leader, a silent leader— we are the future. And this program is doing such big things for rural communities and women in Montana. I would not be the person I am today without [this program], and I can take pride in who I am because of what this program gave me, because of what this community does for me.”

“To feel comfort in being your authentic self, which I think society encourages us not to be… We're seen as loud or aggressive as opposed to just independent, badass women who have ideas and values that are correct.”

Since 2018, the RAPF GLP has sponsored 24 girls to empower their hometowns in Montana through the mentorship program in a reciprocal act of community. “The Girls Leadership Program creates this really safe container for vulnerability, for trying new things that scare the living hell out of you,” Krystle laughs, “this program certainly helped me gain a lot of confidence in presenting, trying new things, having ownership of my values and my ideas— and that’s been really impactful.” For those eager to apply this year, applications will be open for the 2021-2022 year starting Friday, May 7th, and close on Sunday, August 15th. The Red Ants Pants Girls Leadership Program is open to girls who are entering their junior year of high school from anywhere in Montana.

JADYN: “Do it! It will create so many opportunities and open so many doors for you. You can’t even imagine, walking into this program, what it will do. It will add so much to your life. It’s not just leadership— it’s community, it’s people skills. You can never get too good at communicating. We all came in as bright-eyed juniors… speaking 64

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MAIDA: “The word ‘leadership’ can be really intimidating. [But] leadership can also give opportunities to learn in-depth about yourself and about your values. To the girls out there in Montana, especially rural Montana, leadership can be a place to grow. It doesn’t need to be intimidating. The [RAPF GLP] fosters that ideal. There’s a pretty badass rodeo of women out there who bring it all together.”

AMY: “This whole program in and of itself— I felt like I was being mentored through the program as well. Having that opportunity to challenge yourself and grow as a mentor… is kind of a rare opportunity. It’s not what you expect coming in the door, but you gain so much more by just being part of the program.” KRYSTLE: “It’s fun! We laugh until we cry, we stay up giggling; it’s so refreshing to be able to do that with a group of women. To just feel comfort

in being your authentic self, which I think society encourages us to not be… we’re seen as loud or aggressive as opposed to just independent, badass women who have ideas and values that are correct.” SARAH: “It’s really fun from the objective [perspective], watching from the cliff, looking at this whole process unfold in our third year now. I’m just so darn proud of these women of all ages, the community coming together and supporting each other and continuing to form it in the years after independently. It’s a really beautiful thing.”

* * * The Red Ants Pants Foundation Girls Leadership Program is designed to inspire hope for our youth, develop pride in our rural communities, and foster strength and courage in our leadership. The Girls Leadership Program builds highly competent and confident leaders, cultivated specifically to build upon the strength of girls from rural Montana. Topics include communication, team building, selfawareness, self-care, emotional intelligence, project planning, project management, conflict resolution, and resiliency. 2018-2019 MENTORS

The Red Ants Pants Foundation Girls Leadership Program consists of a cohort of eight girls, eight female mentors and a team of professional facilitators. All participants attend three multi-day retreats throughout the year. Between retreats, participants develop a community leadership project and engage in a one-on-one mentoring designed to provide support, accountability, and assistance as needed.

girls leadership 20212022 program dates:

The Red Ants Pants Foundation Girls Leadership Program participants must be Montana residents entering their junior year of high school, have access to transportation, and be able to attend ALL events. The only expense required by participants is travel to and from each retreat, located in central Montana. If this is a difficulty, stipends may be available for assistance.

May 7 – August 15, 2021

To learn more and apply, visit redantspantsfoundation.org/girls-leadership, or email info@redantspantsfoundation.org.

*all retreats begin with dinner on Friday and conclude with lunch on Sunday* APPLICATION OPEN: FALL RETREAT:

Friday, October 22 – Sunday, October 24, 2021 WINTER RETREAT:

Friday, January 28 – Sunday, January 30, 2022 SPRING RETREAT & GRADUATION:

Friday, April 22 – Sunday, 24, 2022

RED ANTS PANTS MUSIC FESTIVAL:

July, 2022 (optional but highly encouraged!) mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

WISDOM WORKSHOP community / sustainability / longevity

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FEATURE |

ERIN BOLSTER connecting community through cannabis BY MOLLY THORVILSON

ears begin to well up in Erin Bolster’s eyes as she recalls an emotional experience, one that has now become nearly an everyday encounter. She takes a deep breath and says, “She called me crying the next day.” Erin pauses. Tears begin to lightly stream down her cheeks. She swallows and continues, her voice beginning to soften, “She said, ‘I just had the first full night of sleep in a long, long time, and I used to put people in jail for this.’” Erin says the woman on the other end of the line was sobbing with competing senses of relief and guilt. She was a retired police officer that became desperate for pain control while fighting breast cancer. Against cannabis, but as a last resort for relief, she turned to Erin’s business, Tamarack Cannabis, to help ease the pain. “She never tried it until she was desperate and now knows it’s a safe medicine, and its recreational effects are pleasant and mild. It totally changed her perspective.” Erin has heard this story and others like it many times, but each time tales of skeptics-turned-supporters and healing “miracles” still tug on her emotions. “I know there are a lot of good people out there

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and they work against cannabis because they don’t know. They just don’t know. Sometimes it takes a personal experience for them— something that happens to their spouse, their child, and they end up finding out that it’s safe and they were wrong, and they change their minds.”

CURRENT CANNABIS CLIMATE It seems in Montana, though, there aren’t a whole lot of minds left to change. At least not according to the voting public. In a year full of division, Montana voters, no matter what side of the political spectrum, largely agreed on only one issue: cannabis. They spoke loud and clear on their November 2020 ballots, telling lawmakers to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Constitutional initiatives 118 and 190 were passed by 58 and 57 percent, effectively legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana in Montana for adults 21 and older. That’s roughly the same percentage of Montana voters that chose to support former President Donald Trump on

ERIN BOLSTER, OWNER OF TAMARACK DISPENSARY

their ballots. “Cannabis is bipartisan. It’s one of the very few things that is truly bipartisan. Montanans passed cannabis by an overwhelming majority and also voted heavily Republican,” Erin says. “A lot of businesses see one type of customer or another, and we see everybody; it’s a very unifying thing.” Polling numbers on a national scale also reflect this level of bipartisan clarity. “The whole country wants this. Cannabis numbers are polling higher than any other industry among the melting pot of America. You see a unifying factor of it being a good plant.” Erin says many patients at the Tamarack Cannabis storefront tell her how the plant has helped keep them calm and sane during the COVID-19 pandemic, among other highstress events of the past year. “Cannabis has been a very stabilizing factor for a lot of people during

this very unstable time. It makes you stop and slow down and realize we’re all in the same boat.” Unfortunately, even large polling margins aren’t enough to put the Big Sky State in the clear for all recreational cannabis sales to begin in 2022, as voters would have it. The cannabis industry has long been under attack by Montana politicians. Erin has witnessed and fought multiple attempts by the state to repeal the will of the people, and every time she has stepped up to the plate to fight for Montanan’s rights in any way she can. She has dedicated thousands of volunteer hours fighting to keep the cannabis community alive across the state and can be largely credited for writing the current laws that set the industry standards for medical cannabis patients today— all for an industry that is still federally illegal.

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MEMBERS OF THE TAMARACK DISPENSARY TEAM

BECOMING A PROMINENT VOICE IN CANNABIS Montana was one of the earliest states to approve medical cannabis sales back in 2004, but the law didn’t stick as easily as it was enacted. Erin first invested in Tamarack Cannabis in 2011, and just as quickly as she jumped aboard her new, longawaited business venture, the political cannabis rollercoaster ride started. Erin buckled up with the Montana Cannabis Industry Association (MTCIA) and slapped lawmakers with a court battle that lasted half a decade. Despite the legal battle, Erin wasn’t gun-shy about her ability to help push cannabis forward and ended up buying the rest of Tamarack Cannabis in 2014. Then, just a few short months before Election Day 2016, lawmakers took away the will of the people with a “repeal and disguise.” Effective immediately, medical providers could only help three patients total, and they were not allowed to accept money. Determined to continue helping her patients and dedicated to providing safe, effective medicine, Erin allowed each of her employees to become a single provider for the dispensary’s sickest patients, at the business’s expense. “We had some 72

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cancer patients, some epilepsy patients, some severe wasting syndrome patients, and other chronic illnesses. They can’t imagine life without cannabis. They use it to eat, they use it to sleep. So, we invested in those patients for several months.” The ruling came as no shock to Erin, and as a calculated and passionate woman, she was already making her next move. “It was do or die,” she says. Erin had spent the last few years working on new legislation in hopes of landing a bettercrafted medical law on the ballot in November 2016, which is our current law today. “While we kept them in court for many years, we were busy drafting a new initiative to save medical marijuana,” she says. “We also did not want to rip 35,000 patients away from their medicine. We have all these people that found relief from this one solution, and you’re going to tell them, never mind. You don’t get it anymore,” Erin says, perplexed. To help alleviate concern and build a model that fit her own high standards, Erin remained close to initiative 182. She ensured that it provided new regulations protecting both product and patient safety and promoted a system for licensed cannabis businesses versus

individuals serving as sole providers, allowing safe, medicinal cannabis sales in Montana. “Up until 182, there was no regulation on how this product was produced and no quality assurance testing,” Erin says. “I felt that while we were hoping to pass this law, we had to make sure that it helped patients, but also to put other safeguards into the law, like testing for mold or pesticides.” Erin was not only instrumental in building the framework of Bill 182, but she also did much of the heavy lifting to obtain the signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot the following fall. She dedicated countless volunteer hours as one of the top advocates in the state while signature gathering and raising funds, and also donated about a hefty portion of funds raised for advertising Bill 182. Additionally, Erin paid her employees to canvass the state, gathering signatures and collecting donations. Tamarack Cannabis store manager, Mary Keehfuss, gathered the most signatures in support of 182 than any other gatherer in the state. “We would help organize meetings across the state, in Bozeman, Missoula, and rural areas, and we would network at those meetings and coordinate to mobilize when we were ready to start getting the signatures we needed,” Mary says. Other female employees of Tamarack printed thousands of flyers and informational documents in the old storefront, which was suddenly serving as a hub for volunteers in support of the medical cannabis fight. Reflecting on the “campaign days,” Mary says Erin was constantly there to help with anything she needed, from standing in Whitefish gathering signatures to taking care of Mary’s dogs while she was on the road, busy coordinating further signature-gathering efforts. “Erin has always cultivated an environment that allows women that work for her to succeed and thrive and grow. I’m very blessed and lucky to work for somebody as supportive as her,” Mary says.

is already growing, now at 30 members, 17 of which are women. Endearing tales from longtime employees display Erin’s priority to support a positive, healthy work culture— something that very clearly translates to the storefront environment and to her patients and their experiences. “It’s a place where people can come and be supported, and we’re going to listen to them and we’re not going to judge them. We take all types, and we are all types,” she says. “It’s always been my goal,” Erin pauses and looks up to the popcorn ceiling in her office, settled in the lower level of a century-old farmhouse, known by some as the old storefront. She adjusts to rephrase her statement. Seemingly realizing the rudimentary reality of her thought, she starts again and very succinctly says, “We’re a normal business; we should be treated like a normal business.”

“We're a normal business; we should be treated like a normal business.”

GROWING WITH THE CANNABIS COMMUNITY

Anticipating legal recreational sales in Montana in 2022, Erin says there is still work left to do. “The fight is not over. There are still people that are anti-marijuana. They are still fighting to restrict access to marijuana, and we will continue to fight them. But I have strong hope for the future that it’s going to keep getting better.” Erin’s optimism shining, she smiles and says, “The world is getting better, and I want to help it get better.” Some might be doubtful of the world actually getting better as we’re all enduring a waning global pandemic and very real political and racial turmoil across the nation. Her optimism shrouded by certainty, Erin continues, “Right now is the very best moment in human history to be alive.” Erin says, and she truly believes, that people are better off now and that the world is fairer and more peaceful than ever before. She explains that it’s hard for us to remember with ongoing challenges, but that we need to be inspired by all of the positive change around us and the fact that we, as human beings, can create change. “No species that has ever existed before us could do that. They just had to live with what was. It’s inspiring that humans are that way. We can change our world.”

Erin has long prepped Tamarack Cannabis for the day of recreational sales to come. Her staff mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

IMAGE BY KEVIN CHINCHILLA 74

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| LIFE

to be known Small Towns in a City

BY AUTUMN TOENNIS

ew York City has an approximate population of about 8.4 million. When my husband, Nik, and I made the decision to move here in 2019, we did so without knowing anyone included in that number— most of the move was made by the seat of our pants. No apartment? Answer: Stay at an Airbnb for three weeks and hope that we find something affordable. No way to pay for a lease? Answer: First find said-lease, and hope to find a job soon after. We hit plenty of snags, but we found the home we have now, facing the bay, Manhattan’s skyscrapers just poking over the buildings in front of us. We ended up in our first jobs not long after that. Specifically, I ended up in a little café in Cobble Hill, called One Girl Cookies. My boss, Dawn, started the business out of her apartment alone (hence the name), and as it grew larger she hired people; one of those people was a baker named Dave. He became her husband, and for the last fourteen years, their little café has sat near the intersection of Dean and Smith Street. In a place with this many people, I have discovered that there are towns within the city. Each neighborhood is its own community with its own staples, whether it’s the bodega on the corner with the best (and cheapest) sandwiches, the flower shop with the woman who always has a new nickname for you, or the café that everyone orders their birthday cake from. In Cobble Hill, One Girl Cookies (OGC) is that place.

But I didn’t know that when I started. There was an astounding number of people that came every day that my manager introduced me to, and I struggled to keep up with them. Most had been coming to the shop for well over a decade and knew more about the place than I did. Attached to the counter is a bar for customers to sit at and throughout the day, all of the regulars would shift through those seats. Slowly, I came to know not just their drink orders, but their families as well. Lee and Tad and their kids, Elinor and Charlie, live across the street, in a house with a red door. I could expect Tad for coffee nearly the moment I opened the shop in the mornings, and Lee for breakfast after her morning jog. When they were home from college, Charlie and Elinor would bring projects to work on at the bar in the afternoon. They would tell me what it was like essentially growing up in the shop, as they’d been crossing the street and coming in since they were very young. Dana and Arthur, a couple who lived a few blocks over, came for breakfast every Sunday after grocery shopping at staggered intervals, and I saw Dana every morning before she left for work. There was Paul and Zoe and their little daughter, who I watched grow over the year I was behind the counter; Sandy, who could be counted on to order a black coffee and do the NYT crossword every day (successfully) without fail. There were the small business owners, the playwrights, the artists, the work-from-homers that preferred tables and would linger to talk with me as I mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

poured their refills. And of course, the dozens and dozens of kids who would come in after school from the public school a block away. The months came and went, and we began to settle into our place at this café. I say “we” because Nik spent nearly as much time there as I did, becoming a familiar face with the regulars; his job was two blocks over, and every day he came for lunch to sit sat at the counter with me as I mixed drinks and bagged sweets. None of it happened overnight. But one day, as I was walking Lee and Tad’s dog and waving to people I knew were headed to the shop, I became aware of something. If you grew up in a small town, you’ve probably had this same feeling. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, but it remains this: you are known. Moving all the way across the country, away from that, was difficult. At home in Montana, I can walk into a grocery store and know the checker, or call the bank and know I’ll get a teller who went to high school with my parents that will inevitably ask who I “belong” to (read: “Whose daughter are you? Mike, Scott, or Mark’s?”). Leaving for a place of anonymity was an adjustment. One Girl changed that. After a period of invisibility in the city, we had a community again. I worked at OGC up until the first restaurant closures of the pandemic, and during that time, we were blessed with a small-town feel in the big city. We went to a group pie-baking party that was hosted in the kitchen for Thanksgiving; we had game nights with my co-workers at pubs; we went with a few regulars to the opening of the café my old manager was helming and then got sidetracked after that, adventure shopping in Japan Village in Industry City. We had people who knew if someone was sick in our family and asked after them, who were invested in my career goals and how they were progressing, who wanted to know the details of the wedding we were then 76

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planning, who stood up for me if a one-time customer was rude over the counter. We are still in touch with many of the people there but everything has, of course, changed now. What has not is the gratitude I feel for what we were gifted with simply by answering a job ad for a barista in Brooklyn. It is a curious magic, belonging. AUTUMN TOENNIS is a writer and artist from

Miles City, Montana. She graduated in 2014 with a degree in English Writing from Montana State University Bozeman, and has spent her time since then following words around the country and the world. Last year, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in publishing, and continues to work remotely for Open Country Press, a small, independently-run Montana press. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and a small windowsill orchard. You can follow her on Instagram @autumn_toennis, or find her at her Etsy shop, AutumnMarieArt.

LIFE |

BY BARBARA FRASER

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ometimes we get stuck. I was stuck. This wasn’t the first time; it was just another Thursday of another week, which piggybacked onto the last week, and was nudging up against the month before. I’m referring to writer’s block, but this could pertain to a lot of problems. A few years ago, I took on the lofty task of writing a book. All had gone well at first, but I was starting to find that my expectations were becoming occasional invitations to worry.

IMAGE BY RAFAEL CERQUEIRA

I was well aware that I would be challenged due to my inexperience, but we’ve all started things we know nothing about. Every other writing project I was working on had words flowing successfully onto the laptop, so losing another month on the book was starting to create concern. I had errands to run, so I was brainstorming while I sat in traffic, hoping for a solution. Instead of throwing words to the wind, I threw them against the inside of my cab, “What would it take to get me back on track?” and then I waited. In seconds, the thought popped into my head that a Writer’s Workshop would be perfect. I was surprised, but I am a firm believer that inspiration finds us when intention gets lost. Creative people struggle; it’s just part of the equation. I realized that being around new people would be wonderful after this last year of isolation. I also believed that if I could just sit in a room with other writers and have a conversation, someone might have a solution for when the words don’t come. But I needed it now, not next weekend, next month, or when things were more opened up. As soon as possible was my only agenda. Dedication and hard work are definitely necessary for success, but sometimes a little inspiration from an unlikely situation will go a long way. The first idea was quickly followed by the second; I could host a Writers Workshop! As I drove to my destination, this amusing idea was quickly growing into a possibility, and as I realized this, I knew it was a good place to start. The fact that I had no qualifications and no clue what I was doing was inconsequential because I would be the only one attending. What I realize now was that I needed a commitment, an itinerary, and a new way of looking at things. Each concept that made sense and would actually

work made me feel creative and brought a sense of success already. I decided there would be no cooking, no makeup, no housework, no phone calls, and absolutely no Netflix, Hulu, or Prime. Often turning off what distracts us is half the problem. I got all my food ready as fast as possible and explained my scheme to my friends and told them I would call them on Monday. I cleaned my house in frenzied fashion and made it as lovely as possible. I decided my reward at the end of the day would be to crawl into bed and read a book I held in my hands. The fact that it was mine would allow me the luxury of writing in the margins and underlining the sentences. The last detail I added was unexpected: I decided that if this weekend was going to be about problem-solving, I would add a nice morning walk to improve my circulation and oxygenate my brain cells. Two birds, one stone. It was a huge success! I typed for 9 hours the first day, 10 the second, and 8 on Sunday. I was happy, energized, inspired, and the weekend had been full of delightful achievements. Having others with me would have been enjoyable, but the isolation worked great. I have decided that next month there will be a second Workshop and will probably include some writing time in my lovely garden, a more well-thought-out menu, and even roses for the table. I share this idea with others because what I really needed to do was look for a solution in an unlikely place. I have a friend who loved the idea and said she could do the same as an artist. Repeated short-term successes build on long-term achievements.

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connection through community

125 VILLAGE LANE BIGFORK, MONTANA MAXSMARKETMT.COM @MAXSMARKETMT

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| LIFE

seeking definition BY SYDNEY MUNTEANU

I’m a person who’s big on words. I’ve built a career out of communicating ideas, I’ve kept journals since I can remember learning how to write, I dabble in poetry, I host a podcast, and I write stories for fun. Words are, to me, the tools in my tool chest. So this word community… Comes with mixed emotions. As someone who’s ingrained in the world of marketing, community is a buzzword I’ve come to eye with suspicion. Every brand, influencer, and entrepreneur wants to “build community,” “create a space for community,” “engage in the community”…the list goes on. And also, as someone who lives in a small, destination resort town that has tripled its annual growth rate in 2020,1 this word has come to take on meaning that vies for protection. And personally, now carries more judgement than I’d like to admit. For me, community has become a word of conflicting interests. It signifies both togetherness and covetability. Resentment and welcoming. It’s the appreciation for the close few friends I had been able to spend deep time within the confines of quarantine, and the friends far away that I hug hard when I finally get to see them through travel. It’s immense appreciation for the beautiful town I live in, and too, migrated to just four years ago. Community is the spiritual circle of new women friends I’ve discovered and also the girlfriends of decades who’ve carried my longest string of chats. As a woman of words, I thought about this issue for quite some time (too much, in fact, that I considered skipping it). But instead, I decided to ask the women of Montana, the ones from my own community of connections and networks. I wanted to ask them. I wanted to see if I could distill some new meaning into this very now term: community. SYDNEY MUNTEANU is a communications and branding strategist with a passion for storytelling. She grew up in Colorado and received her B.S. from the University of Colorado, Boulder and left in 2012 to pursue a marketing career in Los Angeles. After 5 years of city life, the call back to the mountains was too great and she found (and fell in love with) her new home in Whitefish, Montana. Sydney has a marketing consulting business working with food & beverage, wellness, and women’s brands. Connect and find her work at backlabelbranding.com Brown, Kellyn. “Population Perspective.” Flathead Beacon, 27 Oct. 2020.

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LIFE |

My community feels to me like the ocean… Open, warm, and buoyant. Both offer infinite resources, wisdom, and support. For that I am immensely grateful! MEGAN ULRICHS

Community to me, especially right now, is the support that individuals and businesses show each other. Being a part of a community that collaborates and builds each other up is a special thing! NICOLE ERICKSON

Community means a shared collective. Shared triumphs and tribulations, shared love and loss, lifting up and holding space. All you are feeling/experiencing/needing is filtered through the collective and shared. Shared support. Being held in that space where we can just be and know sometimes our role is to receive the support, through the ups and downs in equal measure, and sometimes our role is to give the support. L AUREN OSCILOWSKI

Community means unconditional support through togetherness. In the classes I teach, I often talk about the sacred space we create by coming together to breathe, move, feel, process, and integrate. An authentic community creates space for its members to show up as they are — on their best day, their worst day, and every day in between — knowing that no matter what victory they're celebrating or battle they're fighting, they are welcome, supported, accepted, and valued. -

CAROLYN WILLIAMS

Some may think of community as the people who surround them geographically… i.e., people who live in the same town or county. I like to think I have a little more control over my community. My community includes people from a few different states/different geographical locations and many different walks of life. I rely on the members to give me the support and unconditional love I need to be the strongest version of myself. My community continues to expand as I'm able to form more connections with people who are committed to their personal growth, consequently encouraging mine. My community is small, but is continuously growing. Increasing members means increasing strength, opportunity, love, and support, which is essential for cultivating the safety needed on the individual level in order to thrive. CHRISTI O’CONNOR

Community means everything. I've witnessed first-hand how life-changing it is to feel seen, heard, and supported by a group of like-minded individuals. You start to believe in yourself. You begin to dream bigger. You chase goals, you get after it, and you inspire others to do the same. It doesn't matter if the community you're a part of is digital, in-person, one person, or a thousand— the feeling of being supported can ultimately change your life.

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CASSIDY WENDELL

Right now, community means a space where people are looking out for one another, helping strangers because it’s the right thing to do, and showing kindness and understanding over disdain and mistrust. MARITSA GEORGIOU

Community is my family. It’s my girls appreciating the first tendrils of spring as much as my mom did. It’s an ongoing text thread with my best friends, staying connected across mountains and deserts and seasons. Community is growing with two new babies joining our little pod this summer. It’s neighbors on the opposite end of the political spectrum who swing by to make sure we’re okay and sit and chat anyway. It’s dirtbag happy hour in the driveway with kids and friends after a day of skiing. Community is what keeps me afloat— life’s philosophical high notes rolled into one central pillar of spirit and strength. COURTNEY NIELSEN

To me, community means being in connection with my surroundings and the people, animals, and nature that I am sharing my space with. It means feeling part of a collective or lineage that reflects an integral part of who I am as an individual and so allows me to feel oneness and kinship with others. Community is having somewhere you can go where you can feel seen, heard, and understood. Community means embracing that we are never alone. EMILY ANDERSON

It is really complicated, but my best answer is, I am consciously relearning what community means to me… I am in the process of divorce right now, and with that unburdening of so much heaviness, I am finally able to start my reclamation, but it is a little daunting and a bit disheartening. My sisters, my mom, and my kids have pretty much been my community for so long. This small, lovely group of people who are always there for each other in big and small ways, no judgement, speaking their truth, showing up, offering up unconditional love, and who share the heartaches with as much enthusiasm as the happy times. Right now, today, that is what community means to me. Ask me again in a year, and I’m sure my answer will be much more full and rich; after all, the caterpillar can only stay in its cocoon so long. KARI L ANE

I don’t believe in only one collective. I have my Pilates people, friends, family, and where I live. It’s the support, encouragement, and comfort that makes something identifiable as a community. And the willingness to make sacrifices that unify us as one. DELIA BUCKMASTER

Since my separation, I feel as if a strong community of supportive women has gathered around me. I have received an abundance of love, support, and friendships trying to raise me back up. It has meant the world to me. When I didn’t feel brave and strong, they kept reminding me I am. So many women I knew only on brief encounters have taken the time to reach out and show their support or share their personal unhappiness to let me know I am never alone. I know there is no right or wrong answer, but the community of women that have shown up for me is all I kept thinking about.

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BROOKE CONE

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LIFE |

afullmeadow of sunflowers

BY STEPHANIE MOSBRUCKER

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have been pondering the importance of going deep within myself to find answers on how to better support my family and community. How do I create my personal community in trying times? What are my core values at this time in my life? Life has thrown hardballs into most of our lives recently, and as we start to navigate what life will look like in the future, I realize the importance of knowing what has changed and then looking at how we can better the circumstance. A lot of times we, as humans, get stuck in our patterns— our patterns are familiar and comfortable. Sometimes though, the comfort isn’t from pleasure or contentment but from being familiar. We can become stuck and unaware of what life could be like because of being in that familiarity. I keep imagining a river— I’ll call this river the River Know. It’s a familiar river. You know its patterns, its turns and pools. It is where you are frolicking now. You may feel comfort here knowing the sharpness or the smoothness of the rocks. You may feel comfort here recognizing the beautiful flora or the irritating stinging nettle. You may feel comfort here with the refreshing and clean water or comfort in the stagnant, still space that holds onto warmth. My point with all of this visualization is comfort isn’t always what is best for you; yes, it is familiar, but is it really comfortable? Is it healthy? Are you feeling comfortable in the discomfort because it is what you know? Fast forward…

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It’s Wednesday, and I am in a local restaurant writing this article. I’m surrounded by strangers. I feel invisible as I sit and listen to the banter surrounding me. The banter is soothing me like a lullaby, and I hear the phrase “Manic Monday” in my head, over and over again. You see, I spent my entire 9-hour Monday, alone in my kitchen, on Zoom, getting divorced from my best friend of the last 21 years. I may be experiencing a post-traumatic response. I have only told a handful of people. I didn’t reach out for support. I’m not sure why, but I chose to grieve and mourn alone; it feels, to me, to be a safe choice. I don’t feel comfortable being vulnerable in front of the people I know. I feel weak and out of “control.” It has felt like I am attending a funeral, my own funeral. I am feeling a bit delirious because I haven’t been able to eat or drink the last couple of days, a side eﬀect of grief. Surrounding myself with strangers in my community gives me space and gives me a chance to grieve comfortably. Grieve without the familiar judgements I’ve been hearing in my head: “I told you so. Why didn’t you work harder? He’s such a great guy. You two were so cute together. He’s such a great dad. You didn’t oﬀer enough monetary value to the marriage, you were just a housewife. Why didn’t you try to be like everyone else in your community? Why didn’t you jump in that box? You were probably not good enough for him…” That last one, that mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

was my own judgement. That is really why I’m surrounding myself with strangers. They have no idea who I am, who he is, and what my side of the story is. They don’t know my Inner Critter/Critic, the name of my familiar patterns— my river. My river is called Alone. I call it this because it feels safer to be alone than it is to be vulnerable. If I am alone, I don’t have to be disappointed with anyone else but myself. I don’t have to feel abandonment. I feel in “control.” I realize, as I write this, I am abandoning my happiness in love and relationships, in friends and family, and the experience of having a support system. My River Know/Now/ Alone is a rogue river of abandonment, abandonment of myself. The judgement of myself that I have never been good enough or smart enough or have enough to oﬀer anyone. The truth is, though, I am love. I love, I care, I feel, I empower, I encourage and support. I feel so much. I teach yoga at the Yoga Hive in Whitefish, Montana. Yoga is so much more than movement, and I discovered that my ability to feel so much has been an important tool in my practice. My classes always start and end with meditation— a guided meditation that allows Yogis to give themselves permission to be open, be vulnerable in a safe space, and feel comfortable. In the last couple years of teaching this practice, I have noticed the shift that happens from the beginning of class to the end. It is amazing to see, and it is a wonderful feeling knowing that I helped guide. I start to recognize on this Wednesday after my Manic Monday that I was guiding all of these beautiful souls to embrace their vulnerability and to give themselves permission to be open, to be the light, to embrace the light. To give themselves permission to love themselves, but I was not giving myself permission to do the same. I feel my River Know/ Now/Alone start to shift course and a sense of urgency to reorient myself. I am now closing my eyes in this restaurant full of strangers, and I start to transcend my body and guide myself into meditation. In this moment, I see the familiar faces of each and every 86

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student I have ever had in class. I see that they are extending their love and light outwardly to me in the way I have guided them in the past. I start to see my friends and family. They are all reaching out, and I am on the receiving end. I feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. I feel my front body expanding outward and excepting their support, their love, and understanding. I visualize that each and every person there in my mind’s eye as a sunflower, deeply rooted in a meadow on the banks of a river. I recall that sunflowers reach toward the sun when it is visible overhead, but when it rains, they face one another. I see these beautiful Sunflowers, and I realize they are my community— they always have been. I have never given myself permission to accept that I really do belong, that I am good enough, and I am right where I need to be. I have found my company among the wild sunflowers, and I have never been alone. I take a deep breath all the way to the crown of my head and hold it for a moment, allowing myself to feel held, and as I release that breath softly through my nose, I finally feel at home. The time is now. It is always now. Give yourself permission to be supported in your community. You are right where you need to be. “Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” –MĀORI PROVERB

STEPHANIE MOSBRUCKER is a lover of nature, ceremony, movement and adventure. She is the mother of four magical spirits, Writer, Ceremony Officiant, Yoga Instructor at Yoga Hive, and Retreat Leader. She was born in Montana with the spirit of a fairy, the mouth of a sailor and the heart of a hippie. She learned early in childhood that Mother Nature and expression with movement and words were three vital ingredients to a beautiful life. The ability to release tensions, aggressions, anxiety and fear while in nature is a tonic. She would like to share with all who walk into her path how to open their senses to all the magic that surrounds us in this beautiful state and to extend it into their life. Body, mind and spirit.

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FIVE STAR READERS REVIEWER KC FINN: Author J. Leigh Brown has crafted a unique and conceptual tale of murder, crime, and revenge which is like nothing I’ve ever read in the genre before. It was just as compelling as any murder mystery, but here the political and environmental plot really takes over and presents a new viewpoint. I loved the visual concept of the Ink Prayer vigilantes, who were emphasized through some fantastic action scenes that had a cinematic feel to them. One of the most powerful aspects of the novel had to be the message of rebellion against corruption, a pertinent theme in today’s world more than ever, and it was delivered with confident prose, compelling dialogue scenes, and a plot filled with surprising and thought-provoking twists. This exciting story takes place after a manslaughter that results in no justice whatsoever for its innocent victims. What follows is a suspenseful plot to seek revenge in a truly unusual way, utilizing nature and environmental rebellion to take a stand against corruption and leave a message that crime will never pay.

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BY JENNY EVANS

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he town I grew up in had a population of seven. We didn’t actually call it a town or a village or a development; we called it a community. My father worked for the FAA, which meant our family was transferred all around Alaska. We moved from one small community to another. I distinctly remember that the word “community” was used to describe any of our hometowns in Alaska— regardless of the demographic, the size, the geographical location, or any other factors.

swap. It is from these early memories that I now realize that creating, finding, and maintaining community takes work. It is a place or a person, a relationship, or a group that evokes a sense of pride, synergy, a sense of growth, and quite possibly most important, an ability to question oneself and others without threat, judgement, or fear. We have to ask ourselves the hard questions; we have to be open to learning what a specific community stands for, what it needs, and how we can contribute.

I was fortunate to travel for work and experienced a portion of what this great earth has to offer for most of my twenties. I got to walk through the Louvre with an art history professor. I ran in the mountains of Switzerland with the cows and the sunshine. I learned Swahili in order to teach English at a small orphanage in Tanzania. I spent a few nights with the great people that run the airport in Narsaraq, Greenland. I explored the geysers and hot springs in Iceland and tried my best to get a work visa in New Zealand so I could stay much, much longer. I’ve watched the tides change in the Bay of Fundy and camped in some of the most remote mountains in Wyoming. I’ve enjoyed Broadway and fantastic wine lists in New York City and feasted on fresh dates from a tree with royals in Saudi Arabia.

Community is a collective that works together to make the place, the people, and the culture better, more full of life, fulfilled, and dare I say happy. In these times when everyone is navigating finding their sense of belonging, safety, challenge, and happiness, I am forever grateful to be in my community. It’s an environment that I have worked hard to find, create, and nourish— where people help one another, support each other, question, love, respect, and embrace differences and, most of all, a community where we can all work hard without fear of being who we are. Finding this has taken over twenty years of travel, exploring, questioning, and admitting fault, all of which I am better for. I am better because of my work for and within my community.

But most of the places I’ve traveled have been just that— places. These places have enriched my life with exposure to Mother Earth, different cultures, foods, beliefs, animals, and so much more. However, in all of my treks and travels, I have rarely found locations I would call a “community.” It wasn’t until recently that I realized the reason I have not thought of many of these now-distant towns, villages, and cities as a “community” is because I was not invested in any of these circles, locations, or people. Growing up in small communities meant my family worked hard to help provide for everyone around us. We would hunt for Moose, and that Moose would not just feed our family, it would feed everyone. We would pick blueberries for endless days to contribute to the seasonal berry

I am in a place that provides me with happiness and connection through all aspects. Whether it is seven people or 7,000, people I am grateful to have found my community and hope you are able to put in the work to find yours. JENNY EVANS & her husband own Max’s Market (an organic market, cafe, bar, live music venue, and espresso bar) and Flathead Lake Resort in Bigfork, Montana. Jenny has spent most of her life in small towns, in the air (she is a pilot), and roaming the earth looking for the perfect place to call home. She loves all animals, loves to downhill mountain bike, run, surf, hike, and wander around in the forest. Jenny is passionate about local and organic foods, reducing waste, and connecting with humans, nature, and herself; she is honored to call Montana home.

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LIFE |

BY NICOLE DUNN

m o nt a n a w o ma n ma g a zi ne | is s ue 12

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power of the people

hile I do not feel as though I used to take the power of community for granted, I can say that in the wake of covid, I have been given the opportunity to have my appreciation for it amplified. (Cue melodic harp music indicating the approach of a memory story here)

friends— the beloved community that I invest in, prioritize, and share my life with every week. My meditation group has taught me that community isn’t just a cool-sounding word or some feel-good idea. Community is a way of taking refuge in the power of the people and dislodging myself from the pitfalls of individualism. For me, the naïve and misplaced coolness factor of being the lone wolf died out long ago and was replaced with the medicinal value of togetherness— and not in some glossy pollyanna-ish way, but in the true spirit of what it means to be nourished and supported by others who are travelling in the same direction.

Picture it: Missoula 2002. (Did I mention that the Golden Girls is my all-time favorite show? If you don’t get this reference: one of the characters is known for starting her stories this way). I was 23-years-old, and my husband and I had just moved back to Missoula after spending a little over two years living and traveling around out When I pan out to take in the larger view of of state. Shortly after landing back in Missoula, what community is all about, I have the felt sense, I started a meditation group. The gist was that fueled by my experience with my meditation I wanted to establish a group, that it’s also the way personal sitting meditation COMMUNIT Y IS A WAY in which I engage with the practice, but I knew enough world around me. From OF TAKING REFUGE about myself to know that I how I treat cashiers at the didn’t have enough oomph market to the frequency in IN THE POWER OF to do it alone. I did, however, which I reach out to friends have the skillset to hold who are going through a THE PEOPLE AND down the fort for starting hard time, from the tone a group. So. I posted a few of voice I use when talking flyers to advertise, and a DISLODGING MYSELF with my husband to how group was born. I’m not I greet people I walk by FROM THE PITFALLS trying to undersell it. It in my neighborhood. In really wasn’t much more viewing life through the OF INDIVIDUALISM. lens of community and involved than that. interconnection, I see Over the course of the next few years, a funny clearly how we all are truly in this thing together. little thing happened: a community developed. What I do and say matters and makes a difference. What started out as a way to practice sitting How I show up matters and makes a difference. meditation with the support of others turned into Every single time. a budding and lovely establishment of friends. Community does not create itself; it is developed Fast forward to today, and here we are still going and strengthened over time. And it takes the strong. While it’s not the same as being able to work and heart of all of us, ongoingly. Power to gather in person, with the power of Zoom, we the people. Power of the people. Onward ho! are still meeting every week on Monday night. So we can now say that we’ve been meeting for NICOLE DUNN is a Missoula-based writer, over 18-years come rain, snow, summer, holiday, community organizer, poet, ordained member of or pandemic. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, and program director of Be Here Now, a weekly mindfulness & I can’t imagine what this past year would’ve meditation group she founded in 2002. For more been like without having had the ability to stay info: InMindfulMotion.com in contact and connection with my meditation group. This group is more than just a collection of people meditating together. It’s my circle of mon tan awoman .com | may/j une 2 02 1

WELLNESS |

movement communities that transcend fitness BY MINDY COCHRAN | LEVITATION NATION

a kid, my parents had me enrolled in nearly every ball sport you could think of: basketball, softball, volleyball, soccer— none of which really resonated with me. So, in my 20s, without an activity to be passionate about, it should come as no surprise that I struggled to maintain a healthy weight. It wasn’t until sometime into my third decade (while I was going through an emotionally turbulent divorce) that I wandered into a group fitness class for the first time. I immediately fell in love with exercise classes as a way to activate the endorphin rush, something I needed terribly during that challenging time of my life. I loved it all: spinning, barre, cardio pump, but I especially fell in love with Zumba. I promptly got my certification to teach Zumba, and it wasn’t long before I expanded on my newfound love of dance and created my own high-energy dance brand called “Dance Nation,” which was based around pop, hip-hop, and electronic dance music. Around the same time Dance Nation was gaining popularity, I tried an aerial silks class at the Flathead Gymnastics Academy (Kalispell, MT) for the first time and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Unfortunately, the instructor was only here in Montana teaching classes for three months, so to learn the aerial arts after she left, I was limited to a self-guided practice. It was a very challenging thing to teach myself, and although I love a good challenge, I also jumped on the

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opportunity to take classes whenever I traveled. I even had one memorable lesson from a performer from the world-renowned Cirque Du Soleil! I trained often and I trained hard. In the fall of 2012, the owner of Flathead Gymnastics invited me to start classes back up— this time, as the instructor. Because the fitness classes radically transformed my life during a time when I really needed movement medicine, I started dreaming of opening my own fitness studio so that I could empower others the way that I had been empowered. But I wanted a place that was focused on more than just cardio and weight lifting. I wanted to create a space to meet other like-minded women: women looking for opportunities for growth and strength in their life; women who might be dealing with similar issues of depression, body image issues, doubts, or fears; women who wanted to focus on selfnourishing movement as a means to unlocking their fullest potential. I wanted to create a female-oriented wellness community that would transcend fitness. In 2015, I manifested my vision when I opened doors to the Levitation Nation Aerial Studio and started offering aerial fitness classes to the Flathead Valley. Our certified instructors and aerial performers teach unique classes on pole fitness, aerial silks, and aerial hoop, but we offer more than just classes. Levitation Nation is a safe space for women to explore movement and

LEVITATION NATION STUDENT SHOWCASE | IMAGE BY SHELBY MCGRADY

creativity; a place where there is no judgement; an opportunity for growth, sisterhood, and connection. And while I am passionate about our femaleoriented aerial studio, there is no denying that incredible bonds happen in other fitness communities as well. Anywhere you find group fitness, you will find that inspiration and motivation are boosted when shared amongst fellow community members. Boutique studios (specializing in any fitness modality) are great for those looking to connect with a crew because the small size offers an opportunity to not only create a close relationship with the trainers, but clients can also easily connect with each other. Participants of Levitation Nation’s classes have been known to speak about how the community “lifts each other up” and “helps each other overcome self-imposed barriers.” Looking back, I realize now my parents got that from basketball and softball as well. All movement communities transcend fitness because they help you engage

in and stay connected to your life. So, if you are in need of a paradigm shift in your life and you haven’t yet found your movement community, I implore you to try the class; play the game. Because the game you are playing might not be a simple game of soccer— it is often the game of life. When you play, stay open to possibilities and deep connection; and simultaneously, you will stay open to finding a community that will help you on your path to building an extraordinary life. MINDY COCHRAN is the founder of Kalispell’s Levitation Nation Aerial Studio, where the catchphrase “fitness is fun” is embodied alongside a culture of movement & women empowerment. Mindy believes that “The Real Levitation Experience” lies within elevating your health & wellness. Mindy loves to share the expertise she has acquired through her certifications as a personal trainer and life coach. For more about Mindy or Levitation Nation, please visit www.levitationnation.org.

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WELLNESS |

HEART HEALTH women and heart disease

PROVIDED BY KALISPELL REGIONAL HEALTHCARE

simple walk around the block or an afternoon of moving around doing yard work could be just the daily activity you need to keep your heart healthy and strong. “The act of getting up off the couch and moving around increases your health and vitality immensely,” explains Sharon Hecker, MD, cardiologist at Kalispell Regional Healthcare. “It doesn’t matter if you walk a few blocks or run a marathon because the bulk of the cardiovascular benefit comes from just getting up and starting to exercise.” Every year in the United States, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death for women. And, many women are unaware that symptoms of heart disease in women can differ from those of men. Although women do experience chest pain generally associated with heart attack, they commonly have other more subtle symptoms, including fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath, and general discomfort in the chest and abdominal area. “If women notice unusual shortness of breath when waking from sleep or during the day, making it hard to carry on a conversation, they should immediately report those symptoms to a healthcare professional,” Dr. Hecker says. Smoking also can increase women’s risk for heart attack up to five times that of nonsmokers. The best way to lower your risk of heart disease is to exercise regularly, eat a healthful diet, manage stress levels, avoid smoking, and limit alcohol. “We recommend keeping blood pressure below 140/90 mmHg if you are healthy and 130/80 mmHg if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart or kidney disease,” says Dr. Hecker. “And, 98

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in general, maintenance of healthy body weight is one of the most important ways to prevent high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoarthritis, heart disease, and many other conditions.” Some risk factors are beyond one’s control, including: Risk of heart disease increases in postmenopausal women. FAMILY HISTORY: Women with parents with heart disease are most likely to develop it. RACE: African-American and Hispanic women are at greater risk than Caucasian women. AGE:

Even if you have these risks, certain lifestyle changes can improve your overall outlook, according to the American Heart Association. Women can decrease risk quickly and significantly by not smoking, eating a diet low in saturated fat that includes five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily, exercising regularly, and controlling high blood pressure and cholesterol. “No one is too old to exercise,” says Dr. Hecker. “You can build fitness into your nineties. Exercise and movement are important and essential at every age.” Although the symptoms of heart disease may vary, prevention is similar for men and women. Everyone who adopts a healthy lifestyle is doing a lot to decrease the risk of heart disease. “I love teaching others about heart health,” explains Dr. Hecker. “It is particularly rewarding to partner with patients to work on a healthy lifestyle as well as to help them use appropriate medications/procedures to optimize their quality of life. When patients feel better, they live better lives; and that makes me feel really good too.”

Questions about pain management?

Dr. Coles has answers. What does a pain management physician do? Pain management physicians evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients with pain. We use physical exam, imaging, and other tests to identify causes of pain and consider treatments. We use a wide range of treatments, including lifestyle interventions like improving diet, activity levels, sleep, and mood in conjunction with medications and procedures.

What types of conditions does a pain management physician treat? Anna Coles, MD Physical Medicine/Rehab

The most common conditions we see are back pain, widespread pain such as in fibromyalgia, peripheral neuropathy, migraines, pelvic or abdominal pain, and joint pain. We also manage pain that persists after neurologic injury such as after a stroke or spinal cord injury.

Should I see a pain management physician? You should see a pain management physician if you have pain that has been present for several weeks, beyond the expected healing time of an injury, that is also impacting your quality of life and function.

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Anna Coles, call the Montana Center for Wellness and Pain Management at (406) 756-8488.

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Montana Woman Magazine, Issue No. 12, May/June 2021

Articles inside

found.

To Be Known: small towns in a city

Letter from the Editor

Erin Bolster: Connecting Community Through Cannabis

A Badass Rodeo of Women: The Red Ants Pants Foundation Girl's Leadership Program

From Gold: Monica Gilles-BringsYellow and the Reclamation of Living History