The Bob Marshall Wilderness is unique. With much of its 1.5 million acres practically untouched by humanity, the natural stronghold has long been a source of inspiration for outdoor enthusiasts, storytellers and artists.
Every year, artists, either alone or in pairs, trek through miles of the Bob as participants of the Artist Wilderness Connection residency program. With pack horses, the artists hike into the wilderness with all the supplies they need to live and create for around 10 days.
Ultimately they reach a cabin, their home for the upcoming days. The pack horses leave, and they are left alone with nature.
The Bob’s beauty and solitude inspires creativity, the artists say.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Artist Wilderness Connection, a residency program through the Flathead National Forest, Hockaday Museum of Art, Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation and Swan Valley Connections. Through the program, artists get placed in backcountry Forest Service cabins to create work in a remote wilderness setting.
Over the past two decades, the program has sent a wide array of artists into the Bob, including painters, poets, writers, photographers, musicians and more. Since 2004, 56 artists have participated.
“My interest in painting is fueled largely by my love for my home state,” said local artist Rob Akey. “The wilderness is a large part of that.”
Akey, born in Whitefish, participated in the program in 2009 at Pendant Cabin. The painter did the residency alone, spending one week in a valley overlooked by Lena Peak. There are a lot of unknowns in the wilderness and you just have to roll with it, he said.
During his stay, Akey took in the sights and sounds of his surroundings, seemingly intensified by isolation. When the sun went down, it was completely black.
While he was alone, Akey was consistently aware of the solitude. But he was not alone for every moment. Part of his stay was rainy, and thru-hikers would sometimes stop and visit with Akey over a cup of coffee. A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks crew, doing a drainage survey on the Salmon River, camped outside the cabin for a couple nights. Dining together, Akey learned about fish, the crew about art.
Art, in its simplest form, was the reason Akey went into the Bob alone.
“I just thought that total immersion would be good,” Akey said. “I grew to really like it.”
Akey, who creates fine art oil paintings, said he quickly fell in love with pure landscape painting and street scenes. During his time in the Bob, Akey painted serene forest landscapes and views from the top of Lena Peak.
In 2017, local painters Gini Ogle and Francesca Droll packed into the Bob as well, staying at Granite Cabin together. For them both, their time in the Artist Wilderness Connection program made it clear that art was a career they loved and wanted to continue to pursue.
“We wanted to be in a place where we didn’t have to think about everyday life. We wanted to just be in a spot where we could just think about nothing except what we were going to paint,” Droll said.
Droll is a graphic designer by trade, picking up pastels in 2006. As a pastel artist, Droll focuses on the lines and blendings of a landscape, specifically falling in love with plein air or painting outdoors.
The Bob was always a mysterious place, Droll said. She had spent some time there before, for example, packing in on horses with friends for her 50th birthday. During the pair’s residency, they made friends with an eagle who flew over their cabin. They watched a black bear cross the river and painted every minute they could.
“I would do it again in a minute,” Ogle said.
The mission of their trip, according to Ogle, was to explore the possibilities of their work without distractions; to honor nature and bring awareness to the value of the wilderness.
Ogle is an oil and watercolor artist. She picked up painting in 2014 as a career after calligraphy.
“The greatest learning experiences come when you’re immersed in your art,” she said of the time spent in the Bob. “You just grow exponentially.”
Richie Carter stayed in the same cabin as Droll and Ogle the year before with his friend and fellow painter Kenneth Yarus. Carter looked forward to the residency as a time to “see things in a different way” and appreciate the special nature of Northwest Montana.
“When you get in there, there’s nothing. And it’s really humbling,” Carter said. “…It’s such an enriching experience.”
Carter is an artist who specializes in large-scale still life and landscape paintings. The donated work, from his residency, is of the Granite Cabin outhouse, a true luxury for backcountry camping.
At a speaker series for the residency program hosted earlier this month, an audience member asked Carter why he chose to paint an outhouse when there was so much nature happening around him.
While being in solitude is nice, Carter responded, there is a draw to manmade things among that solitude. Perhaps, he said, it is a sentiment to how human community and presence exist and long for connection within that solitude too.
Over their time spent in the Bob, the artists weren’t creating masterpieces, they said. It was a time, rather, to learn, experiment and observe. Subjectively, the works that came out of these painter’s residency could be considered masterpieces. But for them, the experience was about more than that.
“The most development is disconnecting from all the crap, the technology, the service, the phone, every email. To have 10 days in the Bob Marshall… it was such a good time to be isolated, but for the purpose of being isolated and creating,” Carter said.
For the people behind the residency program, that is the goal.
“That was always the idea,” said Alyssa Cordova, executive director of the Hockaday Museum of Art. “Connecting artists to land, to the wilderness, knowing that this area has always had this history of being an inspiration.”
The program selects artists through an application process, but there are no residents for the current year as the program celebrates its anniversary through a special exhibit at the Hockaday in June.
The exhibition will encompass 20 years of creations made in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. As part of the residency, each artist is required to donate a piece of work to the program; come June, photos, information about the program, stories, audio tours, paintings and more about the experience of creating in the Bob will come together for public viewing.
Applications for 2025 open in October. For more information on the program, visit https://www.bmwf.org/awc.
Reporter Kate Heston can be reached at kheston@dailyinterlake.com or 758-4459.
Gini Ogle, a former resident of the Artist Wilderness Connection program, is seen next to a painting she completed during her residency in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. (Kate Heston/Daily Inter Lake)
Kenneth Yarus and Richie Carter paint on the river in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. (Photo courtesy of the Hockaday Museum of Art)
Rob Akey paints outside of Pendant Cabin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. (Photo courtesy of Rob Akey)
A painting completed by Rob Akey during his time at Pendant Cabin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. (Photo courtesy of Rob Akey)
Rob Akey stands in the doorway of Pendant Cabin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. (Photo courtesy of Rob Akey)