Jer and I are now at the Montana Artists’ Refuge, Basin, Montana, in the southwest part of the state. I am painting, he is writing and editing, and we are both experiencing the dislocation and joy of a new adventure.
While the residency has all kinds of ins-and-outs, basically I came here to paint. And painting is what I’ve been doing.
Basin lies in a geographical bowl, surrounded by pine-covered mountains. It’s a mining town — still has a functioning gold mine — and seems to have had its moments of prosperity, most of which were in the past.
Basin Street, Basin, Montana. The main drag.
The MAR has two buildings, one of which is a 1909 two story bank building. We have the full first floor, with living quarters at the back and the studio in the front.
The step ladder you see in the window helps when the quilted window coverings fall down — about twice a day. But the curtains are effective in keeping the studio warm(er).
This is the romanticized view of the front.
And this is the studio interior.The studio space, while a bit chilly, is perfect for me. It’s huge, so I can have everything laid out and obvious. (I can only remember to work on what I can see). The north windows are a story and a half high (hence the chill), the windows are right at sidewalk level, and there are also west windows that face the other MAR building next door — a brick wall worthy of a NYC warehouse studio.
In part, I am painting what I see through my windows and what I have photographed on daily walks through the tiny village (137 people, one restaurant/bar, no gas or groceries, and much evidence of mining of various minerals).
Basin Street, Basin, MT, Watercolor, 12 x 16″ This is the first painting I did here.
The higgledy-piggledy nature of the parked cars is merely a part of the slightly wacky layout (if one can say there is a “layout”) of the town itself. While it looks as if the street ends abruptly, it actually curves down and around the vehicles and continues in the same eccentric fashion for another quarter of a mile or so. The Refuge lies along the unseen part of the street.
A couple of buildings seem to have been carefully designed — in particular, the little church on the main street. 
The entrance to the church is a foyer built diagonally across one corner of the rectangular building, and it has the American Gothic arches to give it personality. It is topped by a roof, which is topped by a bell tower, which is topped by another roof.
These elements are subtly sized, drawing the eye upward, and, of course, behind the church rises a mountain. We saw the church at sunrise (10 AM in these parts) and at dusk (4 PM), and both times the steeple rose beautifully above the town and the hill. Jer caught it in a photo just at dusk, and I used that image to paint the oil on panel (12 x 16″) above.
The town appears not to have been platted — its roads, houses, and cars run in various directions, up and down the side hills, along Basin Creek and off alleys that seem to be off other alleys. Interstate 15 runs through the east side of Basin, which may account for some of the eccentric layout, but, even given that disruption, the town seems to have just grown, with houses behind trailers, in front of occupied shacks, with vacant brick buildings fronting the “downtown” sidewalk, flanked by one-story asbestos sided dwellings.
Side Street, Basin, Montana, oil on canvas, 12 x 16″
I feel as if I am working on capturing a disappearing landscape, one that existed before the developers and burbs took over. Like Tree, I’m documenting something about the way people live. This is a world which may, in the near future, simply cease to exist. I grew up in a town very like this, but it’s dissolved and swallowed up and disappeared, not even a Census Designated Place in the eyes of the world. Maybe the photos and paintings can give Basin more longevity.
But of course, in addition to waxing melancholy over a passing scene, I have another large project involving the geologic history of the world vis-a-vis my personal history (I’m nothing if not ambitious!) as well as a medium project of oils on large panels.
This is Portals 1, about 30 x 40″, oil on masonite panel. I have a second one well on the way. I’m hoping to be able to buy more masonite panels (I have just one blank one left) but the prospects don’t look good.
However, I do have a 22″ x 15′ canvas (as well as an 18″ x 15′ length and a 12″ x 15′ remnant) and a bunch of small panels, so I probably won’t suffer too greatly from the lack of supplies. The large project — the 22″ x 15′ canvas — is up on a vacant wall in the studio and has some markings on it. It will be acrylic and oil and is definitely too new to even begin to discuss. But having the canvas on the wall will remind me not to forget.
We are having Open House on Fridays from 2 to 4, to allow folks to see for themselves what’s going on. (Many have already walked by and waved at me through the windows). If any of you are near Basin, Montana, on a Friday in December or January, be sure to drop in.
And you can see other photographs of the area on our personal blog, southeastmain.
[Author’s note: If I make more than the usual typos and spelling and syntax errors, blame it on an unfamiliar (borrowed from Jer) computer — that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it]
June,
I guess you’re not going to be doing any plein air painting, but did the change of available subjects have anything to do with taking this retreat? Are you trying to eliminate the distractions of home?
The glowing church looks all alone in the valley, but not at all intimidated by the dark mountains.
Have your tried a home improvement store or lumberyard for your masonite? I’ve only checked at the art stores here, their max is 28×30.
Steve,
You have asked the embarrasing question — why come here to do what I do at home?
And the answer is — heavens, I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
But another real answer is itchy feet, a desire for new surroundings, a wish to experience more, different, new. A desire to challenge myself (what can you paint in the dead of winter in Basin, Montana? — quite a bit, it turns out). And now I see that it was fated, to return to something like my old hometown and see it with eyes that are different — like Monet and his paintings.
The studio windows and the digital photography give me some taste of pleine aire — it’s being part of a place that makes the pleine aire interesting to me. So even if I can’t paint outside, I can go out all wrapped up and come back in and paint what I just saw and/or photographed and printed up.
Your comment about the church is astute — it is very solid and very much itself. There’s a school that has something of the same architecture, two stories but with the bell tower, that also has a kind of self-possession.
I am reading a book about the Lochsa area and in one of the photos is an mission church with the same kind of steeple/tower arrangement. I wonder if there was a standard book of church architecture that one could follow.
Oh, and the masonite panels for the abstract work are only 18 x 24. They just seem big compared to the smaller 12 x 16s. So Bozeman has them, eh? Maybe we’ll have to drive east:-)
I see that I misspoke the size of the abstract painting — those masonite panels are 18 x 24. I think I have been working on very small pieces, so the panels looked big to me. I should go back to making quilts.
June3:
Here’s an idea: raid one of those asbestos-sided buildings. Such a delicious sense of danger and a reminder of the Basin minerality! The stuff should take paint beautifully. Abate with a coat or two of varnish.
I’ll be touching base with Southeastmain.
Jay,
Waxing sentimental seems in order. Do you remember one December 8th, in 1963, in a church even smaller than the Basin church? The temperatures were about the same there as they are here? We had no anti-freeze in our radiator and had to hitch a ride to the fire hall reception……
June:
An anniversary. Congrats.
I sure do. As I remember it, the radiator had frozen and our expectation that it would thaw out in transit didn’t pan out. What I like to recollect is how I was in attendance at both of yours and Jer’s marriage ceremonies.
Looking at one of the Basin photos put me in mind of north central Pa. what with the rounded mountain in the background. Your comment about the disappearing scene took me back to Renovo, which was like a little inhabited ghost town. I’m about to jump in the car for Hydetown, Pa., a little bigger than Basin, and itself utterly unchanged in the almost-forty years that I have known it.
‘Portals 1’ reminds me of your textiles!
The colorful houses in your paintings inspired last night’s dream. A woman friend took me to a part of town that I had never been to – elegant, colorful townhouses with little gardens. The most wonderful place was at the center where the streets meet: an inviting fabric store with fabulous textiles.
June,
I really like the first photo of regular life in the rugged land of pick-ups: the colors of the signs and garbage cans against the subdued landscape and also, the over-reaching gutter and downspout.
And the paintings are terrific, especially Basin Street and Side Street. Quirky and honest.
(Funny how you excluded what I liked most in the photo.)
And the answer is — heavens, I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
But another real answer is itchy feet, a desire for new surroundings, a wish to experience more, different, new. A desire to challenge myself (what can you paint in the dead of winter in Basin, Montana? — quite a bit, it turns out). And now I see that it was fated, to return to something like my old hometown and see it with eyes that are different — like Monet and his paintings.
Wonderful answer. This post makes me wish I were experiencing winter in Montana right now. A change in location is not always running away, escaping. It is searching for something new, knowledge, insight, EXPERIENCE. Travel is illuminating, even more so if there is a home to come back to.
It seems tha experience comes from travelling but realization comes with returning home, if that makes sense.
Hi all,
Birgit, I love your dream — it makes sense to me. Although elegance isn’t quite my style.
D. I laughed out loud when I read your comments. On my drawing table right now are a couple of studies of vehicles, most pick-ups. I realized quickly that I had to get those forms more clearly in my fingers. But really I did put some in in Basin Street — but I left out the downspout.
The real challenge (or one of them) will be to depict the area as it is, neither sarcastically nor romantically. It’s a funny fine line, easy to fall off of. I’ll have to keep working at it.
Sarah, we went off to Butte to a Gala dinner yesterday and to pick up all the things that we needed for housekeeping here. Butte was amazing — maybe the topic for another post — but coming “home” to Basin was delicious. Jer and I both felt that kind of excitement of knowing just where the light switches are and how to turn up the heat to just the right settings. So the coming home is truly part of the experience, the itchy feet, well scratched.
June,
In some roundabout way your work reminds me of how influenced I was by Agee/Walker’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Specifically: the complexities (and wonder) of our simple observations.
Oddly enough I recently read an excerpt from that book — I had read it many years ago. Thank you.
As I was painting this evening (working on a pick-up truck and a stuccoed, crookedly set trailer house, I was thinking that painting representationally may not be for the viewer of the painting, but for the painter herself. The observations that must be made, the pot of dead flowers beside the old lawnmower and the three broken plastic chairs — you can’t make it up and you can’t ignore its existence. All you can do is record it, so it sticks with you (or rather, so it sticks with me).
June,
I enjoyed reading about the residency.
The first watercolor is my favorite.
My issue with the third seems to be that the sky and the road mirrir each other. Maybe it is just me…
Great work overall.
June:
Your third painting, “Side Street”, just reeled me in. It’s kind of a catch-and-release phenomenon for me with these paintings, I’ll get hooked and then somethings slips a little. I start to think too much about the inventory. “side Street” on the other hand, has such a casual air, a quality of first impressions, before an experience of how things ought to look takes hold. Instead of an imposition of orderly perspectives, you employ a sort of free play: buildings oozing their own colors, scattered about in a spring, winter, fall place. And the composition is full of great tensions and compressions.
I am drawn to Portals 1. It has the June Underwood fingerprint, showing much but not total symmetry. The portals are an opening into the mountains, grey rock below, brown-red rock rising high above. A design breathing the mystical.
Sunil,
The sky and the road echoing each other was intentional, although I didn’t mean it to be distracting. oops, too much thought on my part?
Jay, the place (Basin, I mean) oozes its own essence (oops, bad word!). After seeing thousands of developer imposed burb-scapes, to see a place which has come to be as needed, not brought into existence and then sold, really makes me aware of what we are losing. I feel a bit like Emily Carr recording the disappearing totems of the Pacific Northwest. And I suspect the natives will be just as grateful.And then I think, “nonsense, even the most banal of burbs will eventually take on their own character” — viz Levittown (the original), which is now charming rather than pathetic.
Birgit, the portals are a result of both being here, in this unfamiliar territory, working through to slightly new identities between each other (Jer and I) as well as the world around; and of that little church — the arch motif being the most central connection. It’s strange to see how the most banal of art making (the church) gets metamorphized into something entirely Other.
June, your residency sounds great, and I like the work you’re doing. How long are you there?
I had a 2-month residency at MacDowell years ago in the middle of the winter, and it was one of the most productive periods of my life (and most fun too!)
David,
I’ll be here until January 31, god willin’ and the crick don’t rise (which doesn’t look likely as it’s frozen solid!)
June:
Your blog includes a shot of Basin, taken from a spot that registers with the painting in question. So true that a place of habitation such as this, beginning with a conformation to the dictates of the land and continuing with overlaps of development and use, many of them idiosyncratic, creates a motif into which the mind and eye yearns to delve. This sense of land, encrusted and bejeweled by the passage of time, must be very strong in Portland as it is here. Some few blocks away is an intersection where a CVS pharmacy sits astride a transition from paved-over indian trail to platted street. How to pull all of this together…
June
I am enjoying your work with scenes of Basin …. a very new to me way for you to “report” your surroundings in your art. There is a simple clarity to the shapes and colors that resonates with me as I walk through your place of residency.
Portals is a marvelous composition that invites the viewer to imagine what lies behind the doors. I particularly like this work of yours.The colors are rich and draw the eye to the two white “doors”.
Kristin