Whitefish’s downtown art galleries are hosting free events Aug. 1 during August’s first Thursday art walk.

Whitefish Gallery Nights takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the town’s many art venues. Galleries host artist receptions, offer refreshments and provide live music. For a full list of participating galleries, visit www.whitefishgallerynights.org.

Following are a few of this month’s featured artists: 

Stumptown Art Studio in Whitefish is featuring the artwork of Kim Waldman. Her “Ready Set Crow” exhibit will be on display until Sept. 2.

Waldman discovered a passion for painting in her mid-20s, when she began to create self-portraits and vivid gouache painting of circus performers, musicians and dancers.

“Then birds flew into my work,” she says.

The self-taught artist loves all birds but is especially drawn to crows, “their vulnerability, their beauty and their quiet intelligence.”

Waldman refers to herself as a “folk expressionist.” Her colorful, whimsical paintings meld negative space, elaborate, finely detailed patterns and metaphor.  Her work can be seen at www.motherbirdart.com.

“Ready Set Crow” can be viewed at the nonprofit community art center, located at 145 Central Ave. For more details, call 862-5929 or visit www.stumptownartstudio.org.

The Purple Pomegranate, a fine craft specialty store, is featuring work by Whitefish photographer Michael Chilcoat during the month of August.

Chilcoat’s work has been published in popular magazines including Town & Country, Outdoor Photography, Departures Magazine, and Travel and Leisure.

Chilcoat lives in Whitefish to be close to the wild, natural, outdoor spaces he loves. His favorite subjects to shoot are beautiful, interestingly lit landscapes to create large fine art prints; outdoor action for catalog and Web; and wildlife in the great outdoors. He shoots with Canon equipment and does all his own printing.

"There is nothing quite like being in the moment, seeing an event in nature that will never happen in exactly the same way again,” Chilcoat says. “The goal of my photography is to show the simple beauty in these events, such as the rise of a trout, the first storms of winter or the peace in the stillness of a forest.”

The Purple Pomegranate is located at 222 Central Ave. For more information, call 862-7227 or visit www.purplepomegranate.com.

The Walking Man Frame Shop and Gallery features Chicago photographer Kurt Kramer in August.

His “Hanging On: Portraits of an American Rodeo” features photographs taken at the Blue Moon Rodeo in Columbia Falls.

Kramer has been a photographer since 1967. He says he shoots all subject matter: “If the scene is interesting and the light enhances it, I’ll shoot the picture.”

The gallery is located at 305 Baker Ave. For more information, call 863-2787 or find The Walking Man on Facebook.

Jest Gallery will feature Montana landscape artist Roger Rink in August.

“My work, which is primarily located in the genre of landscape, is deeply rooted in place,” Rink says.

“Glacier Park and the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains, where the prairie meets the mountains, are constantly changing and eternally unchanged places. Living and working in a landscape defined both by transformation and permanence makes the project of painterly representation a uniquely spiritual endeavor for me.”

Dan Dubuque will provide live music during Whitefish Gallery Nights. The gallery will host a reception for Rink Friday.

Jest Gallery is located at 305 E. Second St. For more information, call 862-5777 or visit www.jestgallery.com.

Rob Akey will be the featured artist at Going to the Sun Gallery in August.

Akey will be showcasing new works, including paintings of Glacier National Park.

Akey is a Whitefish painter who has worked as a full-time artist since 2005.

"I've been studying the American Impressionists, a genre curiously absent from most art history curriculum,” he says. “The influence and benefit to my work has been significant. I'm attracted to their use of a tonalist palette, combined with a painterly technique that is neither contrived nor clever.”

Going to the Sun Gallery is located at 137 Central Ave. For more information, call 862-2751 or visit www.goingtothesungallery.com.

Rachel Warner is the featured artist in August at the Dick Idol Signature Gallery.

Warner, a nationally known artist who resides in the Flathead Valley, will exhibit six new paintings, with inspiration taken from the Flathead. She is one of the Western art world's favorite tonalist painters.

The gallery is located at 238 Central Ave. For more information, call 862-5070 or visit dickidolgallerycom.