Artist Wilderness Connection residents selected by Glacier Art Musuem

The Artist Wilderness Connection, a unique, collaborative artist-in-residence program in Montana managed by Glacier Art Museum, formerly Hockaday Museum of Art, Flathead National Forest, Lewis and Clark National Forest, and Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, has selected four participants in 2025: potter and ecologist Adi Rex of Missoula, musician Elana James of Austin, Texas; and visual artist collaborators Sydney Boveng of Kalispell and Tarek Penser of Whitefish.  

Now in its 21st year, the Artist Wilderness Connection program selects artists from a variety of disciplines to stay in remote forest cabins in the Bob Marshall and Great Bear Wilderness Areas of Northwest Montana for one to two weeks during the months of July, August, or September, while creating art inspired by nature and their wilderness living experience.  

Newly added to the residency program in 2025 is the opportunity to stay in the Lewis and Clark National Forest Gates Park Guard Station. Artist collaborators Boveng and Penser applied for the residency together and will be stationed there in July. Rex will be at Shaw Cabin in August and James has selected Granite Cabin in September, both in Flathead National Forest. 

After completing their residency, the artists will work with the Glacier Art Museum and other partners to share their backcountry experience with a free community outreach program or exhibition and will donate a representative artwork. 

For more information about the program, contact Alyssa Cordova at the Glacier Art Museum, 406.755.5268, [email protected], or Rebecca Powell at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, 406.387.3808, [email protected] 

Artist Bios 

Boveng is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in her hometown of Kalispell. Curiosity, a passion for trying new mediums, and a fierce love of nature are driving forces in her creative practice. She works outside and in studio, focusing on landscape, color relationships and detailed drawing. She is particularly excited by dark skies, glowing horizon lines, and the shapes at the tip-top of evergreen trees. Boveng makes work for her childhood self, the mountains, and anyone who could use a moment of joy. She also organizes local community art events.  

Penser is a printmaker, born and raised in Sweden, and now based in Whitefish. He makes painted linocut prints inspired by nature. His prints are hand carved, hand pressed and hand painted in small batches. Penser spent his childhood in Sweden, worked as a guide in Glacier National Park for a decade, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, and has an endless curiosity for the natural world.  “My subject matter is the great outdoors, but my process typically involves me taking a lot of photos while outside and then spending hours, by myself, in my studio carving blocks,” he said. “I applied to this residency for the opportunity to challenge myself to bring my art practice outside and to work in collaboration with artist Sydney Boveng.” 

Rex is a potter and ecologist working in western Montana. Rex’s focus is creating ceramics and everyday pottery with the intention of representing a natural story of a specific moment in time and place. Rex’s work seeks to remind people of the beauty in nature surrounding and supporting us and its inherent worthiness of protection as the climate crisis worsens. During the residency, Rex will create a collection of small ceramic tiles of experienced landscapes. Following the residency, Rex plans to offer a community workshop discussing the intersection of local ecology, botany, and art. 

James has been a professional touring musician for almost thirty years, primarily as the fiddle player and vocalist with her band the Hot Club of Cowtown. She was previously a packer apprentice with the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation in 2019 and has worked as a wrangler for outfitters in Montana, California, and Colorado. During her residency, James plans to record soundscapes of deep wilderness and compose songs inspired by and intertwined with the natural world—rivers, wind, birdsong, hoofbeats, bells and whatever she may encounter.