Meet the Open AIR Summer 1 Artists
Check out the Open AIR Calendar of Events
Rachel Frank - Rattlesnake Creek Dam
Born in Kentucky, Rachel Frank uses sculpture, video, and performance to explore our relationships and shifting perspectives towards natural history, climate change, and non-human species.
Rachel Frank received her BFA from The Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA from The University of Pennsylvania. Frank is the recipient of grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, and The Franklin Furnace Archive. She has attended residencies at Yaddo, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, The Museum of Arts and Design, Sculpture Space, The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Franconia Sculpture Park, and the MOCA Tucson. Recent solo and two-person
exhibitions include "Thresholds" at MOCA Tuscon (AZ), the SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NYC),
Thomas Hunter Projects at Hunter College (NYC), Standard Space (Sharon, CT), and Geary
Contemporary (NYC). Her performance pieces have been shown at HERE, Socrates Sculpture
Park, The Select Fair, and The Bushwick Starr in New York City, The Marran Theater at Lesley
University, and at The Watermill Center in collaboration with Robert Wilson.
She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and works in wildlife rehabilitation at The Wild Bird Fund in
Manhattan.
Joy French - Travelers’ Rest State Park
Joy French is a dancer, choreographer, videographer and producer. Her professional stage debut was with MoTrans Dance Company (Missoula), and would go on to dance with Headwaters Dance Co.,The CoMotion Dance Project and many other companies throughout the West. After earning her MFA in Performance and Choreography at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Joy returned to Missoula and founded Bare Bait Dance, a professional contemporary modern dance company. As both BBD Artistic Director and UM adjunct professor, she has produced dozens of performances in Western Montana; she is also the Executive Director of Kinetoscope Screendance Film Festival. In 2017, Joy received the Montana Arts Council’s Artist's Innovation Award, and more recently, was honored as the February Arts Missoula Star for her devotion to dance-making in Western Montana.
Miya Hannan - Moon-Randolph Homestead
Miya Hannan’s installation, sculpture, and drawings show her view of the world constructed by the layers and linkages of human lives and histories. She worked in the medical field in Japan where she grew up. Asian rituals and philosophy, archaeology, and her scientific background have had a strong influence on her practice. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in the United States and abroad. She is an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno in the United States.
Gillian Harper - Home ReSource
Gillian is a sculptor currently based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana studying for her Master of Fine Arts at Louisiana State University. Through a variety of materials including cast iron, bronze, steel, wood, found objects, and organic matter she employs
a range of techniques to create art. She is particularly drawn to the fascinating complexities of nature that surround her. Through repetition, tangled lines, organic
forms, and color, Gillian constructs work to connect with the environment and people.
Mikale Kwiatkowski - Missoula Public Library
Mikale Kwiatkowski is an interdisciplinary designer-artist. Her creative practice spans graphic design, product design, architecture and visual design.
Informed through her 15 years of experience within design studios, ad agencies, in-house design environments and as a freelance designer, Mikale believes that designing is a cultural endeavor. Stemming from the belief that designed products have the power to change culture and improve human experiences, her work approaches design as a site in which to communicate and cultivate empathy for diverse user/human experiences.
Mikale is an assistant professor of design at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC where she teaches two- and three-dimensional design classes. She holds a Master of Architecture from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Madison Mayfield - Montana Natural History Center
Madison Mayfield is a scientific illustrator and natural history museum professional. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Ecology & Conservation Biology as well as a certificate in Natural History Illustration from the University of Washington. For the past two years, she has worked as a natural history preparator at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, Australia. Her work at the museum involved exhibition design/construction, producing taxidermy mounts for permanent display, and preparing specimens for the scientific collection.
Madison’s art follows in the footsteps of traditional scientific illustrators/naturalists and is generally produced in partnership with scientists & researchers. Whether through painting, sketching, or even taxidermy, she uses her work to communicate science to the public and is extremely passionate about encouraging the use of art in science. As a major natural history museum nerd, Madison is extremely excited to be surrounded by taxidermy and work as the artist-in-residence at the Montana Natural History Center this fall.
Emily Schubert - Rattlesnake Creek Dam
Emily Schubert is an interdisciplinary artist working mainly in the worlds of puppetry, performance, sculpture and collage. She hails from the borderlands between Cincinnati, Ohio and Northern Kentucky and earned a degree in fiber and textile art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013. Since then she has worked on costumes for traveling Broadway shows, participated in puppet theater festivals and workshops in Europe, Indonesia, and the United States and has found a passion for organic farming. She is inspired by the fantastical and the everyday and how these shape peoples’ perception of the world. Drawing from mythology, folktales, memories, and personal experience she creates narratives and characters that aim to make some sense of our existence by giving form to our collective anxieties and desires. Enthralled by the emotive power and depth of expression achieved through puppetry and storytelling, she believes that within these realms lies a source of real-life magic that is deficient in much of our daily lives.
Rachel Oliver Young - Travelers’ Rest State Park
Rachel Oliver Young grew up in Missoula, MT and tries to get back whenever she can. She is so excited to be able to come back into such natural beauty, to create art with her talented collaborator Joy French through the support of Open AIR MT. Rachel holds an MFA in Dance, as an Arts and Sciences Fellow at CU-Boulder, and a BS in Dance and Biochemistry from Beloit College. Rachel has performed professionally across the country as a freelance dancer and a company member. As a dance maker, Rachel has created work for women’s prisons, public schools, outside spaces, multi-media performance spaces, and traditional theaters. Rachel’s choreography has been commissioned Bare Bait Dance Company, Centennial State Ballet, West Virginia Dance Company, sponsored by the Atlas Black Box, and selected for performance at WestFest Dance (NY) and Performática in México, and presented at the WV Wesleyan University, West Virginia Dance Festival, the Philly Live Arts & Fringe (PA), Dixon Place (NY) and Triskelion Arts (NY). Rachel has previously served on the Colorado Dance Education Organization (CoDeo) Board, and is currently serving on the board for Presenting Denver. Rachel Oliver Young is the Education Director of the Dance Program at Denver School of the Arts.