Resounds: Arts And Culture On The High Plains

Chase DeForest creates collaged and stitched leather artworks exploring themes related to the environment and the American West.

This House of Books was established in 2016 as an independent, full-service bookstore serving the region around Billings, MT.The bookstore was established as a cooperative with members buying shares to become co-owners with voting rights.

Montana legend Jonnie Jonckowski is the focus of Jonnie, an upcoming Montana PBS documentary. Her outsized accomplishments and challenges both in and out of the rodeo arena centers this new film.

The Yellowstone Art Museum has assisted the Billings Logan Airport art program, Art Under the Big Sky, with the selection and rotation of art exhibits in Concourse B.

A community leader, volunteer, and Executive Director of the largest performing arts center in a five-state region, Jan Dietrich has an impressive career in the nonprofit world. In the summer of 2026, Dietrich retires after ten years at the helm of the Alberta Bair Theater (ABT) in Billings.

Born and raised in Billings, Darren Hackey left his hometown to pursue a passion for music. After living across the country, coming home to Montana reignited his passion for the West. His love for western hats started in Texas, and he pursued the craft upon his return to his home state.

The Montana Performing Arts Consortium (MPAC) formed in 1981. Since then, the nonprofit has connected the arts to communities across Montana.

The C.M. Russell Museum contains more than 3,000 pieces of Western art in a complex that covers an entire city block. The Western art complex, a National Historic Landmark, includes Charlie Russell’s fully restored home and studio, where he lived and created for 24 years alongside wife and business partner Nancy Cooper Russell.

Czech-American writer and American Book Award winner Shann Ray teaches at Gonzaga University and poetry at Stanford University. He is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and group Fulbright recipient to South Africa.

Fourth-generation Montanan Russell Rowland is a critically acclaimed author of eight books. For over thirty years, Billings-based artist Gordon McConnell has created works derived from Western film stills and informed by his sustained study of the history of the American West and its representations in literature, art, film, and photography.

Yetta Rose Stein is the Executive Director of Elk River Arts & Lectures based in Livingston. She also serves as the Board Vice President for Opera Montana. Previously, she served as the Managing Editor for Hunger Mountain Review. Stein is a graduate of Hellgate High School and has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Novelist, essayist, and poet Joe Wilkins was raised on a sheep ranch north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana. His novel The Entire Sky recently won the 2025 High Plains International Book Awards for Fiction.

Caroline Joan Peixoto is the co-founder and director of River Arts and Books. Her background in community arts and management aligns with her passion of creating spaces of beauty for people to explore and connect. She is an Azorean writer and mother living in the Beartooth Mountains.

Giano Cromley is the author of two indie young adult novels novels, The Prince of Infinite Space, and The Last Good Halloween, and a short story collection, What We Build Upon the Ruins. He is a recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and was a BookEnds Fellow with Stonybrook University.

Photographer Todd Forsgren lives in Billings, where he is an Associate Professor of Art at Rocky Mountain College and also serves as the director of the Ryniker-Morrison Gallery.

Matt Blakeslee was born and raised in Billings, MT. In 2015, Matt and his wife Kate started Art House Cinema, a new non-profit independent cinema to bring film and art opportunities to Billings.

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West based in Cody homes five museums and a research library. The Plains Indian Museum, The Buffalo Bill Museum, The Draper Natural History Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, and the Whitney Western Art Museum provide thousands of visitors with a range of perspectives and education of the American West.

The Heart Mountain Interpretive Center preserves, memorializes, and provides education about the experiences of Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII. The Center operates a world-class museum, historic site, and conference center, drives national programming, and inspires nonpartisan solutions to problems of our modern democracy.

Dr. Ilse-Mari Lee Hastings is the President and founder of the Montana Youth Symphony. She joined the faculty of MSU in the fall of 1989 and served as Dean of the Honors College. She holds a doctorate in Cello Performance and Pedagogy, as well as master’s degrees in Cello Performance, Music Theory, and Composition.

Tami Haaland is the author of four poetry collections: If I Had Said Beauty, What Does Not Return, When We Wake in the Night, and Breath in Every Room, which was the winner of the Nicholas Roerich First Book Award.