Art Mine Basin

Saturday Encaustic Workshop with Kris Larson
2026-06-27 04:00 - 11:00 (America/Denver) | Art Mine Basin, Cataract Creek Rd, Basin, MT, 59631, United States
Encaustic painting involves a heated wax medium to which colored pigments have been added. It might lend itself to beginners more than any other medium. Kris loves building layers and layers of color and texture to create her encaustic paintings, often also incorporating paper or fabric. And one of her favorite things to do is teach!

Experienced and completely inexperienced people are all welcome. Class size is limited to six.

Cost: $150 (sliding scale)

Registration required. Contact Kris Larson at either (406) 459-3437 or kalarson_arts@icloud.com.

Coffee, tea, sodas and snacks will be provided. Please bring a sack lunch.

Friday Encaustic Workshop with Kris Larson
2026-06-26 04:00 - 11:00

Canta Brasil
2026-06-13 13:00 - 15:00
Canta Brasil lights up the stage with the vibrant music of Brazil — from romantic bossa nova to fiery samba and beyond. Led by vocalist Magda Chaney (vocals), and featuring Beth Lo (bass), David Horgan (guitar), Ed Stalling(percussion), Pedro Marques, (percussion and vocals) Naomi Moon Siegel (trombone), and Graeme Pletscher (saxophone), the group’s sizzling horns and infectious grooves capture the joyful spirit of Carnaval.

Poetry Reading: Writing the Prairie
2026-06-06 12:30 - 14:30
Join three former Montana Poets Laureate M.L. Smoker, Melissa Kwasny, and Tami Haaland for a free public reading entitled Writing the Prairie, exploring themes of time, landscape, environmental change, and the important role of Indigenous people in the prairies of Montana.
M.L. Smoker’s poetry collection, Another Attempt at Rescue, and her graphic novel Thunderous engage questions of Native American identity, history, language, and culture. Tami Haaland’s latest book, If I Had Said Beauty, is dedicated to “known and unknown” ancestors, exploring all that lies behind one’s sense of self while being grounded in encounters with wild and domestic life and intimate moments of loss and connection. Melissa Kwasny, a recent Artist in Residence at the Enrico Science Center near the Missouri Breaks, will read from her essay “The American Prairie” and a new series of poems entitled “What the Prairie Knows”

Poetry Workshop
2026-06-06 03:00 - 10:00
Art Mine Basin invites you to an all-day poetry workshop led by former Montana Poet Laureates Tami Haaland and Melissa Kwasny. Spend the day surrounded by dazzling views of the mountains in Jefferson County’s new art center. Open to all levels of experience, the poets will each share some of their favorite generative exercises. Participants will leave with the beginnings of many new poems and new approaches to their creative practice.
Coffee, tea, sodas and snacks will be provided. Please bring a sack lunch.
Tami and Melissa will be joined by M.L. Smoker Saturday evening at 6:30 for a free poetry reading open to participants and the community entitled Writing the Prairie. Registration required. Please contact Melissa Kwasny.

Printmaking Workshop
2026-05-21 - 2026-05-22
Printmaker Jason Clark will be offering a full day pochoir workshop which will introduce basic concepts and exploration involving pochoir or stencil monotype techniques. Participants will have the opportunity to combine their personal “image vocabulary” with this printmaking process to realize their creative and conceptual goals and express their ideas. The goal is for participants to recognize the creative possibilities unique to this printmaking process and use it to realize their aesthetic goals, creating prints that are experimental and imaginative. Participants are encouraged to bring loose leaf sketches or sketch books filled with their own imagery as reference and inspiration.

The name Pochoir derives from the French word for “stencil” and refers effectively to a stencil-based process of printmaking that was used by artists and graphic designers to either create prints or apply additional color to existing prints. Although the technique has been dated back to 500 C.E., it is primarily known for its popularity during the late 19th, early 20th century, which saw the development of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. The technique was honed by great masters of this time, most notably by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Henri Matisse. Pochoir involves the designing and creating of stencils that are to be cut with a blade, and if desired, layered on top of each other to create compositions that vary in complexity.

Originally stencils were cut from sheets of aluminum, zinc, or copper, however with time printmakers moved towards plastic as their material of choice. Once cut, the stencils are inked and composed onto a sheet of plexiglass. Printmaking paper is then placed on top and then run through the press to offset the ink onto the paper. Removing the stencil then reveals the desired print motif, and the process can be repeated to yield more complex compositions, or perhaps a wider selection of color.

Art Opening
2026-05-02 11:00 - 14:00
Kris Larson, Nan Parsons & MJ Williams

The Art Mine is delighted to show the work of these three local artists. The opening on May 2, an evening of art, conversation, good food and drink. If you are new to the Art Mine this will be a lovely opportunity to visit.
Kris Larson worked as a geographer for 30 years. While many encaustic painters strive to create a smooth surface, Kris loves color and texture and often makes a painting with dozens of layers of wax paint. She regularly incorporates old maps, historic magazines, and other pieces of paper.
Nan Parsons: “October I was in upstate NY painting watercolor outside with a good friend, colleague and former Montana Artists Refuge resident, Laura Taylor. A glorious time in all respects. The oil paintings (inspired by the NY experience) now showing at
the Art Mine were painted on my return to Basin.”
MJ Williams loves to paint with watercolors en plain air. In winter she has to resort to her kitchen table.
