Donald M. Jones Photography
Donald M. Jones is a Montana based Wildlife Photographer specializing in all forms of nature. Don's images are created from his overwhelming passion for being outdoors with his camera in tow. What began as a young boy with binoculars swaying from his neck and a bird book wedged into his back pocket in suburban Chicago has now transformed into a living dream. All of Don's Wildlife subjects are just that, wild. Don refuses to photograph any subjects that are pets or confined to Zoos or Game Farms. His work is authentic and his message is clear: "Keep the Wild in Wildlife".
As a full-time Professional Wildlife Photographer since 1993, Don has established himself as a driven individual in a saturated market by continually offering his clients new and refreshing images and subject matter year after year. His more than 600 magazine covers, which he has been credited with over his career are a testament to this. Some of Don's clients include Audubon, Sierra, National Wildlife Federation, Field & Stream, Time, Outdoor Life, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Columbia Sportswear, Sports Afield, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Frontier Airlines, and LL Bean. Don currently resides in the small town of Troy, Montana with his wife and soulmate, Tess.
Phone: 406-295-6034
Email: don@donaldmjones.com
Website: www.donaldmjones.com
Tori Lucier • Thompson Creek Creations
Tori Lucier was born and raised in western Montana. She taught for two years in Troy and thirty-one years in Superior where she lives with her husband, Dan. She took up pottery as a hobby and it has exploded into a business. Her John 3:16 pottery can be found at: Thompson Creek Pottery and Gifts in Superior, St. Regis Travel Center, Bigfork Gift and Gear, Soul City in Missoula, Whitefish Gift and Gear, Huckleberry Patch in Hungry Horse, Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Mossy Moose in Wallace, Idaho, Missoula Smokejumpers Visitor Center, Superior Meats, Montana Moxie in St. Regis
Phone: 406-382-0156
Allyson Legato • Carter Mountain Creations
Throughout Allyson’s fly fishing, hiking and rafting adventures across the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains, she was inspired to collect conks as a reflection of the times and places she has visited. These unique canvases are the fruiting bodies of the much larger, living forest. Each conk is unique, unpredictable and cannot be reproduced. Allyson uses different mediums dependent on the characteristics of the conk. Among many other interests, Allyson also enjoys pyrography, watercolor, oil and acrylic painting.
Email: allylegato@gmail.com
Instagram: @cartermtncreations
Sherry Hingley • Iron Creek Studio
Recently retired from teaching, a career that spanned from Montana to Alaska, Sherry Hingley has returned home to Iron Creek in Troy Montana.
Growing up in Pennsylvania, Sherry lived at a zoo while she was a child, thus her love for nature was rooted in her daily activities with the animals. From there she was transplanted to Montana where she graduated from High School in Columbia Falls, afterwards attending college in Kentucky where she eventually furthered her studies with a Masters of Education and a K-12 Administrative degree.
Currently, Sherry and her husband Monty are working on “reclaiming the land”. There is much to do when you own a house and have been gone for 11 years. Her artwork is watercolors with details created with pen and ink pointillism.
She has compiled a series of fish nature prints, striving for the colors and details that are evident in the wild.
Monty and Sherry have 8 children between them, 11 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren that they enjoy spending time with. They are looking forward to fishing, gardening and taking drives to soak in the Montana countryside.
Email: ironcreekstudio@yahoo.com
Tess Jones • Gourd Art
Tess Jones’s admiration for the natural beauty that surrounds us, a passion for gardening, an appreciation for artists and their work and her own passion for art led Tess to explore the world of gourds. Gourd art, Tess’s obsession, all started with a big gourd that she bought at a pumpkin farm in Ohio. She took her little sister, Ildiko, to a pumpkin farm in Ohio after her mother died, to try to comfort her. It was here that she spotted a mound of moldy gourds. Tess found one that was still green and mailed it home to herself in Troy. Thanks to the internet, she began researching about what to do with a green gourd that was beginning to mold. After many hours researching and no straight forward answers Tess just jumped right in…cut the top off with a saw, cleaned the inside and took the seeds out. Tess planted those seeds and began to grow her own gourds. Tess enjoys the entire process from seed to creating. Crafting with gourds combines her love for gardening and all of nature (the greatest artist) with an art form that allows her to combine each with her appreciation and love for art. Tess creates bird houses, musical instruments, jewelry, ornaments and decorative pieces for the home. The sky is the limit for what can be created with gourds! She thanks her mother, husband (Don Jones), sons Jake and Luke, and friends at RAW for encouraging her to create and display her artwork at this lovely shop!
Phone: 406-295-4291
Email: tess@alpinemontana.com
Michael Conte • Artistic WoodWorks
We found Michael Conte, hiding in his beautiful shop flattening a birch plank with his 130 year old wooden hand plane on his 175 year old workbench, as if no one would know where he was. Michael loves to restore and use antique tools. As a boy, all he ever wanted to do was make things, mostly out of wood. His first actual shop class was in Jr High School in 1957. Michael is self-taught and has built everything from large barns to the smallest jewelry boxes that fit in the palm of your hand. Michael’s main career was in the metal fabrication industry. He ended up being self employed as a welder/fabricator with his own fabrication shop. With his love for custom cars this grew into custom car fabrication. Michael specialized in designing and building custom chassis and suspension for street rods, car shows and race cars. Michaels work has been featured in many national magazines from covers to feature articles. All of that peaked in the 1980’s and 90’s. The time came to move on to something new, or maybe something old. Something he loved doing. Michael married his childhood sweetheart, Bette, in 1964 after he was discharged from the US Navy. In 1992 they bought 75 acres in the upper Pine Creek Valley, 17 miles out of Troy, here in Montana. Together they built the Curly Horse Ranch, and spent the next 18 years as registered breeders of American Bashkir Curly Horses, a special breed. They built most everything on the ranch themselves. They bought their own sawmill so everything started from scratch, and from the land. It proved to be quite a challenge but they had a great time doing it together. Now into their 70’s, they are still at it. After all, Michael is still building, something. A health challenge in August of 2012 forced Michael to make some changes in his life. He had to slow down. No more big projects for a while. That put him back in his wonderful workshop where he started making those smaller projects again like you see here at Real Art Works. ENJOY!
Phone: 406-295-9985
Email: m.conte1944@gmail.com
Doug and Deanise Killingsworth • Glass Cabin Studio
With an insatiable desire to learn how things are made and grandparents who “made” everything Deanise has dabbled in many art forms, creating since she was a small child, and loves them all.
As a young person she spent a lot of time with a grandfather who enjoyed “rock hounding.” Going out into the wilderness camping to collect stones specimens for jewelry making was what she enjoyed most. That inspired her desire to live in the “woods”, ultimately moving to beautiful Troy 32 years ago with her husband Doug and three children.
Working with stones and beads to create jewelry led to her need to know how beads were made, and the love affair with all things glass began. Lampwork bead making, glass fusing and stained glass are all part of her repertoire of artwork.
Being creative in his own way, building hot rods and working with metal, Doug, upon his retirement, became interested in working with stained glass and has been a part of their Glass Cabin Studio for the past four years.
Much of Doug and Deanise’s inspiration comes from their beautiful surroundings in northwest Montana. They love bringing the arts to their community by being a part of RAW and are always willing to perpetuate their craft through teaching others.
“It may be that our cosmic curiosity is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
Jewelry, Stained Glass, Fabric
Phone: 406-295-4371
Email: glasscabin@frontier.com
Kerry Hansen • Hansen Design Co.
Kerry Hansen is a watercolor and fiber artist from Libby, MT. Kerry is drawn to subjects that evoke feelings of nostalgia as if painting memories on a page to share. One of her favorite things to create are portraits of childhood homes and heritage buildings, capturing and preserving the personalities and lifetimes these places represent for the people they are special to and opening the door for sharing stories and the history of these spaces.
Paintings
Phone: 248-421-6963
Email: hansendesigncompany@gmail.com
Facebook & Instagram: @hansendesigncompany
Bruce Fuller • Woodworking
Bruce has been a long time resident of Lincoln county. He ended his 33 year teaching career as a high school woodshop teacher in both Troy and Libby, Montana. Prior to coming to Lincoln county Bruce taught in Idaho and Colorado.
By junior high Bruce knew he wanted to create things out of wood and has maintained a passion for wood to this day. He has a special zeal for exotic woods and sharing the unique beauty of these woods with others. Each year, his family eagerly anticipates the annual Christmas pen that is a unique wood for each year. This past year was Brazilian Ebony. Other favorites have been Paduak, Bacote, and Cocobolo. This year will be Bloodwood, but that’s a surprise!
No project is too small or too large! At RAW he currently has a wide variety of pens available but look for other projects to be added soon! Bruce enjoys creating unique smaller items using his natural artistic abilities but he is also a talented cabinet maker. Bruce built the home he shares with his wife Lisa with his own hands from the rebar and footers to the roof and everything in between.
To his credit he has built cabinets in local businesses and restaurants, built a Mackenzie river drift boat, numerous custom fishing rods and travel cases, fishing nets, and fly boxes. Bruce has numerous pieces of log furniture, traditional dressers and desks as well as art deco designs that he has crafted over the years.
Bruce and Lisa love Montana and the unique lifestyle it has to offer. Fishing, hunting, camping, golfing, and gardening are their mainstays. They enjoy the friendly and diverse backgrounds of people who come to live here.
Woodworking
Email: fullerb7889@gmail.com
Sabrina Bailey • Windy Pine Creations
Sabrina creates beautiful pine needle and birch bark baskets. She embellishes them with polished stones, beads, and colorful threads.
Troy High School Art Club
The Troy High School Art Club is a group of creative junior high and high school students. The club assists the school and community with art related projects, sponsors an annual scholarship, puts on the annual student art show, and takes students on at least one trip per year to experience art and culture beyond our remote area. All of the money raised by the club is used to achieve these goals. The art club sells magnets and ceramic ornaments representing Montana's native species.