At the Montana Folk Festival in Butte last summer, I stumbled on the works of Ben Pease at the festival’s First Peoples Market.
I’d been to at least a portion of the three National Folk Festivals when they were in Butte, and I’ve made two of the three since they became the Montana Folk Festival, which is without question the event of the summer in this state.
I think I’d been to the First Peoples Market before, though as a rule I’m there for the music and not much else. But there we were last summer, on the second day of the festival, strolling among the booths in the market, checking out various paintings, sculptures and crafts … when Pease’s portrait of Plenty Coups, “Last Good Man,” fairly reached out and demanded my attention.
Ben Pease's business card, next to mine by way of comparison.
I was already thinking of this website at the time, and right away I knew I wanted to write about Ben Pease. It is a testament to my admiration for his work that somehow I managed to hang onto the tiny little business card he gave me — a card barely one third the size of a regular business card.
When I finally got down to Hardin in early January with photographer John Warner, to see Ben’s works in Mr. A’s Fine Art Gallery, my encounters with his numerous other works only confirmed my opinion that this is a young artist to watch.
Which isn’t to say that my opinion counts for much, since I have no background as either an artist or an art critic. All I knew is that his stuff affected me immediately and hit me right in the gut. What else can you ask from art? Read the story, look at some of his pieces and judge for yourself.
