Finding Inspiration in Montana’s Prairie

For Western Artist Kelsey Rae Morris, Montana Is a Muse

Kelsey Rae Morris might see things a little differently from most other people. She’s an artist, so that’s to be expected.

From her home studio in Three Forks, in southwest Montana, she has cast her eye to the Western landscape and the people who work its ranches. You could call her a Western artist, but it’s a lot deeper than that. Capturing a moment is only the beginning: With her brushes and oils, Kelsey aims to portray the very essence of her subjects on a canvas, melding light, color, texture and composition into something more than a two-dimensional representation. “It’s really important to me for my work to be authentic and for the authenticity of what I’m painting to come through,” she says.

The amount of time she spends outdoors certainly plays a part in her ability to create such realistic depictions of life. “I spend most of my time outdoors, and that can be several different things: camping, I’m a huge hiker. Any of my free time, I try to find just a place to wander around, essentially. But we hunt, we fish, we explore. We do photography. Any waking moment we have available, we're finding something to do outside,” Kelsey explains.

Hunting is a big part of Kelsey’s outdoor experience and a key component to the authenticity that serves as the foundation of everything she does. Although she’s never worked on a ranch, she understands what it’s like to connect work with food on a more direct level. All the meat that makes its way to her table gets there from her own hunting. It’s that connection to the land and how it provides that keeps her going … and going.

“In the spring it's turkey hunting. Before that, it’s shed hunting. In the fall, it's big game, and earlier, it's birds. There's just always something to be doing, and when you only procure your meat through means of hunting, which I do, you spend a lot of time outside hunting. And time outside is where I find my inspiration to art, so it’s all kind of connected.”

And so, eastern Montana calls. “I've hunted all over and eastern Montana is probably my favorite place to hunt. The diversity of nature and wildlife here is surprising and I really like that. There's nothing better than an eastern Montana sunrise or sunset. The prairie is just such a special place and when you hunt, you're fully immersed in it. Nothing else really does it for me like being out there.”

Once you get Kelsey talking about Missouri River Country and the prairie landscapes of the northeast corner of Montana, the words seem to flow as easily as the paint from her brush. “The prairie is really special because at 80 miles per hour on the highway, it just looks like a flat blur of nothing. But you get out there, and you're quiet and you observe and you listen. It's full of life. That's one thing that really surprised me about the prairie is just the breadth of life. Every square inch is full of something living and breathing and pulsing,” she says. “It's a really dynamic landscape. It's volatile. It keeps you on your toes. There are millions of years of fossils there. There's inclement weather. Pretty much everything wildlife-wise that Montana has to offer is there.”

To an artist like Kelsey, places like this are important on many levels. “The prairie enables my mind, more so than any other place, to do what I need. I really need solitude on a landscape and time to think, and brainstorm, and kind of wallow in my ideas.” In this part of Montana, the big sky is at its biggest and the ideas it inspires can be just as grand.

“The vastness of it, the peacefulness of it really allow me to settle down and think and generate ideas. And that’s when I come up with my best ideas and I can come back here [to Three Forks] and create art from it.”

Typically it’s the land that first draws you to a certain part of Montana. But it’s often not the final piece of what connects you. The people you find here play a big role in setting the hook.

“The people here are very friendly. You better be waving when you drive down the road and pass somebody.” This is more than just pleasantries for Kelsey — she depends on the people of Montana’s rural places like Missouri River Country. “I’m a Western artist. So, a lot of my paintings feature ranchers, cowboys, cowgirls, horses. I don't have a ranch. I don't have horses. I can't just manufacture that in a vacuum. I have to go out into the rural communities of Montana and experience these things in real life and real time. People have been very generous with their time, allowing me to come observe what they do and then turn that into my art. Montana is integral to my creations, and the people of Montana opening their doors the way they have make that possible.”

The story certainly doesn’t end there, however. Kelsey and her husband, Seth, are preparing to add another wonderful person to the population of Montana. “I'm about to welcome a baby boy and I just could not be more excited to bring a child into the outdoor lifestyle and show somebody the world — the natural world.” As with any other challenge, Kelsey sees the opportunity outshining the challenge. “It's going to change a lot for me personally. It's basically going to flip how we do things completely on its head, but I'm not afraid of holding back and not doing all the things that we enjoy doing. We're still going to get out there and get after it. It's just going to be so much more cool because we'll have another person to show these things to.”