Western Americana
“Truer to History: Bookishness as a Western Way of Being,” preface to Splendid on a Large Scale: The Writings of Hans Peter Gyllembourg Koch, Montana Territory, 1869-1874, Kim Allen Scott, editor (Helena: Bedrock Editions/Drumlummon Institute, 2010)
“The Deserts of America: Two Centuries of Change on the Upper Missouri,” Discovering Lewis & Clark website [www.lewis-clark.org], 2007
“Indian Country: Reinventing Identities, Retaining Cultures,” Discovering Lewis & Clark website [www.lewis-clark.org], 2007
“Building A Ranch: Two Highline Ranching Families,” Discovering Lewis & Clark website [www.lewis-clark.org], 2007
With Laurel Wilson, “Not Deficient in Beauty: Fashion in the Rockies” in The Rocky Mountain Region, ed. Rick Newby, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004)
Editor, “The Footrace: From the Frontier Adventures of Walter Cooper,” by Walter Cooper, with introduction by Larry Len Peterson, Montana The Magazine of Western History (Helena, MT), Summer 2000
“The Turbulent Beginnings of Montana’s State Parks System,” Montana Magazine (Helena, MT), March-April 1998
Editor, “Helena’s Social Supremacy,” Montana The Magazine of Western History (Helena, MT), Autumn 1987
Editor, “’I am lonely here all alone. . . .’: The Letters of Hugh S. Lewis in Montana Territory, 1886-1887,” Montana The Magazine of Western History (Helena, MT), Summer 1985
Literature
Review, The Spring: A Mythic Memoir, text and photographs by Annie Connole, High Desert Journal 32 (Spring 2021).
“Against the Terrible Dismembering: The Poetry of Roger Dunsmore,” introduction to Roger Dunsmore, On the Chinese Wall: New & Selected Poems, 1966–2018 (Helena: Drumlummon Institute, 2018)
“Peter Koch and Montana Gothic: Opening the Field,” Montana Gothic: Volumes 1-6, with Introductory Essays, edited by Peter Koch (Berkeley, CA: Koch Editions, 2013)
Review, The Lost Journals of Sacjewea, text by Debra Magpie Earling, photo-interventions by Peter Rutledge Koch, We Proceeded On (Great Falls, MT), Summer 2012
Panel moderator, “Two Twentieth-Century Montana Poets: Grace Stone Coates and Frieda Fligelman,” with Lee Rostad and Alexandra Swaney, Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, September 2008
“A Few Words on the Poetics of Frieda Fligelman and on the Editorial Process,” Notes for a Novel: The Selected Poems of Frieda Fligelman (Drumlummon Institute, 2008)
“The Flavor of Words,” preface to Food of Gods and Starvelings: The Selected Poems of Grace Stone Coates (Drumlummon Institute, 2007)
Review, Hope and Dread in Montana Literature by Ken Egan, Jr., Oregon Historical Quarterly (Portland, OR) Summer 2004
Panel moderator, “Introducing The New Montana Story: An Anthology,” with David Horgan, Melissa Kwasny, Deirdre McNamer, and Matt Pavelich, Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, September 2003
Panel moderator, “Small Place, Rich Life: Writing and Making Art in Rural/Small Town Montana,” with Tom Elliott (on Flatwillow Philosophical Society), Lee Rostad (on poet/novelist Grace Stone Coates), and Terrry Karson (on painter/sculptor Bill Stockton), Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, September 2003
“What Is This ‘New’ Montana Story?,” introduction, The New Montana Story: An Anthology (Helena, MT: Riverbend Publishing, 2003)
Talk, “A Regionalism that Travels: Thoughts on Montana Literature,” Regionalism class, O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, Spring 2003; also given in Dean’s Lecture Series, University of Montana-Helena College of Technology, Helena, MT, Winter 2003
Talk, “Bookmen on the Montana Frontier,” The Colophon Club, San Francisco, CA, May 2001; published in Rendezvous (Montana Committee for the Humanities, Missoula, MT), Spring 2001; Montana The Magazine of Western History (Helena, MT), Spring 2002; and Book Club of California Quarterly (San Francisco, CA), Winter 2001–2002
Talk, “Tracking Montana’s Bookish Tradition,” Friends of the University of Montana Library, Missoula, MT, March 1998
Talk, “Writing Montana: Twenty-six Ways of Looking at a Literature” Center for the Rocky Mountain West, Missoula, MT, March 1997
Talk, “Feeding an Inward Hunger: What is Poetry For” Myth & Metaphor: Origin and Development of the Image Lecture Series, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT, February 1997
“The Montana-Paris Axis, or Unpacking My Grandfather’s Library: On the Track of a Bookish Tradition,” in Writing Montana: Literature under the Big Sky (Helena, MT: Montana Center for the Book, 1996)
“Fine Print: Greg Keeler and Some Publishers,” Kinesis 3 (Whitefish, MT), Winter 1991
“The Montana Canon and Its Discontents,” Writer’s Northwest Handbook (Hillsboro, OR), Spring 1991
“Theory and the Soldier Male: A Review of Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies,” The World Picayune (Helena, MT), Spring 1990
“All Lessons Are Fatal: Contemporary Montana Poetry, 1964-1989,” North Country Review: A Montana Journal of Western Life & Literature (Billings, MT), Winter 1990
Review, “Montana Views” [Montana Spaces: Essays and Photographs in Celebration of Montana, ed. William Kittredge], North Country Review: A Montana Journal of Western Life & Literature (Billings, MT), May/June 1989
Review, “Fathers and Sons” [David Quammen’s Blood Line: Stories of Fathers and Sons], North Country Review: A Montana Journal of Western Life & Literature (Billings, MT), May/June 1989
“Against the Terrible Dismembering: The Poetry of Roger Dunsmore,” CutBank 31/32 (Missoula, MT), Spring 1989
Talk, “The Suburb of Long Suffering: In Praise of Provincialism,” Regional Writers Project Lecture Series, Yellowstone Art Center, Billings, MT, September 1986
Review, “[Ralph Beer’s] Blind Corral: A Fine Story, in Our Back Yard,” Independent Record (Helena, MT), June 27, 1986
Review, “Owl Creek Press Prints Poems from Home” [Carolyne Wright’s Returning What We Owed], Montana Eagle (Helena, MT), April 15, 1981
Review, “Dark World” [Robert Wrigley’s The Sinking of Clay City, Scratchgravel Hills 3 (Helena, MT), 1980
Review, “Two Montana Classics” [Burton K. Wheeler’s Yankee from the West and Taylor Gordon’s Born to Be], Scratchgravel Hills 3 (Helena, MT), 1980
Review, “Rocky Mountain [Magazine]: Soft at the Center,” The Western Star (Missoula, MT), Spring 1980
Review, “A Second Chance” [Roger Dunsmore’s On the Road to Sleeping Child Hotsprings (second edition)], Scratchgravel Hills 2 (Helena, MT), 1979
Review, “Eastern Montana Folk Art” {Wally McRae’s It’s Just Grass and Water], Scratchgravel Hills 2 (Helena, MT), 1979
Review, “A Simple Collection” [Shannon Keith Kelley’s About in the Dark], Scratchgravel Hills 1 (Helena, MT), 1978.
Review, Richard Hugo’s Rain Five Days and I Love It, CutBank 5 (Missoula, MT), Fall 1975
Architecture & Design
“The David and Ann Shaner Resident Studio Building, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, Montana,” Drumlummon Views (http://www.drumlummoninstitute.org), Fall 2006-Winter 2007; and Ceramics Technical 24 (Sydney, Australia), Spring 2007
Science & Technology
“Probing the Unknown,” an excerpt from the biography, “Norman Jefferis ‘Jeff’ Holter: A Serendipitous Life,” Drumlummon Views (http://www.drumlummoninstitute.org) Vol. II, No. 1 (Summer 2008)
Visual Arts
“To Restore a Wealth that is Wild: Sandra Dal Poggetto’s Immersive Art,” High Desert Journal 33 (Winter 2022).
“Theodore Waddell: Life & Work,” in Rick Newby, et al., Theodore Waddell—My Montana: Paintings & Sculpture, 1959-2016 (Helena: Drumlummon Institute, 2017). Recipient, High Plains Book Award, Art/Photography, 2018.
“A Few Hard Words” and “Dead Nature” in Peter Rutledge Koch, Hard Words: Memory and Death in the Wild West (Berkeley/Palo Alto: Editions Koch/Stanford University Libraries, 2017)
“The Past As It Was: Gordon McConnell’s West of Everything: New & Selected Paintings,” in West of True: Jane Waggoner Deschner & Gordon McConnell (Fallon, NV: Churchill Arts Council, 2014)
“Montana Improvisations: Jim Todd’s Jazz Wood Engravings” in Jazz Icons: Wood Engravings, Woodcuts & Paintings by James Gilbert Todd, Jr. (Helena, MT: Holter Museum of Art, 2012)
“Wrested from the Earth: The Life and Art of Stephen De Staebler,” in Matter + Spirit: Stephen De Staebler (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/University of California Press, 2012).
Panel moderator, “Craft, Innovation, and Contemporary Art: Three Perspectives,” with John Buck, Deborah Butterfield, & Jun Kaneko, From the Center to the Edge: 60 Years of Innovation conference, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, Helena, 2011.
“The Beauty of Decay: The Work of Joseph Baráz,” Joseph Baráz: Paintings & Sculpture 1990-2011 (Helena: Zadig, LLC, in assocation with JFG Temporary, 2011).
“The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts: Origin and Impact,” Persistence in Clay: Contemporary Ceramics in Montana (Missoula, MT: Missoula Art Museum, 2011).
Talk, “A Beautiful Spirit: Origins of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts,” with Kurt Weiser & Steven Young Lee, Annual Conference, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, Tampa, FL, April 2011.
“Jerry Bennett and Bean Finneran: Pushing the Limits,” in Provocative Clay (Sheboygan, WI: John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2010 [digital version]/2022 [print version])
“Abstracted from the Earth: The Glass Art of Barry Hood,” Barry Hood: Flow (Helena: Holter Museum of Art, 2010).
Talk, “Fire in its belly: The rich and dirty story of clay in Montana” (with Josh DeWeese and Steven Young Lee, former and current Resident Directors of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts), President’s Fine Arts Series, Montana State University-Bozeman, March 3, 2010.
“The Architecture of Space: Robert Harrison’s Accomplishment,” Robert Harrison: The Architecture of Space (Helena: Drumlummon Institute / Holter Museum of Art, 2009).
“Wrested from the Earth: The Recombinant Poetics of Stephen De Staebler,” Stephen De Staebler (Chicago: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, 2008).
“Long Lines of Dancing Letters: The Japanese Drawings of Patricia Forsberg,” Drumlummon Views, Vol. II, No. 1 (2008); https://drumlummoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DV_vol2-no1.pdf
“Teapots Against the Darkness: The Achievement of Richard Notkin,” Richard Notkin (Davis, CA: John Natsoulas Press, 2008)
“Beckoned into Landscape: The Paintings of Dale Livezey,” Dale Livezey: Paintings (Reno, NV: Stremmel Gallery, 2007)
“How Many Worlds? The Ceramic Art of Stephen Braun,” Stephen Braun: Cause & Effect (Davis, CA: John Natsoulas Press, 2007)
“Untitled (after, and in memory of, Bill Stockton),” Drumlummon Views, Vol. I, No. 3 (Fall 2006-Winter 2007); https://drumlummoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DV_vol1-no3.pdf
Review, “The Miriam Sample Collection, 1985-2005,” Drumlummon Views, Vol. I, No. 3 (Fall 2006-Winter 2007); https://drumlummoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DV_vol1-no3.pdf
“Rebecca Hutchinson: The Gesture of Place,” American Craft (New York, NY), April-May 2007
“The Bird People of Adrian Arleo,” American Craft (New York, NY), Dec.-Jan. 2006-2007
Panel Moderator, “Clay and Globalization: Impacts on Tradition, Cultural Identity, and the Individual Artist,” with Baba Wague Diakite, Janet Mansfield, Joe Molinaro, & Marvin Sweet, Archie Bray International Symposium, Helena, MT, June 2006
“Illustrations for a Text That Does Not Exist: Doug Turman’s Watercolor World,” Drumlummon Views, Spring-Summer 2006; https://drumlummoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DV_Spring-Summer06.pdf
“Lawson Oyekan: Healing Powers,” New Works: Lawson Oyekan: Solstice Lip Series, Minneapolis (Minneapolis, MN: Northern Clay Center, 2006)
“Rudy Autio: Coming Home to the Figure,” Rudy Autio: The Infinite Figure (Helena, MT: Holter Museum of Art, 2006); reprinted, in slightly different form, in Drumlummon Views, Vol. II, No. 1 (2008); https://drumlummoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/DV_vol2-no1.pdf
Preface, The Yixing Effect: Echoes of the Chinese Scholar, by Marvin Sweet (Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press, 2006)
Panel moderator, “Deep Sources of Inspiration,” with Tip Toland, Richard Notkin, and Adrian Arleo, Annual Conference, National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), Portland, OR, 2006
“Geometrical Codes/Material Bodies: Twenty-first Century Clay and the Hyperreal,” in The New Utilitarian: Examining Our Place on the Motherboard of Ceramics, (Portland, OR: NCECA, 2006)
Review, Frances Senska exhibition, Frances Senska: A Life in Art, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT, American Craft (New York, NY), April-May 2005
Review, Stephen De Staebler exhibition, Selected Works, Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT, American Craft (New York, NY), October-November 2004
“Spiral Jetties and the American Sublime: The Visual Arts in the Rocky Mountains,” in The Rocky Mountain Region, ed. Rick Newby, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004)
“Dead Nature” in Nature Morte: Peter Rutledge Koch (Helena, MT: Holter Museum of Art, 2004)
“Spotlight: Richard Buswell,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), June 2004
“Gritty and Un-Housebroken: Origins, Reception, and Dispersion of Funk Ceramics” in Peter Held, John Natsoulas, & Rick Newby, Humor, Irony, and Wit: Ceramic Funk from the Sixties and Beyond (Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Art Museum, Ceramics Research Center, 2004)
“Spotlight: Kurt Markus,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2004
“Spotlight: Joan Almond,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2004
“Spotlight: Herman Leonard,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2004
“Things of the Spirit: Jason Walker’s Interrogation of Technology” in Ceramic Excellence: Fellowships at the Archie Bray Foundation, 2002-2003 (Helena, MT: Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, March 2003); reprinted, in slightly different form, in Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), March 2004
“Conjuring Belly Laughs: The Ceramic Art of Sandra Trujillo” in Ceramic Excellence: Fellowships at the Archie Bray Foundation, 2002-2003 (Helena, MT: Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, March 2003); reprinted, in slightly different form, in Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), December 2003
Panel moderator, “Small Place, Rich Life: Writing and Making Art in Rural/Small Town Montana,” with Tom Elliott (on Flatwillow Philosophical Society), Lee Rostad (on poet/novelist Grace Stone Coates), and Terrry Karson (on painter/sculptor Bill Stockton), Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, September 2003
“Spotlight: Bruce Barnbaum,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2003
“Spotlight: Nancy Racina Landin,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2003
“Chris Staley’s Rituals of Perception,” Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), December 2002
“Spotlight: Jeff Dunas,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), October 2002
“The Big Picture: Eleanor Parke Custis,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), October 2002
Panelist, “Writing About Art,” with Laura Millin, moderator; Gordon McConnell; and Stephen Glueckert, Montana Festival of the Book, Missoula, September 2002
“Spotlight: Cornell Capa,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), June 2002
“Teapots against the Darkness: Richard Notkin’s Yixing Series,” KerameikiTechni (Athens, Greece), April 2002; reprinted, in slightly different form, in Queen City News (Helena, MT), September 18, 2002
“Spotlight: Peter Merts,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), April 2002
“Spotlight: Shelby Lee Adams,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), April 2002
“The Art of Jitterbugging: Richard Swanson’s Dancing Teapots,” Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), March 2002; reprinted, in slightly different form, in Queen City News (Helena, MT), May 29, 2002
Talk, “Missionaries for Modernism: Enigmas, Outtakes, and Extrapolations,” exhibition opening remarks, The Most Difficult Journey: The Poindexter Collections of American Modernist Painting, Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT, March 2002
“Missionaries for Modernism: George and Elinor Poindexter and Montana’s Poindexter Collections of Postwar American Painting” in The Most Difficult Journey: The Poindexter Collections of American Modernist Painting (Billings, MT: Yellowstone Art Museum, 2002)
“Spotlight: Pirkle Jones,” Black & White Magazine (Santa Barbara, CA), February 2002
“Out of the Box: The Graphic Work of Akio Takamori,” American Ceramics (New York, NY), Spring 2002
“‘A Beautiful Spirit’: Origins of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts” (written with Chere Jiusto); excerpts in American Craft (New York, NY) April/May 2001, and Montana The Magazine of Western History (Helena, MT), Spring 2001
“Celebrating Fifty Years: Helena’s Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts,” Montana Magazine (Helena, MT), December 2000/January 2001
Foreword, “A Few Hard Words,” in Hard Words: Digital/Typographic Prints by Peter Koch and Griff Williams (Missoula, MT: University Galleries, University of Montana-Missoula, 2000) (<a href=”http://www.peterkochprinters.com”>http://www.peterkochprinters.com</a>)
“Bobby Silverman: Recontextualizing the Vessel,” Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), September 2000
“A Folk Spirit: The ‘Punch’ong’ Pots of George McCauley,” Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), September 2000
“Robert Harrison: Spirited Variations,” Ceramic Review (London, UK), Summer 2000
Review, Richard Notkin exhibition, “Passages,” Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT, Sculpture (Washington, DC), March 2000
“Tom Rippon’s Postmodern Marionettes,” American Craft (New York, NY), February/March 2000
“Artists Who Teach: Frances Senska, Gennie DeWeese, and Jim Poor,” parts one and two, State of the Arts (Helena, MT), November/December 1999 and January/February/March 2000; presented as a talk to Montana Art Gallery Directors Association annual conference, September 1999
Review, Richard Swanson exhibition, “Material Forces,” Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID, Sculpture (Washington, DC), November 1999
“Grizzly Bears and Art Openings: Montana’s DeWeese Family,” Montana Magazine (Helena, MT), November/December 1999
“Beth Lo: Taking Stock of Familial Relationships,” American Craft (New York, NY), June/July 1999
Review, Sergei Isupov exhibition, Dorothy Weiss Gallery, San Francisco, American Ceramics (New York, NY), summer 1999
“The Montana Collection: Keeping the Best at Home,” Montana Magazine (Helena, MT), November-December 1998
“Like a Prayer” in The Prints and Paintings of Anne Appleby (Helena: Holter Museum of Art, 1998)
“Balance & Bounty: A Montana Collaboration,” [high ground] (Moscow, ID: Fox Mountain Publishing), 1997
“Rooms Within Rooms: The Installations of Robert Harrison, 1981-1992,” in Robert Harrison: Architecture without Walls (Underdale, Australia: University of South Australia Art Museum , September 1992); reprinted in slightly different form in Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), Winter 1992-93
“‘To Stave Off Death’: Akio Takamori’s Life Studies,” Ceramics: Art and Perception (Sydney, Australia), Summer 1992
“Robert Harrison: Shrines for Potters,” American Ceramics (New York,NY), Autumn 1991; reprinted in slightly different form in Kinesis 4, Spring 1992
“The State of the Arts: News & Commentary on Art in Montana,” North Country Review: A Montana Journal of Western Life & Literature (Billings, MT), Winter 1990
“Peace and Riot in a Gesture: Chou, Pang-ling’s ‘Teapot Mutants,’” Hsiung Shih magazine (Taipei, Taiwan), Summer 1989
“Artists See Treasure Where Roundup Saw Mad Men’s Trash,” The Western Star (Missoula, MT), Summer 1980
Performing Arts
“Surprising Sounds under the Big Sky,” 5/4 Magazine (Seattle, WA), March 1998
Liner notes, Taking the Hook CD, Three Form jazz trio (M. J. Williams, vocal and trombone; Ann Tappan, piano; and Rob Kohler, acoustic and electric bass, with Joe Covill, drums), 1996
“Performing Miracles in Helena” [on Myrna Loy Center for the Performing & Media Arts], North Country Review: A Montana Journal of Western Life & Literature (Billings, MT), May/June 1989
Review, “Rocky Mountain Jazz” [Cheap Cologne album], Montana Eagle (Helena, MT), December 2, 1981
“Montana Jazz Alive: The Montana Jazz Quintet,” Montana Eagle (Helena, MT), April 8, 1981
Rick Newby, Writer & Editor 