Tippet Rise in the Community
December 12, 2023
As we approach the year’s end and reflect upon this season, we are especially grateful for the many ways in which Tippet Rise is closely connected to the surrounding community.
Led by Beth Korth, Art Education and Visitor Center Manager, Tippet Rise organizes year-round outreach programs at neighboring schools and libraries. This fall, we expanded our adult-level workshops at the libraries in Stillwater County and Carbon County and enjoyed engaging with a broad group of neighbors. At a recent gathering, Beth led the group in creating gelatin prints and cards that participants decorated and designed using monotype stencils and the imprint of natural items such as pine sprigs, leaves, and flowers. Information about upcoming programs, including a holiday craft themed event on December 13 at the Stillwater Library in Columbus, Montana can be found on the Facebook pages of Red Lodge Carnegie Library and Stillwater County Library.
There was also a great deal of energy around our Tippet Rise-led school programs this year, which reach students ranging from preschoolers to college-age. Beth loves visiting our youngest friends at Mountain Bluebells Preschool in Red Lodge once a month, and recently worked with the children to observe the changing leaves and to replicate them in clay and paint.
Visits to Mountain View Elementary School in Red Lodge occur three times a month, allowing Beth and Jenny Van Ooyen, Tippet Rise’s Visitor Experience Manager, to work with eight classrooms in grades K through 5. Inspired by Ai Weiwei’s Iron Tree on the main Cottonwood Campus at Tippet Rise, students created their own tree collages by ripping and pasting unique shapes of paper and used tin foil add painted texture onto the trees. On a warm day this fall, Absarokee Middle School and Absarokee High School students created sun prints using hand-cut stencils and cyanotype paper.
In addition to school visits, Beth hosts monthly after-school programs with the Boys and Girls Club of Carbon County. A recent Friday evening brought together a group of 16 teens to sip hot cocoa and paint – a great opportunity to unwind after a busy school week.
In addition to serving in her role at Tippet Rise, Beth is a working artist. This fall she exhibited her work as part of a special presentation at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, in which she created a large-scale panoramic piece onsite, working collaboratively with students and members of the community. Beth holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wyoming and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Montana.
Beth Korth shared, “What we focused on this year, and as we move into 2024, is engaging in repetition with students and members of our community. We feel that they gain so much more by regular opportunities to build upon their artistic skills each session, and to understand these techniques within the context of the mission of Tippet Rise and the natural beauty that surrounds us in Montana. It is so gratifying to walk the halls of our community schools and to see the excitement on the student’s faces when we arrive for an art workshop, and I feel grateful to the students and their teachers for the chance to forge these connections.”
We look forward to welcoming many of these students in person to tour Tippet Rise next spring, in addition to students from the Fishtail, Luther, and Nye schools; Ophir Elementary School in Big Sky; Laurel High School; Hardin Middle School; Northwest College, MSU’s School of Architecture and Honors College; and many more!