Distinctly Montana Magazine

81 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m the same year that Lee passed away in a Missoula nursing home, where he had been living since the year before. Most outsider artists acquire fame posthumously, so it could also be argued that outsider artists are those who create for themselves, not for an audience. But is this a fair definition? It seems more a generalization than anything else. In the program for the Lee Steen exhibit, Todd wrote that the Tree People were "the results of activities practiced by an individual with a com- pulsion to create and share his view of the world in order to bet- ter understand his surroundings." Art was for Lee more than a hobby. It was necessary, a com- pulsion. But he also didn't keep it to himself. He shared it, dis- played it on the side of a state highway, and sold his statues for five bucks apiece. Just as art is in the eye of the beholder, per- haps it takes a "beholder" to make an "outsider artist." When Lee left Roundup for the last time, his daughter Sharon offered her father's body of work to the Yellowstone Art Center to spare it being dismantled by vandals back in Roundup. Per- haps it was around this time that the animal sculptures assem- bled of scrap metal disappeared forever, as these never made it to Billings with the 240 or so cottonwood branch statues. Despite agreeing to an exhibit, the Yellowstone Art Center declined to keep Steen's statues in their permanent collec- tion. Young reportedly stored the Tree People in a chicken coop for several years, until the newly opened Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in Great Falls agreed to assume stew- ardship of the statues. The Lee Steen Collection remains on permanent view at the Paris Gibson Square at 1400 1st Avenue North in Great Falls. Away From Home AMERICAN INDIAN BOARDING SCHOOL STORIES The Western Heritage Center will display the national touring exhibit Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories April 9, 2024 – May 24, 2024 Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories explores off-reservation boarding schools in a kaleidoscope of voices. Admission fees are waived for all guests and self-guided tour groups during the exhibit's six-week stopover. WHC hours Tuesday-Saturday, 10am – 5pm The WHC museum is fully ADA accessible Western Heritage Center 2822 Montana Avenue, Billings, Montana 406-256-6809 www.ywhc.org Sponsored by the S.S. Heyneman Foundation and Billings Community Foundation. Don't saddle up in Yellow- stone or Glacier without this newly-revised essen- tial guide to horseback riding on some of the most scenic trails in the world! Novice and experienced riders will love this ulti- mate guide to horseback riding in two of Ameri- ca's most beautiful national parks. http://bit.ly/glacierhorses

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