By Rachel Hergett, Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Kelsey Dzintars doesn’t need anything special to make art.
“I’ve learned to paint and draw everywhere,” the Bozeman painter said on Monday during an interview with the Chronicle near her mural in progress north of Wild Crumb at Wallace Avenue and Peach Street.
Dzintars created makeshift studio spaces in living rooms, bedrooms and basements in every house she called home. Through six summers as a guide on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, she learned to grab hold of tiny windows of time to paint or draw, like the five minutes between when work is done in camp and clients return from a hike.
This summer, though, she’s staying put.
“It’s getting really difficult to stop that momentum for four months, be completely off the grid and then have to start projects up again,” Dzintars said.
Dzintars’ work is currently hanging at Map Brewing Company in Bozeman. She will be the featured artist at Lockhorn Cider House in August and at Cello in September. A piece she created for the SLAM community mural project is now outside of the Emerson Center. She is the illustrator of children’s book “Hey Bear” and takes on a variety of projects big and small.
Dzintars said she “leveled up” after moving into her first dedicated studio space in the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture in January.
“It’s been a long time coming,” she said. “It’s been really nice to have a home base like that where you’re surrounded by other artists. It’s like an institution here. The space has been great.”