Friday April 6, 2018 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM
We are proud to be back as a regular on the Billings Art Walk. Our feature Artists will be Randy Glick Fiber artist and Montana Circle of American Masters (MCAM) inductee. Randy Glick enjoys spinning, weaving and knitting surrounded by the mountains, plains and rivers of north central Montana. Although he spent all of his adult life exploring the world in the Air Force, he now calls Montana home.
Randy began his fiber arts career in earnest several years ago, but traces his knitting back several decades to his youth in rural Wisconsin. A country doctor recommended that knitting would be good physical therapy for Randy’s broken art at age nine. Randy’s daughter Monica, herself a fiber artist, kindled his interest in spinning and weaving. With a process engineering background, fiber arts might not seem like a logical hobby, but Randy enjoys the challenge of blending his educational background with the fiber arts, taking the processes of spinning, weaving and knitting and exploring ways to perfect the methods. Along the way he has developed improved approaches to many techniques, most notably spinning beaded yarns.
Randy gains inspiration for his projects from his environment. He works on ranches in the area, hike and spends a lot of time in the outdoors where he is always looking for a new idea. His idea of the perfect project combines fibers from Montana (wool, bison, Highland cattle) with nature’s endless palette of surprises. It was one of these experiences that motivated Randy to create a series of handbags depicting impressions he experienced at the Bird Creed Ranch outside of Great Falls. From the seasonal changes of the cottonwood trees that hug the Missouri River to the whitetail deer in their warrens along Bird Creek, the handbags evoke the pastoral atmosphere of the ranch.
Randy is a much sought after instructor, teaching all ages on every aspect of fiber arts. He recently taught a fiber experience workshop that included students from the Montana School for the Deaf and Blind. When Randy is not busy working on a new piece or teaching, he keeps himself busy looking for ways to promote the fiber arts, especially in fiber rich Montana.