Tippet Rise Art Center or I need a lottery win to live at this place

by Dennis · Published August 12, 2018 · Updated August 12, 2018

After being “blown away” by centuries old plains Indian art a few days prior we are now heading to a modern art installation on a 10,000-acre working cattle ranch southwest of Billings, MT. As with just about everywhere else we have visited on this trip we once again leave the pavement for a prolonged run on gravel. It is a cattle ranch after all. The only thing keeping our rig from looking like a ranch truck is that our windshield is not cracked at this time. Keeping our fingers crossed on that one.

Part of the Ranch with the Beartooth Mt’s hidden in smoke from forest fires

Tippet Rise was the dream of two artists that knew each other since high school. Today, they are trustees of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation. A search to find the just right place to create the art center lead them to many locations around the world. The scale of the planned art installations required a property with expansive vistas and rolling hills to properly showcase each piece. They found what they envisioned outside of Fishtail, Montana, a town of 478 people.

Satellite #5: Pioneer; by Stephen Talasink 2016 Yellow Cedar & steel

Beethoven’s Quartet by Mark di Suvero 2003 Steel & Stainless Steel 25,000 pds

There are rubber mallets supplied to pound on the suspended stainless steel section of Beethoven’s Quartet. The resulting sound reverberates across the grassland.

Proverb by Mark di Suvero, 2002 Steel & Stainless Steel 60′

The Beartooth Portal by Ensanble Studio, 2016, concrete 30′ tall

Daydreams by Patrick Dougherty, 2015 Willow Branches and reproduced local school house

Sustainability is at the core of the operation. There are 8000 square feet of bifacial solar panels to power the music center. The ranch has a rain and surface water system that can store up to 10,000 gallons for use for irrigation and gray water.

The Olivier Music Barn

In addition to the visual art, there is a concert facility with world class acoustics. You may mistake it for a barn, a really nice barn. The limited tickets for the performances are sold on a lottery basis in February for the short two month performing season. Several of the sculptures were designed acoustically to facilitate music performances out in the grassland. The acoustics of The Domo are surprising.

The Domo by Ensamble Studio; 2016, 1,000 cubic yds concrete

The van tours fill up weeks in advance so planning ahead is prudent, I don’t do that so well but lucked out to get space close to the date we wanted. Nice thing about being a long-term unemployed couple is that we just hung out in the area for an extra few days until our space on a tour became available. We could have ridden our bikes but the thirteen miles of gravel getting around the ranch seemed a bit much given the terrain.

The Inverted Portal by Ensamble Studio; 2016 Concrete

When the weather man in Billings heard we were taking a tour he scheduled rain and lighting for the day. We did get to see all of the pieces but had to hurry on the last stop to avoid the lighting. Despite the weather and forest fire smoke that moved in from California the Princess and I were moved by the mix of the land and the art.