Birdie Hall + Kathryn Schmidt
Flowers in Hell
A torn-open landscape of the soul.
Bozeman, 2025
When I was in high school a neighbor of mine exclaimed, “Why would you ever write when you can paint? Writing is such a lonely pursuit.” At the time, it seemed so ridiculous to differentiate the two creative acts. Almost everything creative I did was in private, mostly in a vacuum of deeply uncomfortable adolescence. It wasn't until the years piled on that I reflected upon this statement, now at the same age of my neighbor, and chuckled about my youthful definition of “lonely” — and hers, which must have come from her own practice: an inability to connect with another in the same pursuit.
Through the years that bred some experiences with failure, critical reviews, and re-dos — and then, also, wonderful adventures and friendships — emerged the understanding that the act of creating, although it may germinate from a place of thoughtful reflection, usually matures from the explorative relationships that breathe life into it.
Belatedly, I discovered that they have a deep friendship and co-mentorship in their practice.Since arriving to Montana, I have found a wellspring of interesting people and art. Birdie Hall and Kathryn Schmidt's work feels to me a torn-open landscape of the soul. After another truly walloping year of screaming into the abyss, it felt right to give these women the space to share their dialogue — one that speaks to the moment, to themselves, and to the unknown. Flowers in Hell brings together (finally) the art of Birdie Hall and Kathryn Schmidt, two Montana artists whose paintings and etchings illuminate the beautiful and oft-frightening promise of life in a burning Eden. Just in time for the New Year.
Installation views
Painter of swans, moons, and garden expulsions.
Birdie Hall is a Montana painter working in egg tempera, gouache, watercolor and oil — often on paper and panel at an intimate scale. Her imagery moves through myth and memory: Leda and her swan, sisters of the moon, midwinter springs and strawberry milk moons, rendered with a jewel-box intensity that rewards close looking.
Hall exhibited in Imaging the Sacred at the Missoula Art Museum alongside Talia Roberts, Daphne Sweet, and April Werle.
Canvases in conversation with the poets.
Kathryn Schmidt's acrylic paintings carry titles drawn from and in dialogue with literature — Ovid, W.H. Auden, Kenneth Rexroth, Jane Tompkins. Figures and animals occupy charged, pared-down landscapes that hold both lament and hope: kings and queens, shining cities, skies that are surely open.
Schmidt has painted in Montana for decades; the works in Flowers in Hell span more than ten years of her practice, from 2013 to 2024.