TINWORKS ART: In COnversation

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20

Healing our Connections to Food and Place

Liz Carlisle. Agroecologist. Professor. Country Music Singer

Host Bruce Maxwell. Agroecologist. Professor. Food Systems Changemaker

Thank you TO everyone who attended this sold-out event!

Born and raised in Missoula, MT, Liz Carlisle is Associate Professor in Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara, teaching courses on food and farming. Working as an aide to organic farmer and U.S. Senator Jon Tester led her to a decade of research and writing collaborations with farmers in her home state. Carlisle is a frequent contributor to both academic journals and popular media outlets, focusing on food and farm policy, incentivizing soil health practices, and supporting new entry farmers. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography, from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Folklore and Mythology, from Harvard University. She is the author of three books: Lentil Underground, Grain by Grain (with co-author Bob Quinn), and Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming. Prior to her career as a writer and academic, Carlisle spent several years touring rural America as a country singer.

Originally from in Hamilton MT, Dr. Bruce Maxwell was Professor of Agroecology/Applied Plant Ecology, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Science at Montana State University for 32 years. He served as Director of the Montana Institute on Ecosystems from 2019 to 2022 and as LRES Department Head in 2008 and 2009. Maxwell was instrumental in creating the interdisciplinary Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems (SFBS) undergraduate degree program at MSU. He has received national awards for best researcher, outstanding teaching, best peer reviewed research papers and outstanding graduate student from the Weed Science Society of America; published over 130 scientific peer reviewed journal articles and 13 invited book chapters; and been a member of two National Academy of Science National Research Council Committees on Agriculture.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17

This House of Food: Stories from Montana Kitchens

Mary Murphy. Food Historian. Professor Emeritus. Author

Host Sarah Calhoun. Businesswoman. Social Entrepreneur. Founder of Red Ants Pants

Thank you TO everyone who attended this sold-out event!

Dr. Mary Murphy is an American historian who has taught courses on the history of gender, the North American West, and the history of food at Montana State University since 1990. She served as co-director and director of the Ivan Doig Center for the Study of the Lands and Peoples of the American West and was the Michael P. Malone Professor of History from 2005-2010. In 2013 she was named a Distinguished Professor in the College of Letters and Science. Murphy is the author of Hope in Hard Times: New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936-1942; Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-41; and Like a Family, The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. She has won numerous prizes and fellowships for her research, teaching, and mentoring, and received the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award in 2013. Along with colleagues Molly Kruckenberg, Zoe Ann Stoltz, and Jan Zauha, Murphy is currently writing a culinary history of Montana.

Sarah Calhoun is the owner of Red Ants Pants, the executive director of the Red Ants Pants Foundation, and the producer of Red Ants Pants Music Festival, which was named the Event of the Year by the Montana Office of Tourism. In 2018 she was inducted into the Montana Business Hall of Fame. Calhoun was named the National Women in Business Champion for the SBA in 2012 and Entrepreneur of the Year for the State of Montana in 2011. Dedicated to supporting rural communities and women’s leadership, she has given two TEDx talks, dozens of keynote addresses, and has gained national press such as CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Sunset, Entrepreneur, National Geographic, The New York Times and The Huffington Post.

Wednesday, May 15

Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Cultural Revitalization through Food

Mariah Gladstone. Founder of Indigikitchen

Host Jill Falcon Ramaker. Professor. Director of Buffalo Nations Food System Initiative

Mariah Gladstone (Blackfeet, Cherokee) grew up in Northwest Montana. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Environmental Engineering and returned home where she developed Indigikitchen. Gladstone has been recognized as a "Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow" through the First Nations Development Institute, a "Culture of Health Leader" through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and an MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow. She serves on the board of the FAST (Food Access and Sustainability Team) Blackfeet. Gladstone completed her Master's degree at SUNY - ESF through the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Jill Falcon Ramaker (Anishinaabe: Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) directs the Buffalo Nations Food Systems Initiative at Montana State University, an education and research initiative in support of intertribal food sovereignty aligned with the Buffalo Treaty. The initiative serves the Buffalo Nations biocultural region of the Northern Plains and Rockies including three Canadian provinces and five US states, and also through the new Indigenous Foods Lab founded this year in Bozeman. She is Assistant Professor of Community Nutrition and Sustainable Food Systems at MSU. Her research lies in the restoration of balance in human-natural systems, buffalo return, Indigenous land practices, heirloom seed propagation and stewardship, the buffalo culture seasonal round, cultural identity, Indigenous wellness, and biocultural diversity. Ramaker is a mother of three and a member of Minweyweywiigan Midewiwin Lodge, Roseau River First Nation, MB.