From skilled horseman to master artist Michael G. Booth creates art beside his beloved Glacier Park

From growing up on a ranch in southeastern Idaho to a career dedicated to his consummate art, Michael G. Booth’s life has been guided by the pursuit and achievement of his dreams.

Born on a ranch in 1951 in southeastern Idaho, Booth grew up in Boise. A boy who was always fascinated by and loved to draw horses, he would often help his father who worked with cattle and farmed with workhorses. He also earned his Eagle Scout badge during those years, having spent much of his time in the mountains hiking, hunting and fishing.

“It was those times that influenced my art,” Booth said.

For 10 summers during and following his years studying forestry in the ‘70s at Boise State and later Utah State University, Booth worked for the Forest Service both as a firefighter and as a mule and horse packer, repairing and opening trails and packing in supplies to guard stations and lookout towers (living alone in both for several summers) deep in the roadless wilderness of the Idaho primitive area. He would later raise American Paint and Quarter Horses on his 10-acre property in Boise.

Yet, with less than a quarter left to earn his bachelor’s degree in forestry at Utah State, Booth decided to switch to pursuing a degree in art, even though he’d only taken one painting class in college.

“I’d always debated between art and forestry,” he said. “But I began to see what a job in management would look like, sitting behind a desk, and I also realized it would be difficult to get a full-time assignment immediately.”

Booth was also warned by someone in the forestry program that studying art would be difficult. But there is nothing Booth is more inclined to do than overcome obstacles.

“I just had this urge for art. I liked the challenge,” he said.

HOWEVER, HE soon realized that actually studying art was, indeed, much more difficult, much more about art’s academic aspect.

“Then a light went on one day defining the difference between typical art and fine art,” he said. “That really excited me. I saw something deeper, and that kicked me into another gear.”

Booth would ultimately graduate from Utah State’s master’s program in fine art — the equivalent of a doctorate.

While still in college, he made his first trip to Kalispell and was impressed by both an art gallery he visited and a professor at Flathead Valley Community College who was teaching pottery.

“I’d always thought I’d go into education one day, so that was exciting to see.”

Then, when he first set eyes on the unique beauty of Glacier National Park he knew this is where he wanted to be some day.

“The park just was amazing to me. The beauty of it. How majestic and inspiring it was. It planted a seed then,” Booth said. “Out of all the places I’d been, this place somehow fit me. It seemed like a dream for me.”

But first, after graduating, Booth would go on to teach studio art and art appreciation classes for 35 years at a number of colleges in Oregon, while also forging his career as a professional artist.

Booth has dedicated his life to creating art — in almost every medium — sculpting in bronze, cement, fiberglass and metal, painting in acrylic, oil and watercolor, and pottery — from small pieces to monumental scale.

“All art excites me,” Booth said. “I’m an explorer. I will work on one subject matter for quite some time, then take a break from it and, rather than stopping, I like to keep on working, so I’ll go on to something else.”

BOOTH CHARACTERIZES much of his painting, which is primarily of Glacier Park, as an academic style of expressionistic realism because of the emotion he likes to incorporate into his art.

“I really love to paint. I also love to sculpt bronze. All art fascinates me,” Booth said. “They all have their challenges. Every one of them requires a lot of work. Some people don’t like work. But I do.”

Booth also likes to see every piece of art to completion. When a professor once asked him whether he liked starting a piece or finishing one the best, he answered immediately that he liked the finishing.

“I like to see something at the end of all the work,” he said.

In 2000, while he was still teaching in Oregon, Booth drew up the plans for what would one day become his own gallery, studio and home. He chose to build it in Hungry Horse, which he saw as poised right at the entrance to Glacier Park.

Over the course of the next 20 summers, he and his son Shane, with help from several of his seven kids, hand built the exquisite 7,500-square foot Quonset-style log and galvanized aluminum building — a unique sculpture in and of itself.

When Booth and his wife Janet retired in 2020, they opened their landmark gallery and made Montana their home full time.

FILLED WITH his work, the Michael G. Booth Gallery includes paintings, primarily originals, but also limited edition giclees; and his pottery and bronzes, many of them painted, showcasing the master artist’s diversity and talent. Throughout are his signature personal touches — hand carved wildlife scenes on the gallery’s front door and fireplace mantel, stones and gates that have been sculpted and cut with wildlife and horse packing scenes, life-size sculptures of bears, horses and elk, and a sculpture garden out front.

While Booth had at one time spent many days hiking in Glacier and painting en plein air (the Many Glacier country, Mount Gould, Josephine, Grinnell, and Kintla and Bowman lakes among his favorite places), when he and Janet aren’t taking care of customers during the gallery’s busy summer and fall seasons he now typically works through the winter in his studio from photographs he’s taken in the park. Natural light pours in from the studio’s expansive windows overlooking a woods of tamarack, Douglas fir and pine.

Over the course of his prestigious career, Booth’s art has been displayed in galleries and shows across the country from New York City to San Francisco. He has garnered numerous awards and was the featured artist for the grand opening of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in 1992, an exhibit which drew 70,000 people.

Of Northwest Montana, Booth says “This was the final destination. I’ve been in galleries and shows all over the U.S. Now I just want to focus on this and enjoy life … and, to me, in the best place that I could possibly enjoy it.”