Shauna White Bear, Interim Executive Director

(Contact)

Artist & Entrepreneur, White Bear Moccasins

Shauna White Bear is from the Arikara & Hidatsa nation. She is a designer, innovator, artist, entrepreneur, stylist and cobbler in the art of moccasins. She currently owns a small business called White Bear Moccasins located in Bozeman, MT. Through this medium she's been able to collaborate with Ginew (a Native owned business), has been featured in Huffington Post, and b.yellowtail. Her talents are bringing people together through moccasin making while educating about the land and its history.

Jim Madden, MTA Board President

Artist/Architect & Founder, Mountain Time Arts

Jim draws upon his deep experience in art, architecture, and land conservation to connect people to place in engaging and transformative ways. A graduate of RISD and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his architectural work has received Design Awards from the American Institute of Architects and Progressive Architecture. Multiple awards stemming from his projects and community planning have resulted in broad exposure and influence across southwest Montana.

Victoria Cheyenne, MTA Vice President

Film/TV Director & Producer

Victoria Cheyenne (she/her/ella) is an Indigenous Bolivian-American (Aymara/Tsétsêhéstâhese) documentary filmmaker based in Bozeman, Montana. As a storyteller, Cheyenne navigates intimate familial storylines with a deep passion for themes centered on matriarchal lineage and cultural heritage. Her activism focuses on land sovereignty and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples. Her documentary short film, Learning I’m Home, was a Kendeda Fund grant recipient and premiered at the 2023 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, winning the bronze award in the Indigenous Documentary Film competition, judged by Lily Gladstone. Cheyenne is a 2022/2023 NeXt Doc Fellow, a 2024 4th World Media Lab Fellow, and a member of the Chicana Directors Initiative. She has previously worked producing and directing for digital original productions at Paramount. She’s currently in development for her debut feature documentary How To Be A Daughter, which follows her mother’s journey to her birthplace in Bolivia to reconnect with the family who spent the last 50 years searching for her.

Dan Bailey, MTA Board Treasurer

Teller Wildlife Refuge, Executive Director

Born and raised in Wyoming and living his entire adult life in Montana, Dan brings a unique perspective to the issues and opportunities that encompass living in the shadow of Yellowstone National Park.  Through his previous role with NPCA, Dan worked closely with Mountain Time Arts on the Yellowstone Revealed project, providing time and funding to support this incredible program.

His love of fishing brought him to Montana State University where he graduated with a degree in Land Resources Analysis and Management.  Dan decided to call Montana home starting in 2001 but wound up spending parts of the next 13 years in Mongolia working first as an ecologist and then as a fishing guide and outfitter.  During Dan’s time in Mongolia he started a master’s degree from the University of Montana focused on community-based fisheries conservation in Mongolia’s far north regions.  After finalizing his degree Dan joined Pheasants Forever leading the organizations efforts in Montana.  During his time with Pheasants Forever he oversaw the development of Montana’s Farm Bill Biologist Partners Program and the purchasing of two conservation properties opened to public hunting. After a brief call back to Mongolia Dan joined the National Parks Conservation Association in 2019 as their Yellowstone Program Manager working directly with the park on a host of conservation, wildlife and cultural management issues.  Dan and his wife Kascie welcomed a return back to the Bitterroot Valley and their home outside of Victor with their three bird dogs when he was hired as Teller’s Executive Director in 2023.

Benjamin Bennett, MTA Board Member

Founder and Principal, Massive Studios

Benjamin believes art serves as a universal language that transcends boundaries and fosters connections between individuals, communities, and cultures, enriching lives and expanding communication and understanding.

As the Founder and Principal for twenty two years at Massive, and with over twenty seven years of professional experience in Montana, Benjamin curates marketing strategies in the industries of healthcare, outdoor manufacturing, finance, retail trade, professional services as well as political campaigns and consultancy.

Highly invested in Bozeman’s growing community, Benjamin has served on the City of Bozeman’s Parking Commission, Bozeman Schools Foundation, and has been an adjunct professor to Montana State University’s School of Arts and Architecture.

Mary Ellen Strom, MTA Board Emeritus

Artist, Professor at Tufts University & Founder, Mountain Time Arts

Mary Ellen’s installations and site-specific projects unearth submerged narratives within art, history and cultural discourse. Her work has been exhibited in a wide range of contexts including museums, galleries, passenger trains, large-scale video projections onto industrial sites and mountain rock faces, in empty retail stores and horse arenas.

Recent awards include an International Fulbright Scholar Fellowship, a Bogliasco Fellowship to the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities, The MAP Fund, a Rockefeller Fellowship, Artadia The Fund for Art and Dialogue, Art Matters and Creative Capital.

Dede Taylor, MTA Board Emeritus

Art Historian & Founder, Mountain Time Arts

Dede Taylor is an art historian with a focus on the arts, history and culture of Islamic Spain and a former art history and history professor at Montana State University. She is a sought-after lecturer on a range of topics and an organizer of community-focused cultural projects, including the Friend of the Story and Pecha Kucha Bozeman.  Taylor is proud to be a member of the organizing committee for the successful campaign to establish Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Bozeman. She avidly promotes the arts as a vital ingredient of sustainable and just communities.