Arlee artist receives award for beadwork

Native art, cultures celebrated at 31st annual Eiteljorg Indian Market, Festival

News from Eiteljorg Indian Market

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — The 31st annual Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market and Festival was celebrated June 24-25, with more than 4,000 guests enjoying performances and shopping for exquisite art from 122 Native artists from 60 cultures across the U.S. and Canada. This was one of the largest groups of artists to participate in Indian Market and Festival in a decade.

Artists showed and sold works from multiple disciplines, including jewelry, pottery, basketry, beadwork, carvings, paintings, weavings and cultural items. Visitors could engage with the artists at their booths inside the Eiteljorg Museum and on the grounds, purchase their art and enjoy music, dance and cultural performances during the weekend.

“The 31st annual Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival was an amazing celebration of Native arts and cultures, featuring some longtime artists who experienced collectors consistently seek out each year, as well as some exciting young artists who represent the future of the market,” Eiteljorg President and CEO Kathryn Haigh said. Many artists entered their works into a juried competition. A panel of three experts in Native art judged the competition, through which $38,000 in cash prizes were awarded, along with ribbons. The Friends of Indian Market and Festival sponsored the awards, which included cash prizes for the best entry in each division, as well as for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place entries in multiple categories comprising a division. The 2023 Indian Market and Festival Best of Division award recipients in each category are:

Salisha Old Bull (Salish / Crow) of Arlee, won for a cradleboard titled “The Matriarch,” in the Beadwork Division.

Five ways to lower MT residential property taxes

fret over their tax bills. The Republican-controlled 2023 Legislature, which was informed about the looming reappraisal spike by a November memo from the Montana Department of Revenue, took some action on property tax policy this year. It modernized an assistance program for low-income taxpayers and spent a chunk of the state’s historic budget surplus on a pair of onetime property tax rebates for homeowners, $675 for each of 2022 and 2023.

MONTANA — Homeowners across Montana received a nasty shock in the mail last month, coming in the form of state property reappraisal notices that generally indicated the 2023 valuations used to calculate property taxes have spiked over the two-year reappraisal cycle.

It’s unlikely those valuation increases, 46% on median statewide, will translate into equivalent increases when country treasurers mail out actual property tax bills this fall. That’s because the tax estimates included on the reappraisal notices don’t account for how across-the-board value growth will let cities, counties and school districts fund their budgets with lower tax rates. Regardless, reappraisal sticker shock has driven widespread discussion about Montana’s tax system as homeowners

Lawmakers also retooled a state-level tax levy that collects money to balance school funding between districts in different parts of Montana, redirecting some of the money collected there to lowering school taxes assessed at the local level.

While both majority Republicans and minority Democrats proposed other long-term property tax legislation, no significant property tax proposals beyond those garnered the support to make it to the desk of Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican. As reappraisal notices raise taxpayers’ hackles, Democrats have sought to make political hay over taxes in recent weeks, arguing Republicans failed to do enough on the issue and calling for a special session to consider further tax legislation.

While that special ses- see page 19