From a young age, Kristi Hager created art. Inspired by her Aunt Jo who inspired her to make art as often as possible since she was around 5 years old. Hanging in her kitchen on Spruce Street in Missoula, Montana is a drawing that she made when she was 10 or 11 of her dog Skipper when he died as a way to honor her friend, her pet, her family member.
Kristi arrived in Missoula in the late 1970s as a sabbatical replacement instructor in the art department at The University of Montana and fell in love with Missoula over the course of the next 50+ years.
If you want to know who Kristi was, spend time with her art. She began seriously applying herself to her vocation in 1986 and painted art until her last days. From bird baths to canoes, Missoula scenes to a giant Slinky, Kristi infused her vision into everything that she painted. She painted women and American icons in camouflage to question warfare as a way of life. It runs the gamut of mundane everyday objects like a nearly empty toilet paper roll, a card table, a slinky, to the erotic, to Love Letters to Missoula – studies of everyday scenes like the parking lot at the local grocery store, swimming in an Olympic sized lap pool, rafts on the Clark Fork River, and surfers on Brennan’s Wave. Her canoe studies are sought after, and her paintings of Rattlesnake Creek show an understanding of water that took decades of observing the creek, swimming in it, swimming in the lap pool and immersing herself in her subject any chance that she got – literally. Her love of Flathead Lake brought her such joy, swimming in its frigid waters any chance that she got.
Kristi was immensely interested in the way that women have been depicted in art, and dedicated herself to portraying women as they are – strong, beautiful, of many shapes and sizes, flawed, vulnerable and real. This dedication culminated in 2019 in a series that she called “Equal: A Work in Progress”, a collection of twenty one 60” X 48” portraits painted in black and white on tobacco cloth of strong women in her life. Kristi donated the series to the Missoula Art Museum.
Known mostly for her drawings and paintings, Kristi quietly made a living as a photographer. She shot Montana’s historic bridges, powerhouses, and missile sites, inside and out for the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) and Historical American Engineering Record (HAER). The photography is housed in the Library of Congress. Kristi used a large-format (4"X5") black and white film camera to ensure archival stability and clarity of detail. Recording a historic structure requires a strict protocol of views.Kristi completed over 80 HABS/HAER projects. Working within the strict requirements that documentary photography of this kind requires, her personal goal was to show the structure clearly and beautifully, as it is, without editorializing it in any way.
Before dedicating herself to her craft, Kristi studied to be an architect and eventually abandoned this pursuit in favor of fine art. One of her first studios was in a beautiful, although generally cold, space above an architect’s office on the seventh floor of the Metal Banks Building in Butte, Montana in the 1980s. Where she painted for 12 years. After painting a self portrait during that time, she recalled that she “had to wear many layers to stay warm in [her] studio in the Metal Banks Building”.
You can see her being interviewed in that space in a documentary made by Thomas Schadt, a German filmmaker, who came to Butte to film the documentary “Die Vergessene Stadt: The Forgotten City”. Kristi was not limited to documentaries, however. She appeared in the 1986 independent film “Bell Diamond” and the 1990 independent film “Sure Fire”. She also worked with local Missoula artist and filmmaker Geoff Pepos to create the wonderful Christmas Classic “Talkative Night”, available on her YouTube channel, which she wrote, and highlights her humor and acting capabilities.
And she was a writer too. Kristi wrote the text for “Evelyn Cameron: Montana’s Frontier Photographer”, a 2007 Montana Book Award honor winner, published by Far Country Press, and the basis for the Montana Public Television documentary “Evelyn Cameron: Pictures From A Worthy Life”.
Kristi Hager was an active member and integral part of the radical Pattee Canyon Ladies Salon (PCLS) , a group of women who met twice monthly to draw the female figure. The idea that women could hold a salon turned art history on its head and the friendships that she forged in the PCLS have lasted for decades. Kristi was driven to paint, and when COVID prevented her from convening with her friends in the PCLS, she convened with them at the Confluence Park where the Blackfoot and Clark Fork Rivers meet to paint plein air.
Beyond the art that she made and participated in, Kristi was highly curious. She was constantly reading new books in order to learn and ready to share her newfound knowledge without being pushy or evangelical about her sharing. Her vocabulary and ability to remember things were unmatched. And her curiosity extended, or maybe was informed by her art and vica-versa. She was so drawn to water. Being in it, from the Olympic sized lap pools where she swam laps so often at Currents in Missoula, to Big Arm State Park, her happy place, where she reveled in the eagles in the trees, the bright stars in the darkened night sky and the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore when the lake wasn’t calm. She swam in the lake, paddled around in her kayak at sunrise, and always felt rejuvenated there. She studied the ripples in Rattlesnake Creek , and the way the sunlight reflected and refracted on and in the water thought sketches, studies and numerous paintings before gleaning an intimate understanding of how to portray water the way she saw it, better than any camera lens could see it, in paintings and drawings.
Because of her curiosity, Kristi was always grateful. Sometimes she expressed this gratitude without using the word, as in the time that she walked out her front door to witness a double rainbow: “Close to sunset I noticed a shower passing through my neighborhood. Some long ago physics lesson told me to go outside and look opposite the sun. Double rainbow, sun on Jumbo. I grumbled about power poles until I gave in. I judged the number of drivers and pedestrians who took no apparent notice of the brief but spectacular light play. Before long, the parking lot near the RR tracks snagged three drivers who got out of their cars to grab a shot with their phones. Love physics.” And the way that she expressed that gratitude and magic manifested in the way that she cultivated beauty in her yard: “I watch my tulips open and open. I can hardly believe it, even though I have seen it many times. The Generosity Tulips”. For Kristi, everything in nature felt magical. As we bid farewell to her when autumn is turning to winter, we remember her musings, “Every year I look up why tree leaves change color and I forget the details of chlorophyll and shorter days. This year I made up my own reason: they are giving back the light.” And “September makes for beautiful light, longer shadows and shimmery leaves and pine boughs. This has been the best tomato season ever at the farmers market. Bouquets of zinnias and dahlias are irresistible, not to mention my neighbor's pumpkin display.”
Kristi was exuberant in her joy exploring Rattlesnake Creek. It “..had been a worthy muse for many years: in dipping season, a visual feast every day of the year and walking distance from [her] house.” She, in her words, “took many trips back to the creek, sometimes to look at rocks and moss above and under water, not always at the exact site of the painting. A worthy muse”. She found “Reminders, everywhere, that we can do this.”
Kristi found herself living in California in the 1980s and she was drawn to hula. Her mother used to say “extricate yourself with slow, undulating motions”, and Kristi dared to hula, leaving shyness at home, and dedicated herself to learning the art and prayer of hula dancing. She decided that this pursuit would be one thing that she would never feel guilt or shame about. And she danced hula. She found a chosen family in the The University of Montana Pacific Islanders Club and attended the weekly Sunday hulas for years, even into the weeks before her passing. She especially loved the songs Pua Kiele and Moloka’i Jam, and was grateful to have been able to share her knowledge and love of hula music on Montana Public Radio’s “Freeforms” show with Katie VanDorn in late September 2024.
Kristi once said that “singing and moving rhythmically together creates an instant sense of community.” And, feeling this in her soul, and bringing the spirit of hula with her, Kristi set out to bring the aloha to the fight for a cleaner planet when she conceived the idea for Cool Water Hula.
Kristi moved to Butte in 1984. As Kristi put it when she trained the hula dancers, she wanted the dance to “transform a greed culture into a green culture”. “Singing is part of it. It's a prayer - to teach us to care for water."
As reported in the Montana Standard by Marga Lincoln in June of 2010 “In late fall 1995 a flock of migrating snow geese stopped to rest on the toxic waters of the Berkeley Pit in Butte.
For 342 of them, it would be their last resting place.
For artist Kristi Hager, their deaths became a call to action - first in anger and later through dance.
On July 9, 2000, 154 women, children and men, dressed in water-blue sarongs, gathered on the rim of the pit, part of America's largest Superfund site, and danced the "Cool Water Hula." Then, Hager reprised the Cool Water Hula on the 10th anniversary of the initial performance on July 10, 2010. She was joined by 200 other hula dancers wrapped in cerulean-colored sarongs to, as Kristi said, “bring a bit of humor and good will to the ongoing cleanup efforts” at one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites.
This art action went down in history - recorded in "Montana: Stories of the Land," an award-winning history book by Helena author Krys Holmes published by the Montana Historical Society.
During a visit to the emergency room in early October 2024, when it wasn’t known if she would live for another couple of weeks, she told the ER doc that she just wanted to live long enough to vote in the upcoming election. Her 1st opportunity to get a ballot was the following week, and things were looking questionable as to whether she would be able to make it that long. She did. She was able to cast the ballot early and did so with pride.
Kristi took great joy in her yard, saying, “My yard is at its best ever: Clematis, Stella Doro Lilies, Day Lillies, Campanula, Goats Beard, Lavender, Sweet Peas, and pots of Geranium, Petunia, Violas, and Rosemary.”
Kristi loved walking the trail near the yellow rocks up the Rattlesnake neighborhood in Missoula, hiking the Mount Jumbo saddle, sitting by Rattlesnake Creek and thalo green paint. She enjoyed walking the trails near the Peas Farm and stopping by Dairy Queen on the way home from Flathead Lake was a tradition she shared with many.
Kristi was an Innovator. In a social media post she remembers that “The Winter Solstice brought -15° with windchills below -30°. My heated birdbath could not keep up. I broke the ice off the top a few times but was losing the battle. Then I thought, cozy, like a tea cozy. An old pair of insulated ski pants fit around the birdbath with one leg slipped inside the other at the cuff. The scarf keeps it snug and festive. It works! Birds are back! A shoo-in for a MacArthur Genius Award, eh?”
Kristi also advocated for change in her community: “Serious health consequences are well researched in this article that coincide with my experience. I have been wincing with pain, and jumping with a startled response from the train horn at the crossing near my house for more than 20 years.” She advocated for the railroad and the city of Missoula to install a proven solution to noise abatement at the crossing at Madison and Greenough Drive.
From movie nights at the Roxy, Pleinaire painting with her friends from the Pattee Canyon Ladies Salon, Kristi’s adventures with her friends were extraordinary while being at the same time simple, humble and joyous. Her sense of fashion was unmatched. She was once chased by reindeer on a trip above the Arctic Circle in the summer of 1972 with a friend who remembers that they covered every mode of transportation: plane, train, car, bike, and ferry.
Friends have said of Kristi that her “unique art, photography, and intellect have expanded human consciousness in joyful and unexpected ways.”
Kristi remembers with great joy taking her goddaughter Willa on a trip to California in the 1990s where Willa swam for the first time in the ocean.
Even during her last days, Kristi sought adventure.
In mid October 2024, her goddaughter Willa and some of Kristi’s friends took Kristi to Missoula's Butterfly House. Another friend took her to the Lee Metcalf Refuge and they “were startled by a red-breasted nuthatch within reach, then the rhino-mountain goat on the Bitterroot floodplain and a stick horse (feral Deborah Butterfield horse--inside art humor)”. Then she rode up the Blackfoot corridor to Ovando with a friend that found them engaging in a few side loops full of larch and cottonwood in full color. They ended their adventure at Confluence Park in Milltown. Kristi reported that it “seemed like a miracle to see the fully restored Clark Fork river bed. Each river is so distinctive in vegetation, geology, even the sound of the water. All beautiful.”
Late October, she traveled with a friend up Pattee Canyon on one of the last warm days of the season, to see the larch and the tamarack trees changing color. They ended up sitting on a park bench later that afternoon near the Clark Fork River and she marveled at the contrast of a green raft against the fall tree colors as the boaters rowed past.
Kristi Hager lived as an artist in Missoula, Montana. She earned her BA in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania; MFA, University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2003, Kristi received a Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant based on twenty years’ artistic achievement. In 2010, she received the Montana Arts Council Artist’s Innovation Award.
Born January 22, 1946, Kristi Jean Hager passed from this mortal coil November 12, 2024 after her third battle with cancer. Kristi is survived by her goddaughter Willa Fouts, her brother Michael Hager, her sister-in-law Cindy Hager, her sister Kathy Carmean, and numerous grateful loving friends and chosen family.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donations in her name to Partners Hope Foundation, YWCA Missoula, Blue Mountain Clinic, or the non-profit of your choice. A memorial will be held in the Spring of 2025 at a yet-to-be determined location.