BASIN - To be in the presence of artist June O. Underwood is to be swept along in a flood of exuberant creative energy, punctuated with a lot of laughter.

Since arriving Dec. 1 at the Montana Artists Refuge for a two-month artist's residency, she's completed 44 art pieces in an array of media.

"It's just absolutely exciting, there's nothing to distract me," she said in her storefront studio earlier this week. "This is an absolutely magical place."

Near the big, front studio windows, where an icy, blustery wind rattled the casings trying to burst in, she sat at an easel painting a watercolor.

Behind her on the wall, are nearly a dozen oil paintings she's completed, mostly scenes of Basin and the surrounding landscape.

"Basin has all this wonderful history ... you've got the mountains, you've got the geology and then you've got the mines..."

She points to a painting depicting a Basin business that's evolved over the years.

"(It) was a livery stable, a gas station ...then a wrecking (salvage) yard," she said. "All the paintings here are trying to get a sense of this place. I'm fascinated by community. I'm fascinated with place.

Her Basin pieces are vivid, lively portraits of the local church, the main street complete with wandering dogs, old trucks, the Silver Saddle Bar, Basin Creek and, of course, the mountains.

Nearby hang more abstract paintings of what Underwood calls, "portals."

"They are really personal histories coming out of what I'm doing - the shapes, the colors, the feels ... the portals are like openings and Basin is a perfect place for openings. All the mine openings and the town itself being open to various people coming and going."

To her, the portals pose questions: "Where are you going and what's on the other side?"

Along the back wall stretches what started as a mural of the history of the earth, until Underwood, in disgust, took scissors to it.

Now it's a mural centered on Basin, surrounded by fragments of earth's geological history. The central images are different perspectives of the artists refuge, frozen Basin Creek with cairns in it and a map of the town.

Underwood's been fascinated by history for many years. Her initial career from 1965 to 1985 was as an English professor, specializing in 19th century fiction - Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray.

While teaching at Emporia State University in Kansas, she was also part-time director of the educational TV station.

She found herself researching local history and uncovering fascinating stories. Sometimes people brought them to her.

She turned one of these stories, which grew from a collection of letters, into an award-winning docu-drama, "Blessed, Blessed Mama," which won a 1980 ACE National Cable Television award.

Underwood's life as an artist actually grew from what at first seemed a career-ending disability.

Underwood retired from teaching in 1985 because of a physical condition that caused short-term memory loss.

While recovering from successful surgery, she took up hand quilting.

Soon, she was taking classes in design and color.

"I'm not a fine seamstress," she admitted. But, she embraced all the creative options quilting and fiber art offered.

Although she brought only a few samples of fiber art with her, a fat, three-ring notebook holds photos of her most recent work, capturing the geological beauty of the John Day Fossil Beds in eastern Oregon.

Underwood was a resident artist there this fall, exploring its badlands, rangeland and volcanic and wind-carved formations.

She refers to the motifs found at John Day as her "textile obsession in 2007 and 2008."

Her fiber images frequently start as digital photos she prints on a variety of fabrics, often silk.

"I then go back in with watercolor or fabric textile paint or watercolor pencil and sharpen the image and then stitch them..."

The colors may be subtle earth tones of the geological formations, or the vibrant colors of her creative interpretations.

Her John Day images are about the power of the earth and the immensity of the landscape.

"In the John Day Fossil Beds, people are so insignificant," said Underwood. "We're really peripheral."

While human history is barely evident at John Day, that's not so in Basin.

"A place like Basin you can almost hold in your hands," she said. It reminds her of the small town where she grew up, Pine Station, Pa.

Underwood was taking a break from her art for a short jaunt to Yellowstone National Park this week.

This, no doubt, will inspire more art.

Some may hesitate when looking at an empty canvas, but not Underwood. Her ideas pour forth.

"Doubts are part of existence," she said matter-of-factly. "If I make an error, I'm not doing brain surgery. If I make an error, I throw it out."

For those who would like to meet Underwood and see her art, she will host an open house at her storefront studio in Basin the last three Fridays of the month, Jan. 11, 18 and 25 from 3 to 5 p.m.

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com