About the Artist
Maggie Toeckes
Coming from a longstanding ranching background on her Mom's side and farming on her Dad's side, Maggie Toeckes's Montana roots run deep. Born and raised on her family's fourth generation farm in Power, Montana, (just a half hour north of where Charlie Russell lived and painted) Maggie has been enamored with western art since the day she was born. Since her first crayon drawing of a fish as a toddler she spent her time growing up exploring many different mediums and techniques. She found oil painting in 2020 at the age of fifteen and continues to fall more in love every time she picks up a brush.
Maggie started art classes in third grade and won her first art contest with a “Best of Schools” award at the Montana State Fair in Great Falls with a watercolor. However after that, Maggie’s art classes came to a standstill until junior high when she would resume them.
Seventh grade brought painting on cardboard boxes with acrylic paints, learning how to grid photos to more accurately draw and paint them, and trying scratch art for the first time. She again received numerous awards for her artwork at the same fair and knew that she wanted to make creating art not just a hobby but her work. This dream had always been present but seemed like a far off, "someday" future to Maggie. However, this dream was about to become a reality sooner than she could have ever imagined.
Highschool brought continued training from her teacher and mentor, Dawn Sievers. Maggie fully credits Mrs. Sievers with inspiring, encouraging, and teaching Maggie how to begin selling her work during her freshman year of highschool. During 2020, as school moved online and quarantining became the norm, Maggie had more time to practice making art. While this time of isolation was frustrating and discouraging, it saw Maggie's work dramatically improve as she began to practice for hours each day. In painting she found peace and solace from the ever-changing world around her. When Montana opened up again, Maggie continued to delve into art. A private show at the Dutton Library, People's Choice Awards at the Power Community Art Show, and Juror's Choice awards at the State Fair added to her high school art experience. She also got the opportunity to visit the numerous art shows during Western Art Week in Great Falls, Montana. Maggie would tell you this was her favorite week of the year as she traveled from show to show asking the artists questions seeking advice for her future as well as asking for critiques of her own art. The lessons she learned from these conversations and from studying their art forever impacted the way Maggie creates art today. She was thrilled to be able to have her own booth at the Great Western Art Show both in March (during Western Art Week) and August of 2023. She has continued to come back to that show every year since. A lifelong dream come true came for Maggie as she had a piece juried into the Russell First Strike Auction in March of 2025. In addition to showing her work during Western Art Week, Maggie has also donated art to the Shadows of the Past Art Auction in Choteau, Montana to use her talents to benefit the local hospital. During her senior year of highschool, she won numerous scholarships to be able to pursue art through organizations such as the Young Masters Program. Maggie competed in the art contest run by this same program during highschool and won second place twice before winning first her senior year. After graduating from high school, Maggie has continued to study art through workshops and art critiques while studying business and marketing in college.
Every painting Maggie does is a personal one. All of her reference photos are personally taken by her while she works and interacts with her family and local community at brandings, while irrigating and harvesting, and out riding horses or working cows. As Mrs. Sievers once told her, Maggie paints what she knows. Excluding her plein air paintings, when she gets to go out and paint directly from life, Maggie's process in the studio begins with a pencil sketch. Often many, many reference photos come together to make one painting as Maggie puts together different ideas in the sketches to come up with the composition that she sees in her mind. Once the pencil sketch is done, she moves to draw the sketch onto her canvas. Then the paint flows as she blocks in the drawing and lays down texture to the final, finishing details.
For Maggie today, art is an engaging way to interact with the world by finding the peace and beauty within it. She is continually inspired by God's creation and the work farmers and ranchers do to care for it and to provide for others. The beauty of their daily work and sacrifices is what Maggie seeks to translate through paint onto the canvas. Ever-learning something each time she picks up her brush or her pencil, Maggie keeps finding the process engaging and her creativity alive and well. Through her art she hopes to bring the same wonder and joy she finds around her to others to see the good gift that this life is. Maggie plans to continue her career in art and appreciates all the support she has received from her family, friends, and community members.
“Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen”
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- St. Therese of Lisieux
“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when—like the artists of every age—captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colours and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you.”
- Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Artists
