John Henry Haseltine is an artist and writer based in Livingston, Montana. Sometimes he makes puppets, but they aren’t super functional, and you must be REALLY careful if you want to use them.

His traveling immersive museum show, The Mountain Clown & Other Foul Animals opened at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings in October 2024, and was featured by The New York Times in its seasonal U.S. Gallery and Museum preview. The exhibition presented a fabricated career retrospective of Mable MacKenzie, a fictional children’s storybook author, complete with literary and biographical excerpts, paintings, toys, comics, and a live gallery performance of Haseltine’s one-person show, The Phantom Chuckwagon.

Haseltine has previously cycled through various artistic pursuits, phases and mediums, including film, theater, and rock & roll, but an insurmountable distaste for collaboration drew him to both Montana and painting. Like many artists before him, John Henry found Montana’s geography and history a limitless source of inspiration, despite rarely venturing outside his home studio or opening his blinds.

His first book, Westward & Miserable, a collection of paintings and stories gathered from his past gallery shows in Livingston, was published by Elk River Books in 2024, and is a 2025 High Plains Book Awards Finalist.

Haseltine’s next one-person play, The Daredevil, about an unnamed, Butte-born, death-defying motorcyclist will premier in September 2025 as part of the first Livingston Fringe Festival.

Recent works are available through Visions West Contemporary. Use the link below to find him on Instagram.