A message from Gilmore McLean, owner and leatherworker for Work in Progress:

I began leatherwork in earnest in May of 2018 after earning a master’s degree in Environmental Philosophy (instilling me with an ethos I bring into my decisions with Work in Progress) from the University of Montana in Missoula, MT. I had already accrued some leather knowledge and was fixing birkenstocks while working at Hide & Sole, a Missoula staple. I was approached by someone who asked if I would be interested in tooling leather and the rest is history. I moved to Butte to live with my now husband at the beginning of the pandemic and have been doing leatherwork full time since 2021.

Work in Progress was originally conceived as a much smaller space, with just my leather workshop and my work. As it continued to snowball, I started to imagine a larger space that included the work of other Montana people who I had gotten to know through artist networking and doing craft fairs.

The artists below are a mix of more than 30 artists I knew before and artists I’ve met since opening the store. Because leatherwork is my main business and the retail side is secondary, I am able to give them 80% of their sales, keeping only 20% to cover costs of running the store. Pending space, I allow them complete creative control over what they bring in. We are not currently accepting new artists.