Those two guiding philosophies are writ large on the walls and tucked away in the corners of Nickel's University Area home, where you'll find an eclectic collection of artwork that ranges from the familiar to the fabulous to the downright bizarre.
"People ask, well what is art?" says Nickel. "Well, I don't know. But I know the stuff that I like."
"I change out my art with the seasons," explains Nickel. "You have to have storage space to keep it all, and time to rotate it all; but I guess I would rather rotate the art than decorate the Christmas tree."
"Also," she adds quickly, as if to elaborate, "I like rocks."
That's Kathi Nickel: constantly jumping from subject to subject, object to object, never lingering in one place too long.
As in life, so in art collecting.
Dig around in the corners of Nickel's house, and you might be surprised by what you find. Here, arranged on a shelf, is a collection of old cameras. Over there, serving as a temporary receptacle for a handful of seashells, is a Zulu basket made of telephone wire. There's a whole stack of paintings behind the rack of clothes in the unfinished bathroom off the master bedroom, and some crazy sculptures in the basement, on a shelf just past the wine rack.
On the walls - right now, anyway - there are paintings by highly regarded artists such as Walter Hook, Gennie DeWeese and R.C. Gorman (the man proclaimed "the Picasso of American Indian Art" by the New York Times).
Alongside them hang paintings and sketches made by friends, University of Montana art students and Nickel herself. There are vintage Japanese and Chinese kimonos - artifacts of Nickel's costume-collecting phase - and a glass cabinet full of imported dolls - Nickel's childhood passion. And yes, there are rocks: a large chunk of jade that Nickel brought back from China, a bowl of stones she found on local riverbanks.
Hardly an inch of wall or shelf space is left uncovered - save, for a moment at least, in the stairwell.
"Oh, here's where I've got to put a couple of pieces up," Nickel says, gesturing toward the hooks that mark the blank wall space as ready and waiting for who knows what.
Back in the living room, where much of the wall space is currently occupied by wintery landscape paintings, Nickel tries to sum up the essence of her collection.
"I'm mostly eclectic," she says. "I am very interested in folk art from around the world and crafts, and I also have some California impressionist paintings. Then I've lived here (in Missoula) about 10 years and I have a lot of Montana artists now; plus some great things I buy at the university student sale.
"It all becomes art when you throw it together."
That's not to say that Nickel doesn't have fairly specific tastes, at least in some regards. Gesturing toward a cattle-inhabited landscape painted by Ryegate artist Davi Nelson, she points out what's missing.
"This is probably the only painting that Davi Nelson has done without a sky," she says. "I only want a little sky; a lot of painters paint mostly sky. That's just a personal thing I've developed over time. Most people might not even notice."
Though that is indeed a commonality among the landscapes in Nickel's collection, to focus on such subtle connections might lead one to lose the overriding theme of her assemblage: its diversity.
"I don't like to buy more than one piece by an artist," says Nickel. "I try to mix it up. Dudley (Dana, owner of the Dana Gallery) will call me up and say, 'I have a great new show of Davi Nelson's paintings coming up.' I tell him, 'Dudley, I don't need another Davi Nelson. I have a Davi Nelson, and I like the one I have.' "
She pauses, gazing again at Nelson's stylized landscape.
"There's the idea of reselling it," she says. "But I have a hard time doing that. Do you get to the point where you like something less? If it's something that you really connected with in the first place, I don't think you do. Each piece has a special place for me."
It's just not always on the wall.
Art at Home is a weekly series of profiles of western Montana residents and the art that they own and love. Join us every Thursday in the pages of the Entertainer, and online at Missoulian.com, as we present these stories in words, photographs and audio.
NEXT WEEK IN "ART AT HOME": Though new to town, Kathleen O'Reilley has wasted no time collecting art that reflects the realities of her new life in Missoula. "This place that I've created is a space where, every day, my senses connect with the kind of art that calls me to have hope and faith and a tremendous courage and energy to go out the door ... and to live."
- In the Entertainer and at www.missoulian.com.
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