Since I’ve last written we’ve said goodbye to new friends Bud & Pat. We wished them safe travels as they make their way to Texas for the winter. We are hoping that we one day cross paths with these two again as we really enjoyed their company.
We packed the house up this morning because we had to take it to the local RV place to have the wheel bearings repacked. Just one of those maintenance things we have to do. We had called a week ago for an appointment and this as soon as we could get in. We called one who is located closer to us but they were booked until the end of October. We forgot that people in this area are putting their rigs away for the winter and everyone is in a mad rush to have repairs made or have their rigs winterized. We were lucky to get in at all I guess.
We had to be there by 9:30 so we had quite a bit of the packing away already done last night.
So while the rig is being worked on we’ll say “hello to Great Falls” since we haven’t seen a whole lot of her.
After taking a nice long ride around town to really get our bearings we decided to go to the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art. Now art museums are not something of the norm for Bob and I but this was a small one so we decided to go for it and we’re glad we did. While we didn’t enjoy all of the exhibits or even UNDERSTAND them if the truth be told……we’re glad we took this one in.
This building, formerly a high school and then a middle school was built in 1896. The woodwork inside was as much of an interest to us as the exhibits themselves.
The first thing you noticed when you went in was the wooden floors! The SHINY wooden floors. Can you imagine how notes were passed in these halls?
It seems all the of the exhibits going on right now have to do with the body. In that first room off to the right was four walls with paintings of nude swimmers on them. Nice enough pictures but I couldn’t understand the fascination the artist had with grossly overweight swimmers climbing up on rocks to get out of the pond. The artist left NOTHING to the imagination. No, I didn’t take pictures of those paintings.
The paintings on the far end of the hallway were of people performing a task such as mixing ingredients for a cake but the body had three sets of arms/hands each one doing a different task and then “thought bubbles” around the person’s head so that you could read their thoughts. I didn’t “get” it, This was called Figuratively Speaking.
Make a right at the end of the hall and you come to my favorite exhibit. STICK PEOPLE or as the artist, Lee Steen calls them, Tree People. I think either one would be right.
Limbs and branches from felled trees with the addition of inverted coffee cans for a hat, beer tabs and bottle caps for eyes and buttons and twigs transformed like magic into a mustache, these things brought the Tree People to life. I just loved this room!
The artist died some thirty years ago but his sculptures have been kept alive through the efforts of those who enjoyed them so much. At his home in Roundup, Montana, his yard was an outdoor gallery for his artwork.
While this exhibit was lighthearted and whimsical the next was quite sobering.
This piece, named Three Thousand and Counting, by Great Falls artist Jean Price, has the intention of making a number more meaningful to those who gaze at this. By designing a dog tag, made of aluminum, for each fallen soldier in Operation Iraqi Freedom the artist wants visitor to actually see what 3000 (and counting) looks like.
Beginning with the first casualty back in ‘03 each fallen soldier is represented with the dog tag which gives his or her name, rank and age. Those Montanans who have given the ultimate are pointed out through the artist’s use of copper and brass on the dog tags.
You can see sitting on the shelf a box of clippings from the aluminum, brass and copper that the artist cut away from the dog tags. The “chaff” represents the other casualties of war. The wounded, the homeless, the parents who have lost a child, the widows and orphans for whom life will never be the same and who are indeed, the fallout of the war. Yes, sobering.
Here is a lead window from the stairwell.
There were lots of art rooms in the building where artists, young children and seasoned artists alike, work on their projects and learn.
Yep, I think another art museum may be in our future.
I really liked this downtown area. The avenues are wide and tree lined and no two houses look alike. This street reminds me so much of the street I grew up on before they widened the road and took all the trees down.
Great Falls is a great mixture of casinos, car dealerships, funeral homes and pawn shops. Seems like there is one of each on every street in the business section. We took a ride to the “old” downtown and we both enjoyed looking at the old buildings that were once the heart of this city.
Since I have so many more pictures from our day out I’m going to break it down in two parts.
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