MT Day 5 - Baldessari, Beer, and Buddha
Today was a big driving day for me as now that I’d done some comedy, I was zig-zagging back across the state for more sight-seeing stuff. To fuel this intrastate travelin’, I stopped at a neat little spot in Billings called Ebon Coffee Collective. It was very cute and artsy inside, and they made a good cup of Joe that helped keep me going.
The first leg of my drive was the two hours back to Bozeman where I stopped at a highly recommended lunch spot I’d missed out on my first time in town called Roost Fried Chicken. Roost was created by the Darr family, Tennessee transplants from a long line of restaurateurs who thought Montana could use a healthy dose of real Southern Home Cooking. I’m sure glad they did, because good lord was it perfect comfort food. I wasn’t the only who had heard about the place’s reputation and this little chicken shack was booming with people on their lunch breaks which I took as a pretty good omen. In a fun bit of coincidence, the woman at the cash register was also a comedian who had been at the open mic earlier in the week and we got to laugh about that and chat for a little bit while I waited the rush out. The chicken was more than worth the wait. I got a tenders basket with a side of macaroni and cheese and Alabama white sauce. The chicken tenders were fried and seasoned to perfection, but the macaroni and cheese almost stole the show with little bits of good Montana bacon sprinkled on top just to make it extra amazing.
After my fantastic lunch, I started heading to Missoula, which a lot of the Montanans I had met told me was one of the coolest cities in the state. It was another 3 hours from Bozeman, so about halfway I stopped to get gas and coffee at a grocery store in Butte called Three Bears, and I was positively blown away when I stepped outside and saw how close the clouds were to the lot. It was otherworldly.
My first stop when I made it to Missoula was the Missoula Art Museum, which was both free and had some fantastic exhibits up so a real win-win. Things started off well with a funky piece in the lobby called Leg’d Mercury by MaryAnn Bonjorni, which was made of a combination of found objects, dreamily layered paint, and sculpted legs. The piece was part of an ongoing series the museum does called Slow Art that encourages visitors to really slow down and look at a more unusual piece that might be easily overlooked. It’s definitely an odd piece with the kind of creepy dreamlike imagery connected by an unusual frame to a totally serene found still life. I’m not sure how the seemingly unrelated imagery is connected but it’s cool to just zone out and let your brain look for meaning in it.
The first special exhibit I saw was a showcase of works by John Baldesarri, a founding father of the Conceptual Art movement. It was a pretty big name for a little museum in Missoula, so I was very excited. I had seen a few Baldessari pieces throughout the county, and I had enjoyed them but not fully appreciated their place in art history until I saw them all together. Baldessari is credited with being one of the first contemporary artists to really embrace using the power of text in art and making art that was very self-consciously about art making and theory. Importantly he took potentially pretentious and naval gazing themes like the concept of art itself and chose to explore them with a liberal dose of wit and humor. His whole ethos can best be summed up in the introductory piece of the gallery which features a print of Baldessari scribbling the mantra “I will not make any more boring art.” like a naughty child being made to write out his punishment on a chalkboard. It’s silly and playful, but it also raises the question, “What makes art boring or not boring?” something that clearly plagues the artist. The fact that it is a lithograph is also interesting because it adds a layer of artifice to the seemingly spontaneous scrawl which shows Baldessari’s winking nature, because nothing is quite what it seems.
The majority of the works in the gallery featured collage work by Baldessari involving seemingly random stimuli comprised of films stills, photographs, his own painting, and text sometimes derived from film scripts or art text books and sometimes composed by the artist himself. He loves to intentionally frustrate the viewer’s expectations obscuring faces with brightly colored solid dots or cutting photos to intentionally leave blank spaces. It’s prankish, but it also causes your eye to go places it doesn’t normally while your brain desperately tries to make meaning of the imagery. Sometimes there is a logic to the piece like the “conceptual floor plans” on the bottom left which arranges found photographs into the shapes of different rooms of a house with the pictures sort of creating the memories and feelings associated with the spaces, but other times the pointlessness is the point. He reminds me of a sort of Pop-Art Duchamp combining the playful cynicism of Dada with pop culture influences of the 20th and 21st centuries. If it seems lazy to take other people’s photos and then just add a single word or phrase, you’ve gotta look at how meticulous his cutting and pasting is. Even if the associations are random, there’s so much apparent work, thought, and effort in his arrangements that I think you have to give Baldessari credit even if the art isn’t your cup of tea.
My personal favorites included: a series of prints called the Cliche series that uses vintage photographs, abstract painting, and color coding to tackle themes of racial stereotypes (for a closer look you can click here since my photo’s a little zoomed out to get the whole series); some fascinatingly altered photographs including a bright orange leaping man and a pastel yellow Stonehenge; a piece called Kiss, Hair, Hands which makes impressive use of negative space by cutting an old film still of a kiss into just lips and hair but placed in such a way that your brain sort of fills in the rest while two spooky hands lead a menacing undercurrent below; and a piece called Green Kiss/Red Embrace which features, as the name implies both a kiss and an embrace in their respective colors but with the two partners in each romantic act carefully cut out and spread across the canvas giving a dreamy air of complete incompleteness.
My absolute favorite piece was a multi-frame installation called The Fallen Easel which features several framed photographs forming the rough shape of an artist’s easel. The pictures seemingly have nothing to do with one another, but the image of the easel appears in one photo directly and makes up the shape of another photo’s specially made aluminum frame, thus the same image exists within every structure of the larger piece. It reminds me of how Dali might repeat the same visual motif as parts of larger images within the same painting so that your brain subconsciously sees the recurring shapes and structures, though here Baldessari does it almost entirely through using found materials creating the same effect without using his own hand (minus the trademark polka dots). Of course, he also brings his winking meta-commentary by making the one recurring image a fallen easel specifically, so he is able to make “art” by repeating the image of a failed artistic attempt. It’s a lot going on in a piece that really doesn’t look like anything at first glance.
The next gallery showcased the work of contemporary Native-American artist, Corwin Clairmont, a friend and contemporary of John Baldessari. The pieces on display came from a project of Clairmont’s called Double Arrow Head - Tar Sands, which is a blend of performance art, photography, printmaking, and environmental activism. For the project, Clairmont traveled 900 miles from Missoula to tar sand mining operations in Alberta, Canada. Every 25 miles, he would place a two-headed arrow print on the ground (arrows being symbolically rich as both a representation of his Native culture and the road work that destroyed so much of their land), pin down the print with gummy bears, photograph the area, and then take one half of the arrow with him and leave the other half there. He did this for the entire journey, and then at the end he chartered a plane to take some dazzling aerial photographs of the vast desolate expanses of the mining operations. He then used his photographs and prints to make rich dreamlike collages that map out his journey and the ebb and flow of natural wonder vs. man-made destruction. It’s a weird, but oddly lovely and moving blend of different art forms that defies easy categorization but sort of sucks you in once you stay immersed in it.
The next exhibition was called The Shape of Things: New Approaches to Indigenous Abstraction and featured the works of four young contemporary Native artists, Molly Murphy Adams (Oglala Lakota), John Hitchcock (Comanche), Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos/Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Tribes), and Duane Slick (Meskwaki/Nebraska Ho-Chunk), who were all given artist residency in Missoula and grant funding to create works that blended traditional and abstract arts. Each artist let their own backgrounds and interests shape their works and the results were really inventive and beautiful.
Molly Murphy Adams combined traditional beading techniques with dry-point etchings and geometric linocuts to create really unique three dimensional art objects:
Duane Slick used traditional animal imagery and more modern screen-printing techniques to create lush hallucinogenic prints where animal forms seem to come in and out of focus amidst more abstract forms:
Sara Siestreem created a series of pieces that combines grid like patterns of hand drawn circles with haunting photographs of her hands in the midst of symbolic motions showing her solidarity with protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In this way she links traditional gestures with artistic ones:
Lastly, my favorite of the group, John Hitchcock created prints combining shapes and patterns based on beading patterns he used to draw for his grandmother with a focus on colors significant to the Comanche. There’s just a vibrancy to them that leaps out of the frames.
But my favorite thing Hitchcock did was a larger installation called The Protectors which combined artificial Naugahyde Buffalo pelts with origami skulls all screen-printed with different patterns both abstract and animal print. It was really stunning.
The next gallery was series of works by Hungarian acrobat turned Montana-based artist, Joseph Baráz, who seems to have led a truly fascinating life. The works consisted of abstract paintings on found commercial objects such as cardboard and discarded plaster and stone. I wouldn’t call his works super aesthetically pleasing as they look intentionally unfinished, but he definitely has an eye for color and striking brushstrokes. While I did like a few of the pieces, for the most part the paintings on cardboard weren’t really my cup of tea as they look like kinda like a parody of “Modern Art” (which is maybe a bit inconsistent considering how much I just raved about Baldessari’s work which is very literally at times a parody of modern art, but I guess hey it’s all subjective)
I was much more partial to his three dimensional works, which he called stelae after a Greek term for pillars. These found assemblages combined bits of stone, metal, and wood detritus with bright abstract paints which for whatever reason really captured my imagination a bit more than the cardboard stuff did. It had a dreamy architectural element to it, and something about the juxtaposition of the dripping paint and the white stone was really lovely.
The next exhibit was called Anonymous Was a Woman by Miriam Schapiro, which featured a set of gorgeously intricate etchings of handmade doilies, bonnets, and fabric patterns that would normally be considered traditional “woman’s crafts”. In framing the works in this gallery she highlights her own impressive skills but also the artistic legacy of generations of female textile workers who were also incredibly gifted but largely ignored by the art world because of their gender.
This gallery was also helped by being housed in a beautiful room of the museum with really great glass windows looking out over the rolling hills and mountains (and lots of fog).
Last but not least was a fantastically surreal gallery of prints from local called Communites: West. It was great that the museum was encouraging and supporting local artists, and the community really rose to the occasion with some really incredible pieces. My personal favorites included: some silhouettes conducting some kind of sci-fi time and space travel in a piece called Back from Space by Marty Acevedo; some trippy disembodied arms by Camilla Taylor; a lovely and haunting lithograph of a bird wearing a gas mask almost made to look like a vintage photograph by Jessica Robles; some vibrant cartoon ghosts by Dane Goodwin; a gleefully deranged R. Crumb-esque western scene by Eric Wilson called Orange Haired Clown Falls Off a Cliff; a weirdly pretty big blue blob by Karl LeClair; a childlike etching of an ox trapped in mire and weirdly loving it; and some of the original etching plates from Miriam Schapiro’s series a floor above.
I liked that even the walls of the museum had an abstract artsy vibe to them.
After all that art, I enjoyed just walking around hip downtown Missoula which was fun and vibrant college town despite having nothing but mountains all around it. I stopped to get coffee at a funky spice shop that also doubled as the city’s oldest espresso bar called Butterfly Herbs. They had great coffee and an even better hippy dippy atmosphere to just sit and relax for a bit.
After coffee, I got a nice healthy dinner at a cool fast-casual Brazilian restaurant called Five on Black. They specialized in rice bowls, and I went with brown rice, chicken, coconut roasted sweet potatoes, lime, cilantro, and a delicious roll on top. Everything was so flavorful and tasty, but my phone was dying so I didn’t snap a photo. Fortunately the internet can provide a nice glimpse at what they have to offer":
After dinner, I decided to grab a flight at Missoula’s premier brewery the Draught Works. It had a bustling, fun communal pub vibe and some really great brews. I got a flight of their That’s What She Said Cream Ale, Last Rites Mexican Chocolate Porter, the Gwin Du Oatmeal Stout, and the Shadow Caster Amber Ale. Everything was excellent, but for richness and flavor the Last Rites with it’s hints of chocolate and cinnamon was pretty dang hard to beat. Not pictured was the Draught Works’ equally great non-alcoholic option, their homemade root beer which was a super tasty soda the whole family could enjoy on tap.
After enjoying my beers, root and otherwise, I got one more coffee from a fancy cafe and bakery called Liquid Planet, which had a fantastic logo of Atlas drinking from the earth like it was a giant thermos (apparently he doesn’t mind the salt).
Fueled up, I made my way to one of the most pleasantly random surprises I’ve encountered in this big ol’ country of ours: A garden in the middle of an Indian Reservation with over 1,000 Buddha statues, fittingly called the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas. The garden was founded in 2000 by Tibetan monks as place for all people to enjoy natural and man-made beauty, to solemnly reflect, and to learn about Buddhism. Because GPS isn’t so great that far in the middle of Montana, I actually overshot the garden a bit but while I was walking there I saw a series of gorgeous bronze shrines with little gold Buddhas in hem and I knew I was already in a unique and special place.
The main shrine consists of a 750-foot circular monument that sits on ten acres of rich natural land and forms the shape of a Dharma wheel representing the Noble 8 Fold Path. The circle is divided by 8 spokes each consisting of 125 concrete Buddha statues made locally out of stark white concrete. Along the outer wall of the wheel is another 1000 statues in the forms of reliquaries called stupas each containing stone likenesses of the female deity Tara so that the holiness of the place is more welcoming to all people. Individually every piece is a fantastic work of art but the sheer enormity of seeing all of them laid out like that is truly awe-inspiring.
Walking along the Dharma wheel at different points, there are single more elaborate shrines and statues, which encourage different forms of reflection and meditation. They also help keep things interesting as you walk around so it doesn’t seem like you are only seeing one thousand replications of the same single image.
At the center of the wheel, though, is the piece de resistance: a stunningly ornate 24 foot tall shrine to the Yum Chenmo, The Great Mother. It is an explosion of color anchoring the encircling the grey and white stone spokes and capable of catching your eye no matter where you stand. It’s simply one of the most amazingly beautiful statues I’ve ever seen, and makes for a perfect centerpiece to this weird, wonderful place.
From there I made my way to my Air BnB in the nice small mountain town of Ronan, and promptly passed right out.
Favorite Random Sightings: Black Dagger Tattoos (doesn’t sound Sanitary); A t-shirt reading “When life gives you lemons grab the vodka and call the girls” (the woman wearing it is my new personal hero); Buggy Bath (A car wash, not a gross bath)
Regional Observations: The accents are starting to get some of those classic Midwestern Long Vowel sounds while also definitely maintaining an odd bit of a southern twang despite bordering Canada.
Albums Listened To: Todd Fausnacht and The Well Whiskey Wind Whistlers by Todd Fausnacht and The Well Whiskey Wind Whistlers (fun little folk rock EP); Tom Shall Pass by Aesop Waits (a wild mashup of Aesop Rock and Tom Waits; Tommy McCook Featuring Bobby Ellis by Tommy McCook (some real jazzy reggae featuring one of Jamaica’s late great saxophonists); Too Much Pressure by the Selector (one of the most influential British ska albums and a helluva debut)
People’s Favorite Jokes: One from the web:
A woman and a baby were in the doctor's examining room, waiting for the Doctor to come in for the baby's first exam. The Doctor arrived, examined the baby, checked his weight, and seeming a little concerned, asked if the baby was breast-fed or bottle-fed.
"Breast-fed," she replied.
"Strip down to your waist," the Doctor said. She did. He pinched her nipples, then pressed, kneaded, and rubbed both breasts for awhile in a detailed examination. Motioning her to get dressed, he said, "No wonder this baby is underweight, you don't have any milk."
"I know," she said, "I'm his Grandma, but I'm glad I came."
Songs of the Day:
It’s shocking how well this works
such a fun tune
So much energy