Archive for September 5th, 2007
Lucas stopped by the other night and told me about an article in Missoula.com Magazine that dubbed Missoula “The Paris of the West”. The article featured several well known visual artists and writers and profiled their lives and their art. Did the feature tell the whole story? The writing was good, as was the story. The photographs were incredible, featuring, for example, Missoula writer Jeff Hull sitting at The Oxford Bar. The Ox is the oldest bar in Missoula, though it was not always known as The Oxford. It pre-dates prohibition, and has since become a pretty seedy place. It’s open 24 hours, and after 2AM, it is a haven for drunks looking for a cup of coffee and some sustenance to sober them up enough to drive home. Meanwhile, regulars sit and play cards for money up in front. It’s a dirty bar that welcomes all sorts of riff-raff, and I’ve spent more than one early morning there. But. The writer does not seem like the type to frequent a place like this. Yet the photo implies that it is his stomping grounds. Maybe it is, I don’t know him. But I’ve never seen him in there, and the photo is pretty glitzy. Seems pretty staged to me. Regardless. Missoula, the Paris of the West? Condos have been popping up relentlessly here in town. Last year, I attended an open house at one of the condos that opened near Le Petit Outre. It’s a beautiful space, office buildings on the first floor with contemporarily designed two bedroom condos above. Apparently I looked like a potential buyer, as the realtor mentioned that “this neighborhood is full of artists, and is close to downtown. It’s a great location.” It is a great location, close to downtown, and, like he said, is a neighborhood full of artists. I looked at him and said, “The things you say are true. Don’t you think that by building a $350,000 per unit set of condos that you are pricing the artists right out of this neighborhood?” He had no response for me. Last year, I was lucky enough to have been able to pay my rent four months running by selling artwork. This year, I have not even had enough cash to buy materials to mat and frame artwork, much less spend cash on marketing (posters, ads, postcards, postage) for exhibitions. My former day-job laid me off in October, saying that they were going to call me back to work in March. March rolls around, and they still can’t afford payroll, so they can’t call me back, but could I come back in June? By June, they would definitely have their act together enough to cover payroll and call me back to work. I said, Sure, see you in June. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, believed them, and did not look for other work. Meantime, I experimented with different things, including trying to build this site from scratch as a means to earn a little extra cash. I experimented with different art styles, I made a bunch of art, I lived frugally, I was looking forward to returning to work, but I wasn’t looking for another job. June rolls around, and they can’t call me back to work. It takes me a while, but I am lucky enough to find a job. It’s a great job, great boss. Hard work, mowing lawns and landscaping in, sometimes, 100º+ temperatures, with, recently, heavy smoke from wildland fires. In the meantime, I fell behind on some of my bills and, though I make enough to make it, when you are behind, it’s difficult to catch up, much less make ends meet. So I’ve been working 9, 10, 11 hour days mowing lawns, digging ditches and hauling huge rocks around. (”That boulder is too large, I could lift a smaller one.”) It doesn’t leave me with much time to create art, sell it, or do much else in that arena. Meanwhile, the summer is coming to a close pretty quickly, and the landscaping will end soon. Soon after that, the lawn mowing will cease, and I’ll need to find another job. This paycheck to paycheck shit sucks, let me tell you. Yeah, Missoula’s been called “The Paris of the West” before, apparently by John Updike, but I’ve been unable to corroborate this claim. Yet, there have been other “Paris of the West” towns, most notably, San Francisco. The Missoula artists that are recognizable are the same ones over and over. Dudly Dana, Monte Dolack, Jonathan Qualben, David James Duncan and William Kittredge. That there is name recognition for these artists does not diminish their work by any means. I’m suggesting that if indeed Missoula is “the Paris of the West”, the whole story has not been presented. Artists who are struggling to produce original work, struggling to say something with their art, struggling to make it as artists who have’t sold out to marketing and tourism, who haven’t sold themselves short, and I say that because I think many of the well-known artists have great talent, but have chosen to make the art that they make because it is marketable. The executive who comes to Missoula from Chicago, pays beau-coup bucks to stay at Paws Up, pays and exorbitant amount of money for Orvis gear he will never use again, pays a fishing guide a ridiculous sum, then, as a memento of his Montana trip, makes a stop at Monte Dolack’s place has no real idea about the artists in Missoula who are struggling to make a difference. And he doesn’t care. Why should he? What about the unknown artists? The ones who haven’t “made it”? The performance artists about whom I have written before, the singers who quit their jobs to focus on their singing careers or quit school to pursue a living as a musician? The unknown visual artists who are struggling against obscurity and managing to make a go of it? Why were people like these omitted from the over-hyped article in Missoula.com Magazine? Like Paris, Missoula has its share of street kids, its share of bohemians and starving artists. But that segment of the arts community allegedly doesn’t bring dollars into the local economy. We know that isn’t true, so why are they ignored in a feature story such as this one? So why do we stay here, us artists who sometimes can’t afford to make our art, or, other times, rely on the kindness of friends in order to have a meal and share a beer or two? We stay here because we love Missoula, Montana. We love the country, the community, and we want to make a difference right here right now, in a town that is being torn in many different directions by many different factions, be they builders, Californicators, tourists, with whom we have a love-hate relationship, or a variety of other factors. We care, we have something to say, we want to create and share beauty while pointing out the truths we see among us. Which are sometimes beautiful, but sometimes are painful to look at, examine and admit. Some of us, though, can’t stay. About a month ago, I managed to drag myself out of bed fairly early before work and make it to The Good Food Store for a breakfast burrito and some coffee before heading to load up the truck with mowers and gasoline. While I sat eating my breakfast, a friend, a dancer, sat down with me for a few minutes. She had just returned from a stint away from town before, she informed me, preparing to move to Helena. If it is the Paris of the West, Missoula is, lacking the amazing architecture, the history and the world renowned art, an amazing place to visit, a great place to live. Yes, it’s difficult to eek out a living here for many, and because of that, some of us find ourselves working two, three jobs, rarely finding time to get out and explore the beauty for which we moved here, or, for those who are natives, the beauty for which they stayed. Still, Missoula’s a great town, and I am proud to be a part of it. I wish, though, that the marketing folks would acknowledge the unknown, no-name artists once in a while. Or that we unknowns could figure out a better way to make ourselves known. And that the arts community in this town was more supportive of each other, that the well-knowns did more to help the underdogs become more exposed, more appreciated, more MORE. Everything I’m saying, of course, isn’t related to Missoula being the Paris of the West. Nawp. The article was merely a jumping off point for me to ramble about some of the things that have been trampling my brain recently and relentlessly. Donate and Support the Artist |
