Mural festival connecting art, community

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Mural festivals encourage connection, creativity and curiosity.

For Wes Abarca, or wes7svn, festivals allow freedom in his artwork and connecting with other artists.

“Who knows if I’ll ever get to go to Spain, and they come here,” he said of the seventh annual ArtsFest that is now dubbed Great Walls.

This year’s event includes four international artists, from Australia, Colombia, Argentina and Spain.

The festival is curated by Cameron Moberg, an internationally known muralist based in California who started painting in Great Falls on the invitation of a friend in collaboration with NeighborWorks Great Falls. in 2018.

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That has since grown into an annual mural festival in downtown Great Falls with a group of artists from across the globe each August creating nearly 50 murals.

This year, nine artists, including Moberg, are installing murals in the alley behind the Times Square building downtown.

Jason Kunz of Speaking Socially, is a member of the ArtsFest organizing committee and spent the weekend priming walls in preparation of the festival so as artists started arriving on Sunday, they could quickly get to work sketching their murals with doodle grids that correspond to their planned images.

The festival is organized by the downtown Business Improvement District through their budget and tax increment financing funds, as well as sponsorships, grants and donations, including from NeighborWorks Great Falls. Local restaurants donate meals for the artists throughout the week and local property owners donate lodging for artists.

Organizers coordinate with downtown property owners to find walls to paint they’re always looking for more walls for future festivals.

Abarca said that a number of people have already walked by asking what they’re doing and what he’s painting.

He tells them to keep coming by to see it revealed as he works.

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Public art like the murals installed in Great Falls during the annual event downtown brings more to the area, Abarca said.

“Every spot that I’ve ever been to that’s what I see as thriving…there’s always artwork,” Abarca said. “If you’re missing the artwork, you’re missing a lot. It’s a lot of puzzle pieces coming together.”

Some communities have studios or galleries but people might not walk in and public art is hard to miss.

“It brings people out who are curious” and in his experience, people are positive about public art.

There’s often those who don’t care for it or have a hard time understanding it, but he said he’s seen people get more interested and supportive over time.

He painted at a festival that faced skepticism in its first year, but in the second year, people were coming out to watch the painting and supporting the event. He’s scheduled to go back for their third year.

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In a California area he’d grown up in, he was asked after moving away to paint a historic part of town and then have artistic freedom for the rest.

While taking a break, he noticed people looking at his art, talking about the art and introducing themselves, meeting people for the first time in a town where they lived.

Art “brings people together,” Abarca said.

Abarca had come through Great Falls a few years ago by happenstance during ArtsFest, and painted a ram in the alley behind Dragonfly Dry Goods. That year, he had to leave early for a family emergency and is now back as a full participant in the festival. He’ll be leading an artists workshop on Aug. 12.

Moberg said often they invite artists based on references from other artists, but this year, he and his wife Crystal, sought out some artists and had lots of Zoom calls “asking questions about life, trying to get to know the to see if they’d be a good fit.”

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The Mobergs have curated the Great Falls festival since its inception and also organize or participate in festivals nationwide.

“A lot of these artists become friends,” Moberg said.

Griffin Foster, who’s known in the art world as Jagid, is from North Carolina but lives in Bozeman.

He came to the Great Falls festival workshop a few years ago, painting a mural on the back of the State Farm building on the corner of 1st Avenue South and 5th Street.

That’s how he and Moberg met initially.

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This week, he’s painting a wildland firefighter because “they deserve a shoutout.”

His brother, Owen Foster, is a member of the Lewis and Clark Hotshot crew that’s based in Great Falls.

The image he’s painting is based of a photo taken a few weeks ago during a fire that crew was battling.

Foster said that he asked his brother to have the crew send their best photos and it just so happened the one he selected was off his brother. He said he didn’t realize it initially since they’re hardly identifiable in their gear and soot.

It’s “fun having a rough idea and it always takes its own direction,” he said of his mural that he began sketching out on Sunday.

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Of Great Falls, he said, “I think you guys are something else,” with the “unique geographic feature” of the confluence of the Missouri and Sun rivers.

Great Falls has access to areas like the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Highwoods, Big and Little Belts, Augusta and Showdown where he enjoys skiing.

“Great Falls is it’s own thing. I think it’s cool.”

Of the murals being installed this year, Foster said “I think it will have a big immediate effect,” especially tying into last year’s murals to the west in the same alley.

Moberg said that returning every summer, “it’s been very evident to me, the change.”

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He said alleys are cleaner and safer, but it’s “not gonna happen overnight. I’m seeing the difference because I’m in the alleys for 12-15 hours a day for a week straight.”

For all of those involved, it’s a long-term project, Moberg said, to continue installing murals, then add lighting, and eventually connect the murals throughout the downtown.

Some have perspectives of downtown as a dangerous place, but Moberg  said that “negatives always speak the loudest. You can have a small amount of experiences that leave a bad taste in your mouth, but what that does is blinds us to all the good that’s happening.”

Moberg said that there are a number of businesses and people working to make great things happen and “it’s hard to change perspective, but once you do, you enjoy your town more and your neighbors more.”

Kamryn Merrill was recently in Billings for her work with the Buffalo Migration Mural Collaborative, which is mapping and installing murals of buffalo along their original migration path from Canada to northern Mexico.

She said they’re in talks with the Great Falls Public Library about installing a mural for the project and she’s been in Great Falls for a week, spending days looking at the existing murals and is participating in this year’s artist workshop with Mobery and Abarca.

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Watching multiple artists work in the alley on Monday, Merrill said that she’s “really excited about what’s happening.”

“It really does make a difference,” she said to have public art. “It’s inspiring.”

Want to participate?

There’s an artist reception from 5-8 p.m. Aug. 14 in the alley behind the Times Square building, which is accessible from 1st Avenue North, across from Littles Lanes.

The event is free and open to the public.

Artists this year include:

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Jenn Rowell
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