Portrait of the artist as a young skier

David Askevold, 67, was a ski racer at Big Mountain when it first opened, and he made art shown around the world

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

An internationally renowned artist who raced at Big Mountain during the resort's early years recently died in Canada after suffering a massive stroke.

David Askevold grew up in Polson, but the family spent many weekends up at Big Mountain shortly after the ski resort first opened.

"Back then, we used long wooden skis with 'beartrap' bindings," his brother Gerald said. "We stayed at the Rocky Mountain Chalet — what we called Schuele's Chalet."

Their father, Sverre Askevold, was a building contractor in Polson and knew Ebb Schuele. He also knew Ed Schenck, the ski resort's founding father.

In 1950, after negotiating with Schenck over a cup of coffee, Sverre bought the first private lot in Big Mountain Village for about $100 and built a cabin there that summer. Sverre also built the Viking Lodge in the early 1960s. The site is now the location of The Lodge at Whitefish Lake.

David, Gerald and sister Joanne raced in numerous local, regional and national events.

"Joanne was the strongest racer in the family — she won the Doug Smith two years in a row in high school," Gerald said. "David raced in the Junior Nationals in Winter Park, Colo., in 1958."

Primarily a slalom racer, David went on to race for the University of Montana-Missoula as a freshman.

"That was one of the last ski teams at the university for a while," Gerald said, citing local skier Park Frizell.

But David's racing career was marred by accidents. He broke his leg for the third time during the downhill race at the 1958 Junior Nationals. His first broken leg came in the third-grade, but it was during recuperation that his mind turned to art, Gerald said.

"He'd had an interest in art as a kid, but time spent recuperating gave him time to think about art and to do a lot of drawing," Gerald said. "He used his plaster cast as a canvas."

For a while, art was how David supported his skiing habit. At the time, he was skiing with locals Ed Gilliland, Stu Swenson, Dale Evenson and Park Frizell, and while he held a job at the Big Mountain Ski Shop, David sold paintings to supplement his income.

"He sold a lot of paintings while at Big Mountain," Gerald said. "They're probably all around the valley."

Gerald recalled how David met a sugar beet farmer from Fargo, N.D., who worked as a Big Mountain ski patroller when the farm was covered with snow. The farmer invited David to stay at his farm that summer.

"David bought a lot of paint in Fargo while he was there, and the owner of the Rourke Art Gallery in nearby Moorhead, Minn., took notice," Gerald said. "The owner trailed David to the farm house and was impressed by his paintings. He told David if he could get 30 paintings together, he would be featured at the gallery's grand opening."

In 1963, while teaching skiing in France, Gerald met Alfred Hunt, a member of the family that founded aluminum-giant Alcoa. Gerald invited Hunt to ski at Big Mountain, and when he arrived, Gerald and David arranged a visit to the Anaconda Aluminum Co. smelter in Columbia Falls.

"Hunt saw David's artwork and invited him to Pittsburgh," Gerald said. "There, he offered David a large amount of aluminum for sculpting. David produced a number of large, highly-polished, abstract sculptures."

David's art career really took off after Scottsdale, Ariz., watercolor artist William Schimmel visited Polson and spotted David's work there. Schimmel invited David to study in Arizona. David left UM, where he had been majoring in art, anthropology and religious studies from 1958-1963.

In 1963, David won a Max Beckmann scholarship to study painting at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art. He enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1966, where he completed a bachelor's in fine arts in sculpture.

In 1968, he landed a teaching job at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, which became known as one of the leading art schools in North America. He also taught at York University, in Toronto, the California Institute of Art, in Valencia, Calif., and the University of California, in Irvine, Calif.

David worked in a wide variety of media, including print-making, sculpture, ceramics, photography and video — often quite abstract, Gerald said. His solo exhibitions were seen in major cities around the world.

Although much of his artwork was sold through galleries in Los Angeles, Europe and on the East Coast, David was close friends with Missoula artists Rudy Autio and Jay Rummel, Gerald said. David also created and operated the Woody Street Gallery during his time at UM.

In 1993, David created an exhibit of 274 aerial photographs of Canadian fishing villages on the Atlantic along with two video and audio feeds to illustrate the demise of the Maritime cod-fishing industry.

More recently, David recreated an earlier work about country western singer Hank Williams that added Canadian singer Hank Snow.

In a live performance of "Two Hanks" in New York in 2003, songs playing on two CD players were mixed with David's chanting and intermittent hammering on a Fender bass. David suffered bruises on his chest from the performance.

On Oct. 24 last year, Gerald said, David went in for a routine endoscopy of his stomach when he suffered a massive stroke. Other than some movement in his right hand and leg, his mouth and his eyes, his body was paralyzed.

"He was unable to speak, but his mind was alert and functional," Gerald said, comparing his brother's condition to that of journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby in the current movie "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

Other complications led to David's death on Jan. 23. He was 67 years old. For a full obituary, see page A5.