Bigfork museum hosts 'Watermedia 2012'
<p>Haulin' by Eileen Alexander, displayed at the Bigfork Art and History Museum as part of the 50 pieces chosen for Watermedia 2012, was awarded one of this year's merchandise awards.</p>
Glassy water gentle ripples into the rocks on shore in Peggy Woods watercolor “Lake Como Headwaters.”
It was awarded this year’s Montana Watercolor Society President’s Award in the “Watermedia 2012” show at the Bigfork Museum of Art and History.
“She did a good job of not only giving me an idea of a photographic picture,” President of MTWS Ron Paulick said. “But she did go beyond.”
It was technically well done and Paulick said the artist was able to make a statement about the beauty of the area, while maintaining creativity even in the way she stroked her brush across the canvas.
She was one of 50 artists from Oregon to Tennessee whose pieces were chosen by juror Carla O’Connor, who awarded the other 18 awards given out during the awards banquet on Oct. 6. O’Connor also taught a workshop at Flathead Valley Community College as part of being the exhibit’s juror.
It’s the 15th year the MTWS has coupled with the Bigfork museum to put on the October show and the 30th year the show has been put on.
Paulick said MTWS took the show to the Hockaday museum a couple of years ago, but it didn’t work out the way the society was hoping it would at a larger venue, so they brought the show back to the Bigfork museum.
Part of the reason MTWS is able to show in Bigfork is because the majority of their member artist’s are from northwestern Montana, the society was started out of Missoula in the mid-1980s. Paulick also said acceptance from the community of Bigfork is a huge part of why the society can bring the show back year-after-year.
“I definitely believe that when a community supports an art or a cultural event, it’s kudos to the community,” Paulick said. “Because they are bringing something to their community from outside their community that they can then see.”
He said it enriches a community and can bring it depth.
Most importantly though, the show is mutually beneficial to both the Bigfork museum and the Watercolor Society. The society needs somewhere they can put the show annually and the Bigfork museum has always welcomed it.
“The watercolor board is thankful that the Bigfork Museum of Art and History wants to have our show,” Paulick said. “It takes a lot of work off our shoulders.”
Museum director Marnie Forbis said she loves having a show in October that can bring traffic into the museum outside of summer tourist season.
“It generates it’s own visitor populace because people travel to come see it,” Forbis said. “It works to our benefit, we enjoy it.”
And every watercolor is different, from colorful to dark, realistic to impressionist and landscape to portraiture, each piece chosen for the show is uniquely separate from the rest.
The show runs through Oct. 31. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Coming up next for the museum is the “Festival of Trees” that runs from Nov. 17-29 with the annual champagne gala fundraiser on the 29th.