FALL ARTS FESTIVAL, Jackson Hole News&Guide, Wednesday, September 4, 2013 - 11F
Art fosters community
Teton Valley finds that art is a driving force for continued growth.
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By Jeannette Boner
hen the national economy popped a few years ago, so did the housing bubble in Teton County, Idaho. Developers pulled out, subdivisions went to the weeds and residents were left with the stark understanding that to move forward again would require a new vision for the community. A few years later it’s the arts that have emerged as one of the driving forces rebuilding the valley culture just over Teton Pass. Behind the “Spud Curtain” a new sense of community and place is being established through an often unquantifiable measure. From growing public art projects such as the snow-sculpting events during the Great SnowFest to the Driggs Digs Plein Air Festival, Music on Main, the Driggs Art Walk and the recently designed Geotourism Plaza, Teton Valley is learning that painting the town is good for business and good for civic morale. “Artist can be like worms in compost,” said glassblower Ralph Mossman, who runs a busy Teton Valley studio with his wife, Mary Mullaney. “Artists can come in when a community is at its lowest and rebuild it and give a community a renewed sense of pride. When things go bad the first people to move in are the artists. And artists make a place more interesting, like Greenwich Village in the ’60s. “Mary and I came in on the ebb when things were super cheap in Teton Valley,” he said. “Back then, in 1987, it was really expensive to live in Jackson.” Mossman and Mullaney, who have earned a host of awards and fellowships during their three decades in Teton Valley, agreed that while it’s difficult to put a monetary figure on the significance of the role the arts plays in rural places, the one tangible measure can be found in how the arts can bring a sometimes fractured community together.
A place in the plan
As in any community, Teton Valley’s economic pains are felt in the hallways of government, where property rights are king and old-timers and newcomers struggle to find common ground. But even leaders in Teton County, Idaho, have recognized the value of the arts, going as far as writing about the “creative class” in the newly adopted Teton County Comprehensive Plan for Development. This special consideration in the 10-year planning document recognizes the need to make way for creative elements in community design as one more path toward economic prosperity. “The arts are a way in which we reinvent ourselves,” said Michelle Coleman, the community development director for the Idaho Commission for the Arts. “It’s so common for us to get enmeshed in our politics. But with the arts there is room for everyone. We can all move forward, and that’s what individual artists are doing.” Mullaney experienced the power
Courtesy Photo
Bill Dow, of Billings, Mont., and Bert Adams, of Vancouver, Wash., created Phoenix for last year’s Great SnowFest snow sculpting event.
of the arts in community-building two winters ago when Teton Valley hosted the Great SnowFest. She and Mossman headed up the massive undertaking of the snow sculpting expo. “It was the largest art project I’ve been involved in,” she said from her kitchen in Driggs. “It was a very inclusive project. That was one of the coolest things that I have ever been involved in as an artist. There’s a place for everybody.” The event required heavy loading equipment to move mountains of snow for people to stomp into sculptures. Everyone showed up at the Driggs Community Center — children, Latinos, longtime residents and people here to ski for a season — and the three-day itinerary allowed the public to watch the snow creations come to life. “It’s important to bring people together,” she added. Coleman said that even the woman manning the gas station down the street knew exactly what the art project was and where to direct visitors in town. “That’s a sense of pride,”said Coleman. For Plein Air Festival director Julie Robinson, art and public art projects may not come with a price tag, but their impact can be measured in what she sees during her three-day event at the end of each July. “Plein air painting is a quiet recreation based on appreciating a place,” she said. “It doesn’t require anything from our community except services, which we have anyway. “Driggs Digs Plein Air had 66 artists par-
ticipate this year,” she said, “86 percent of whom came from over 100 miles away.” The artists stayed in Teton Valley motels, camped in Teton Valley campgrounds, shopped at Teton Valley shops and ate in Teton Valley restaurants. “You can live in a town for a long time and you might not be involved in your town,” said Cody DeLong, one of the artists who came. “When you have an art event, it brings people together in a prideful way, and they discover a new appreciation for the beauty of the area. Everyone is excited when we’re painting your area. This brings people together in a different way. Art gives a little different perspective.” “As this art festival gains momentum,” Robinson said, “more and more collectors and art lovers will come to Driggs and Teton Valley for an artistic experience. We have already attracted some very, very gifted and accomplished artists.”
Art Walk fills a need
Other key elements of Teton Valley’s growing arts community include the Driggs Art Walk. Founded by Teri Mclaren of the Local Yocals Art Emporium in downtown Driggs, it has over the last few years grown to the point where the nonprofit Teton Valley Foundation heads it up the first Friday of every month from April through December. “Art is what people are starving for now,” said Mclaren. “And I can tell you it’s what Driggs is starving for now too.” Nine core businesses participate — not all are galleries: Alpine Wines and
Colorado artist Susan Thiele’s watercolor “Teton Storm” was a third-place winner at this year’s Driggs Digs Plein Air Festival.
Cocoa Grove coffee shop play host, too — and a couple hundred people come to downtown Driggs to look at art, enjoy light refreshments and socialize. The Teton Valley Foundation has put on the Music on Main series first in Driggs and now at the Victor City Park, since 2006. The series has attracted thousands to the downtowns five, six or seven Thursday nights each summer with live music by local acts and national headliners such as James McMurtry, the Wailin’ Jennys, Greg Brown, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, and Melvin Seals and the Jerry Garcia Band.
A focal point for Main Street
While community members and visitors turn out in droves for arts events, the city of Driggs is looking forward to unveiling the Geotourism Center in July 2014 that it hopes will become the focal point of Main Street. This project has been in the works for several years and promises to be a centerpiece of the county seat, with a 24-hour visitor center, exhibits and an information desk. While the building and plaza tout function, it’s the form that will create a lasting impression as leaders seek to adorn the outside and inside of the 3,000-squarefoot space with photography, paintings and other art. Driggs officials are looking for artists to create significant works for the plaza and center. The city also wants to commission a central sculpture for the area between the plaza seating area and Main Street sidewalk. The public art component is funded through an Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. “Art isn’t something a person grows out of either as an artist or a collector,” said Robinson, the plein air festival director. “It expands the visitor demographics to an area because it’s not something someone gets too old to do. It expands awareness beyond oneself and stimulates imagination. “All human cultures have had art. It is bound to our history and is part of our nature. For this reason it’s especially important for children to be exposed to and involved in art. It nurtures ideas. The future creators of our world need to exercise their imaginations. That’s what art does for a community — and a civilization.”