H
adley Ferguson is everywhere. She’s on the center beam that runs through Sean Kelly’s pub. She’s above the cozy nook in Liquid Planet where baristas grind espresso, along the wall of Paul’s Pancake Parlor and next to the bar at the Rhino. She’s in the wine section at Worden’s Market and at the edge of the Clark Fork in Caras Park. Most notably, she’s overlooking the intersection of Broadway and Higgins, Missoula’s busiest downtown streets. You can even find her on the outskirts of town, in a warehouse on Expressway and at historic Fort Missoula. The mural artist has created largescale paintings on walls inside and outside, across the city. She’s depicted images of Celtic folklore, local bar life and Grizzly football, and, in more recent years, Fergu-
son has painted historical scenes of Missoula in what has become her distinctive style of rich colors flooded in warm light. Starting last year, Ferguson began to tackle even larger projects. Each morning she scales a stepladder in the gymnasium at Loyola Sacred Heart and works on four 12by-8 murals illustrating the history of Catholic schools in Montana, a project commissioned by the Loyola Sacred Heart Foundation. In the afternoons, she focuses her paintbrush on a mural for the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation of people managing the land. She also has to find time in the day for her most highprofile project to date: creating two large murals that will become permanent art pieces at the Capitol building in Helena. In a political space where images of men have
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long dominated, the murals will finally offer a homage to the contributions from everyday women—like Ferguson—to the state. In the open upstairs studio of her downtown home, part of the forestry mural hangs on one wall while designs for the Capitol spread across a table in the center of the room. Sun beams through the windows and the smell of brewing coffee drifts up from the downstairs kitchen. Ferguson, barefoot, willowy with long auburn hair, possesses an ageless quality as she sketches. She’s 37, but she doesn’t look much different from her years at Hellgate High School when she first started painting. It’s a disarming quality but one that, especially in the early years of her career, forced her to work hard to get would-be clients to take her seriously.
It takes a careful set of eyes to notice other details about Ferguson: The way her slender toes curl slightly upward. The way she climbs the stairs just a little bit stiffly. How her bright smile accompanies a slight tenseness in her jaw. Those are the visible effects of multiple system atrophy, a degenerative condition that damages the nervous system. It’s an atypical form of Parkinson’s with similar symptoms—rigid muscles, tremors, impaired balance—but it’s more aggressive and it affects more of the body. Ferguson first noticed neurological problems in 2009, but she only recently received the MSA diagnosis. The condition has made it harder to take on large-scale murals, and so the Capitol piece will be Ferguson’s last big work. She’s been researching the project for sev-
eral months now, sifting through old photographs, documents and history books to discover the stories of women of all backgrounds who lived on this soil. “What struck me the most in my research was how diverse the Montana landscape was and how amazing it must have been to make a life here,” Ferguson says. “It was not the easiest of conditions for women. I think it must have taken so much determination. This piece I’m working on is a broad look at how women of all cultures in Montana influenced family, economy and politics—how they built community together.” The Capitol commission would be a dream legacy project for anyone, but it’s particularly apt for Ferguson, a willful artist who has built her career on art proj-