News you can use

Mural 'celebrating a special place' beautifies downtown

A local committee is continuing its work in revitalizing downtown Havre.

A four-panel mural worked on by nearly 100 Havre High School students was hung Friday on the side of Floren's Hill County Print Company to add more art and beautification to the downtown area.

Downtown Revitalization Committee Chair Debbie Vandeberg approached Havre High School art and history teacher Lindsey Ratliff's art class in May 2018 for interest in a Wells Fargo grant that would go into doing a mural.

The class worked on the mural throughout the 2018-19 school year.

Ratliff said the class was given the opportunity to paint whatever they wanted as long as it fit with Havre and was approved by the committee.

"I thought because our students are so ingrained with our outdoor heritage and all the great things we have to offer in Havre, outdoor and recreational wise, I thought that would be a great theme," Ratliff said.

She said the kids were asked the question "What does the outdoors mean to you?"

She added that she was given five submissions and the one chosen was Julian Top Sky, who is attending his senior year this year in Missoula, whose idea it was to do a four panel mural of summer, fall, winter and spring scenes.

"We went with that idea almost exactly, but we added a couple things to it to make it more all-encompassing of Havre, and then we added color," Ratliff said. "Each one represents, from a kid's perspective, the great things we have in Havre."

The summer panel represents someone eating a pronto pup at Fresno Reservoir. The fall panel shows the distinctive Havre welcome sign peoplesee when they drive into town, with wheat fields in the background representing the agriculture community of the area. Third, winter, has someone skiing in the Bear Paw Mountains. Lastly, spring displays Saddle Butte with the Bill Baltrusch Nature Trail and people running with plants in bloom. Blue ponies run across two panels.

"I love the color and I love that it means different things to different things to different people and some people can identify with the places, some people can identify the happiness that the color brings, some people enjoy that kids made it, so I think it brings happiness to each person who looks at it or drives through town," Ratliff said.

Ratliff added that students did the painting as if it was a paint by number - the outline was drawn, then Ratliff coded colors on the board and the students painted it using the codes.

"It was done by kids and over 85 students touched the mural in some shape or form," she said. 

She said it was even hard to stop kids from working on it. They started in December 2018 and completed in June 2019.

Havre High School Sophomore Marissa Ratliff, Lindsey Ratliff's stepdaughter, said she spent many hours working on this mural as well.

"I love how colorful it is, because those places, I can just look at those and know where they are. It's like there is a lot of great memories hanging out with friends and doing that fun stuff," Marissa Ratliff said.

Vandeberg said the committee chose to put the mural on the Floren's building back when she was working at Havre Area Chamber of Commerce - she retired as executive director of the Chamber in 2017 after 22 years at the helm - and the owners of Floren's, brothers Robert and Ray Floren, were interested in having a mural of some art on their building.

"Currently the Havre Main Street group's mission was to put art and colorful pieces around town to brighten it up," Vandeberg said. "I came back and asked Robert and Ray if we put a mural on their building and they said they were in an agreement of that."

She added that the mural highlights all the things there are to do, from going to Fresno and boating to going skiing out at Bear Paw Ski Bowl. 

"They really captured the essence of the outdoor and recreation and fun things to do in Havre," Vandeberg said.

Vandeberg said this mural is among many projects the committee has in the works to revitalize the downtown, and that committee has already completed projects around the area. 

She said the committee's very first project was the vinyl wrap project located around town, with vinyl wraps on the traffic control boxes at stoplight decorated with local photographs and artwork.

"Thank you to Wells Fargo for their generous grant to find the project and the awesome support of Havre Public Schools and the great talent of HHS Art and History instructor Lindsey Ratliff and all of art students, and Robert and Ray Floren for their willingness to host the mural on their building," Vandeberg  said. "Any project becomes a reality because many interested community volunteers."

"It is a celebration of place and a celebration of belonging to a unique spot in Montana," Ratliff said.

A separate project to revitalize downtown Havre is work to join the Montana Main Street Project, using state help to help improve the downtown community.

The Havre committee working on the application has put out an online survey to collect ideas on what the project could focus on. The survey can be found online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8KT27GD .

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/23/2024 22:45