Great Weather, Great Falls, Great Path, Great Art

First Avenue Weissman Bridge with Underpass for Trail

Crossing the Missouri River on the Weissman Bridge

Entrance Pillar for the Weissman Bridge by Alex Smithson

The River's Edge Trail rolls and swoops through Great Falls, on both shores of the Missouri, along railroad rights-of-way, through parks and parking lots, into tunnels, and between bridge abutments.  Benches, vistas, art--what a string of surprises!  There is sculpture along the path on both sides of the river, and the bike/pedestrian Weissman Bridge paralleling the First Avenue bridge for cars is especially beautiful with entrance pillars on the downtown side and bright murals on its concrete abutments.  

Grizzly Bear by Nathan Bread

Sundial Built in Memory of Gary Trescott by Friends & Family

 

Tunnel under Giant Springs Road at Lewis & Clark Visitor Center

Approaching the 15th Street Bridge Underpass

Art plus function: the tunnels and bridge-abutment underpasses along the trail help cyclists avoid conflicts with cars; there are miles and miles of cycling on both sides of the river without the need to stop at all, though there’s plenty to stop and admire.  

Path & Tables near Giant Springs State Park

Sacagawea, Lewis, Clark, and Cyclist Pointing Upriver

There is more information on the Trescott Bowstring Sundial at http://thetrail.org/august-2012-trescott-sundial. 

Weissman Bridge from Bench along the Trail

Ninth Avenue Bridge

Black Eagle Dam & Falls from End of Northside River's Edge Trail

Upstairs in the Paris Gibson Square Art Museum

 

















We also reveled in art at the Paris Gibson Square Art Museum, housed in an 1896 stone building that served first as a high school and then a junior high school.  While some gallery rooms have false walls covering the original classroom walls in order to preserve history and provide backgrounds for artwork, some rooms still have chalkboards on their walls. 


Presently the main floor of the museum holds work by Montana ceramicists and a permanent collection of human figures made from tree trunks, branches, and various found objects like jar and bottle caps, buttons, and cans. These figures, made by Lee Steen (1897-1975), an untrained folk artist in Roundup, MT, provoke a train of thought about why people make and share art.  Why did Steen make his tree people?  Why do we support and love public art?  What does art do?  While David Foster Wallace was speaking of literature, his thoughts crossed my mind at the museum and on the trail.  He spoke of “a kind of Ah-ha!” he got sometimes in “brief flashes or flames,” moments of feeling “unalone--intellectually, emotionally, spiritually,” “human,” and “in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness.”  We were pretty high from biking along the river in the sun, but the butterfly and trout murals under the bridge and all the art we saw took us higher, happier, humaner.  

On the Trail East of the Lewis & Clark Visitor Interpretive Center

Stained Glass Window at the Museum