'Flathead Wild' exhibit opens in Kalispell

The Museum at Central School in Kalispell hosts the grand opening of “Flathead Wild,” a history and conservation-related art exhibit today, Nov. 12, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Harvey Locke, who conceived and co-curated the exhibit, will speak at 6 p.m. during the opening reception.

Flathead Wild is a coalition of environmental groups from Canada and the United States that has been working to promote expansion of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park by protecting one third of British Columbia’s portion of the Flathead River Valley.

In the summer of 2012, internationally acclaimed painter Dwayne Harty was one of six artists who camped, hiked and sketched en plein air to capture their artistic impressions of the proposed new national park area for this exhibit.

Art has been important to conservation since the very first national park and wildlife conservation efforts in North America. The “Flathead Wild” art exhibit, which highlight’s the beautiful but unprotected Flathead Valley in British Columbia, is a continuation of this grand tradition.

The six regional artists whose works are featured include Harty, Tara Higgins, Joseph Cross, Simon Haiduk, Denise Lemaster and Laura Nelson.

Combining artists’ perceptions and conservation science, Locke will take the audience on an artistic expedition from British Columbia’s Flathead Valley to both ends of the Yellowstone, and to the Yukon region.

Locke is editor, co-curator and co-author of “Yellowstone to Yukon: the Journey of Wildlife and Art,” a continent-spanning exhibition of wildlife art that was housed at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Whyte Museum in Banff, Alberta.

Locke is the founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, a recipient in 2013 of the J.B. Harkin Medal for Conservation and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and in 2014 he received the Fred M. Packard Award for outstanding service to protected areas by the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas at the World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia.

The “Flathead Wild” art exhibit will be on display at the Museum at Central School through the winter and into next spring.

The Museum at Central School is located at 124 Second Ave. E. in Kalispell.

For more information, call 406-756-8381.