Bigfork center gets new start

The Bigfork cultural center is moving back to its roots in art after being known as a museum for decades.

This month, the Bigfork Art and Cultural Center announced a rebranding shaped around creativity and community. Center Board President Shadowhawke Garnett said the shift started by moving away from the name, the Bigfork Museum of Art and History, and returning to the facility’s original name.

“That word ‘museum’ didn’t really capture what we are,” Garnett said. “This rebranding is actually embracing the cultural center we are. It’s been a renovation, reorganization and a rebirth.”

She said the nonprofit was created in the 1970s to reflect part of the village’s history while reaching into the community’s desire to create.

Along with the updated name came new floors, fresh paint and more space for crafts.

The first floor of the center opens into a white room covered in a new series of paintings that feature bright scenes from the forests of the Flathead.

To the left, the center’s store displays work from 25 new artists which brought the total to more than 50 artists with work and reproductions for sale at the facility.

The renovation also included a classroom toward the back of the building designed as a creative space for painters, knitters, poets or anyone looking for a studio.

The top floor showcases work from locals intertwined with images of the town’s past.

Valerie Vadala Homer, the center’s new director, said the space’s original title as an art and cultural center captured the variety of disciplines organizers hope to offer.

“We had drifted away from the community and operated in a vacuum for a while,” Vadala Homer said. “We want this space to change with the seasons and community’s desire — to feature art and classes on humanities, science, music — anything.”

She bounced around ideas of having an art-of-the-cocktail party, a clothing show or a display focusing on architecture around the West.

Vadala Homer said while the center will continue to focus on local work, it will begin to display art from around the West and eventually the nation.

“We’re trying to plan several years out,” she said. “We have plenty of wonderful resources and treasures here, but we also want to bring things to Bigfork, and maybe even Montana, that haven’t been here before.”

Vadala Homer said the plan to rebrand was created in 2014, but the organization didn’t have the funding to move forward with the project until the beginning of this year.

She said like any nonprofit, it can be hard to stay financially stable.

“Our next goals are to really retain and expand our membership base,” she said. “This is Montana, it’s seasonal and we have to think of creative avenues to get our funding.”

Today from 5 to 7 p.m., the Bigfork Art and Cultural Center will host Springtime in Paris, a benefit auction for the center.

The Center for the Performing Arts Lobby will be decked out in fuchsia, black, yellow and white decorations and flowers.

The Paris-themed auction will include items such as a book on French cocktails and French cookbook. Tickets are $25 and will include two signature cocktails designed by Whistling Andy. Platters of French hors d’oeuvres, sweets and desserts donated from local restaurants will rotate throughout the room as live music plays in the background.

Garnett said the event is an example of how the center is diversifying how it draws support and community interaction.

“The goal is to be reborn and get our name back on the map,” she said. “And we’re doing that in new ways with the input from the people and place we’re trying to serve.”

Tickets for Springtime in Paris are available at the Bigfork Art and Cultural Center and the Jug Tree. For more information contact Tara 406-250-9052.

For more information on membership options, email bigforkculture@gmail.com or call 406-837-6927.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.