Mural Defaced

http://helenair.com/news/local/mural-on-downtown-walking-mall-defaced-with-swastika/article_f7a87da4-39c1-11e1-8a30-0019bb2963f4.html

Helena-Related Images by Lance Foster

I live in Helena, Montana, have since I was a little kid, though I went away starting in college, to get educated and see some of the world...and then I came home. Now that I am done with the "Palimpsest Murals" (Dragon Gate, etc. downtown by the yellow trolley), I am thinking about some new inspiration for some work focusing on this place. Here are some images specific to Helena...a variety, from sketches and cartoons, to photos and paintings...

I also did a walking map of the Rodney Street Neighborhood where I live, but I haven't scanned it yet. The following image is a page from a graphic novel collaboration by several artists, and this is one of my contributions. It's about Manhattan, not about Helena, but what the heck, I just wanted to show you anyways...

Winter is the Time of Storytelling

Winter is the traditional time for storytelling for most Native American tribes, including mine, the Ioway. From the first snow until the snakes wake up in the spring, because the traditions are that the snakes are guardians of the sacred myths and will bite you if they overhear your telling the stories.

Illustration: "Only Stories" by Lance Foster

The Iowa Indians (or Ioway Indians) lived in Iowa for ages untold. Iowa culture and history was passed on though stories. Stories might be of the long-ago time or of prophecies for the future. The stories told people how to live in this world and how to prepare for the next one. In "Only Stories," by Ioway artist Lance M. Foster (Hengruh: "Oldest Son"), it is winter, the traditional time of telling stories. At this time, snakes, the protectors of stories, were asleep and would not hear the stories they were told to defend by Wakanda, God. Here two families are visiting the warmth of their lodge, the chakiruthan. One man is telling a story of the past as well as a story of the future. The time of the past, of the coming of the Ioway clan ancestors, becomes the story of the future, the coming of a strange group of bearded whitemen with machines. Finally, the end of time becomes the beginning of time. In this way, everything becomes a circle and things are made right again. This is the way things have been and will be. This is what the stories tell us. As hard as it may be to believe, can we be certain they are..."Only Stories?"

I created this mini-graphic novel version of one of our Ioway tribal stories, about the origin of the Medicine Dance.

For the rest, go to http://ioway.nativeweb.org/iowaylibrary/mankanye_washi_1.htm
 Click the numbers at the bottom of the page to get to the next page.

"Palimpsest" Mural Series Celebration

The article in the Helena Independent Record about the opening of the mural yesterday (1 pm, Wed., Nov. 16, 2011). It was cold but sunny, and a couple of dozen folks showed up to help celebrate and learn about the murals. Hot Oolong tea and fortune cookies supplied by Yat Son Chinese restaurant in East Helena kept folks warm-- thanks!


Public art keeps Chinatown memory

By MARGA LINCOLN, Independent Record | Posted: Thursday, November 17, 2011
Photos by Eliza Wiley, Independent Record

Lance Foster stands under a gateway entitled ‘Sometimes I Feel Like Chinese Take Out’ as he explains his thought process of each mural he painted.

Memories of a once-bustling Chinatown in Helena are the inspiration for the newest public art murals on the Trolley Block of the Downtown Walking Mall.
Mural artist Lance Foster recalled his childhood growing up in Helena and how much he loved to visit downtown.

First, catching the eye is his mural “Dragon Gate,” which features a bold green dragon stretching up a red archway or gate, next to the Windbag Saloon. On its backside is “Memory Wall,” which gives a view of the once-thriving block and its busy shops — Wing Shing Grocery, Yat Son Noodle Parlor, House of Wong and others. All traces of that vital neighborhood were erased by urban renewal projects decades ago. Foster also painted a portrait of Wong See Q, which he says represents the workers who labored here and on the railroad.

A second Foster gateway depicts a Chinese carry-out food box, whimsically titled, “Sometimes I Feel Like Chinese Take Out.”

On the backside of it is “Dorothy’s Room,” depicting the round red bed of Helena’s last madam, Big Dorothy. Her brothel was next door in the current Windbag Saloon building.
A few steps deeper in this alley is a final gateway, called “Urban Renewal, 1973-1977,” which depicts T.O.K. Garage, one of the places Foster remembers fondly. It stood where the Lewis and Clark Library is today.

Foster named the series of murals, “Palimpsest: Memory that has been erased and re-written.”

The word means a surface that was erased, then reused, leaving a faint and incomplete trace of the old, Foster said.

A crowd of art lovers gathers behind the ‘Dragon Gate’ as artist Lance Foster explains the opposing side’s mural Wednesday on the Trolley Block of the Downtown Walking Mall. Foster was commissioned by the Helena Public Art Committee to paint the gateways on the north side of the Windbag Saloon.


A few former neighborhood residents joined officials at the Wednesday dedication of the new art installations. For them, it was a bittersweet event.

Diane Langenfus, whose family ran the House of Wong, said “I grew up down here.” Like many in the neighborhood, they lived above their business. “This is the playground we had as children,” she said, gesturing toward the former busy neighborhood street.
While she is moved that the murals honor her former neighborhood, there is sadness over what was lost. Quoting Helena writer Flora Wong, Langenfus said, “You took my home and my history with Urban Renewal.”

Foster, whose mother ran the Outpost Cafe, attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. He earned a graduate degree in landscape architecture and anthropology and teaches archaeology and art at UM-Helena.

(Source: http://helenair.com/news/local/public-art-keeps-chinatown-memory/article_cdbc4e7c-10e9-11e1-8f7d-001cc4c002e0.html)

Urban Renewal

The fifth and final mural of the St. Louis Block murals is now complete, as of last week. I wasn't sure if I would succeed in a race against the winter weather, but fate was kind and I worked hard.

The final mural is called "Urban Renewal, 1973-1977" and is painted in the same style and mostly monochromatic palette used for the "Memory Wall."

The source photo used as the departure point for the painting was a historic photo of the old T.O.K. Garage at the end of South Main, about where the Lewis and Clark Public Library is now (source here, along with a discussion of the demolition for Urban Renewal).

The background of the stained concrete was integrated into the painting, with some areas left sketchy and some fully rendered and detailed, to reflect the idea of erasure, disappearance, and memory.

Finally, the series of five murals, each mural with its own title, also has a single umbrella title for the murals, "Palimpsest." This unifies all of the murals on the St. Louis Block. And the information about the sponsors was painted on as well, on the lower left side.

What does "Palimpsest" mean? As I wrote on the wall of this last mural:

A surface on which something was written,
then erased,
then reused to write something new,
leaving faint, incomplete traces of the old.

The Helena "Palimpsest" Mural Series, St. Louis Block, Last Chance Gulch:

1. "Dragon Gate"
2. "Memory Wall: The Historic Chinese Community of Helena"
3. "Sometimes I Feel Like Chinese Takeout"
4. "Dorothy's Room"
5. "Urban Renewal, 1973-1977"

Re-painting Dorothy's Room

Well, unfortunately the sign peeled from the wall, even though adhesive was used as well as two coats of polyurethane over that. The employees at the Windbag during one of their breaks watched it slowly peel away. Maybe it was the temperature, or the uneven nature of the concrete, but it was agreed that there was no point in trying to reapply it if it peeled even when new.

So instead, four headlines were picked from regional newspapers when Dorothy's closed, and I painted those instead. Only the headlines were used. I sure didn't want to paint every single word in the articles themselves! And the weather was starting now to drop into below freezing temperatures.

One idea had been to paint Dorothy's portrait on the left side. There are photos in the Windbag that some believe to be Dorothy. But after further research at the Montana Historical Society, a letter from 2006 was found, from Dorothy's niece to the Society, which denied those photos were of her aunt. The niece said Dorothy did not like photos of her and did not allow them to be taken. Only the one from her high school yearbook photo in the 1920s and her booking photo are of Dorothy.

So who is that other woman in the photos in the Windbag cases at the back of the room? It may very well be Dorothy's predecessor, Ida, of Ida's Rooms. Ida is the one who sold the business to Dorothy in the late 1950s (ca. 1956-57).

Painting the Mural: "Dorothy's Room"

A lot of people think that "Big Dorothy" operated her bordello in the Windbag. But it was really upstairs, above the Windbag, with the entrance in the rear at 19 1/2. A lot also apparently think, based in part on the Windbag's "Old West" graphics, that it was back in the 1800s that the place was a bordello. But the building, the St. Louis block, was built as a drygoods store back in 1882. And it wasn't until 1927 during the Prohibition that Ida ran her bordello called "Ida's Rooms" in the building. And it wasn't until the late 1950s that Dorothy bought the business and renamed it "Dorothy's Rooms," which was closed down in 1973.

My painting shows the infamous round red bed at Dorothy's, based on a photo from "Helena As She Was" (helenahistory.org). I simplified it, added the ashtray with burning cigarette, and tweaked the colors to be more lurid looking, inspired by Van Gogh's "The Night Café." He said: "I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. ...In my picture of the Night Café I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime." Notice not only the burning cigarette (and everyone smoked in those days) but the marks on the bed like someone was just sitting or reclining there. It is called "Dorothy's Room" (singular) rather than Dorothy's Rooms. The houseplant is a dracaena marginata, or "dragon tree," not "palm trees" as some speculated, and was in the original photo. It is an interesting coincidence that this "dragon tree" thus links with the Dragon Wall!

Above is a replica-enlargement of a 1973 article in the Walla Walla, Washington newspaper on the closing of the establishment and the death of Dorothy soon after. It was printed out by Signs Now in downtown Helena and applied with adhesive. I decided to make the article very big, to look like a crime novel in a way, and although some might find the fact that the article has a missing section annoying, it also reminds us that we really never know the full story about anything.