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.

Local TV News does story on the murals

Helena history murals 

on downtown walking mall

By Ryan Whalen 

For several months now, local artist Lance Foster 
has been using his spare time to put up a series 
of murals in the downtown walking mall.

Foster was selected by the city to do the project two years 
ago. It's now nearing completion. Foster is focusing on 
what he remembers of the area as a child – namely the 
Chinatown area of downtown Helena and Big Dorothy's 
rooms, a long-closed bordello.

He says it's his way of celebrating all parts of Helena 
history, even if they were fringe elements of society in 
their time.

"It's part of who we are and as it says on the mural of 
Dorothy, any town that doesn't recognize its colorful side 
is a boring town to live in,” says Foster.

The murals are painted on entranceways in an alley off 
of the walking mall. The door frames allowed Foster a little 
fun – you can have your picture taken as if you're on 
Dorothy's bed or in a Chinese take-out box.

Story by Ryan Whalen, Beartooth NBC. Copyright ©2011
Beartooth Communications Company. All Rights Reserved.

Painting the Mural: "Sometimes I Feel Like Chinese Takeout"

Start of Chinese Take-out Mural, painted the week of Sept. 16. Still to go: finishing the wire handle, the red characters on the carton, the title, and some touches of color here and there.

The wall completed. "Sometimes I feel like Chinese takeout" is a reference to this location being the hotspot for fantastic Chinese food for decades in Helena until Urban Renewal tore down the restaurants in the early 1970s. But also you can stand in the opening and -really- feel like you are Chinese takeout, and get your photo taken there to prove it!

Painting the Mural: Memory Wall

Behind the Dragon Wall, I painted the Memory Wall. I do not have the sequence on this one, as the photographer was away at that time and my camera was out of commission. It was begun Aug. 18 and completed Sept. 15. School began Aug. 29 and from then on I could only paint three mornings a week, so it took more time than otherwise it would have.

Helena once had a thriving Chinese community (aka Helena Chinatown) which reached from where the library is now, over to Reeder's Alley and up to the Chinese gardens at the split to Unionville and Grizzly Gulch. There were hundreds of Chinese that worked and lived here between 1865 through the 1890s, but they began to leave over the later decades until by the 1950s there were only a fraction of what there were previously. Abuse and racism took their toll. There had been Chinese physicians and herbalists, restaurants, stores, groceries, hotels, laundries, gaming houses. By the 1970s, there were pretty much only three descendant families left in Helena, to all accounts.

The completed Memory Wall. 
The art style is influenced by the Ashcan School of urban New York during the early 1900s and Muriel Wolle's paintings of the mining camps in Montana... I wanted it to be intimate, familiar, gritty, industrial. Wong See Q. was a leader in the Helena Chinese community.

List of historical sites in Helena with Chinese heritage.
These are the ones remembered by the descendant families still connected to Helena. There were once hundreds of Chinese and their businesses, most now lost to memory.

Helena in Chinese characters. 
Written Chinese is not alphabetic, each character represents an idea or word, but can also represent a syllable. Each of these three characters represents one of the three syllables in Helena, although it is pronounced differently in different Chinese languages, such as Cantonese (the Chinese language spoken by the great majority of Helena's Chinese population historically) and Mandarin (a northern language used as the common language by most in modern China).

Painting the Mural: Dragon Gate: Week 2

I continued painting the Dragon Gate during week 2.

Mon., Aug. 22: I began painting the large fields of color. Dark green for the head and the mountainscape (South Hills and Mount Helena). Pale green for the body and mane. Yellow-orange for the whiskers, claws, eyebrows, spine, and tail tuft on the dragon, and the Pearl of Wisdom/Sun. A longer day than usual, but felt good about getting the dragon's primary colors on. 5 hours.

Tues., Aug. 23: Used a sort of gray-purple-black to outline the head, eyes, teeth/mouth, talons, and the rest of the dragon. Really makes it "pop out" at last. Added another coat of reddish-brown to fill in some spaces and thin areas. 4 hours.

Now comes a critical point in painting, as in all paintings. Deciding when it is done. Not doing enough means it looks unfinished to viewers...and is incompletely realized and unsatisfactory to the artist. BUT...You can also go too far and add too much and ruin a painting that way too. So the next day or two, and I have to be careful. I know I want to add to the clouds (cream gold with pink scrolling), and also add scales on the dragon. The scales are tricky, with so many to do, and they need to look uniform.

Wed., Aug. 24: Today, the scales. Trying to paint so many uniformly-sized things has a lot of potential for things to go wrong. So I cut a guide out of an old plastic lid. It worked pretty well, although it was slow and took a long time. I added some green lines along the back and limbs which popped it out further. I added a creamy yellow-white over parts of the cool white areas which warmed up the clouds and picked out the teeth and eyes. 5 hours.

Thurs., Aug. 25: Finished the pearl/sun, talons/wrinkles, clouds, touch-up various places (drips, streaks). Picked up varnish from paint store. 4 hours.

Fri., Aug. 26: Signed and dated the mural. Final Clearcoat Sealant; applied two coats, with 2 hours drying time in between them. 5 hours, with 3 of those actual working hours, and 2 drying hours.

FINISHED with the Dragon Gate, mural #1 of the series! Next will be the Chinese Memory Wall, to be started next week.

Painting the Mural: Dragon Gate: Week 1

I started on the mural a little over a week ago. This is the progress so far.

Fri., Aug. 12: Powerwashed the three gates (I keep wanting to say "arches" but they are not arches, just a series of gated supports along a walkway). Allowed to dry fully over the weekend. The site attracts a lot of grafitti, which will be an ongoing issue I suspect. 1 hour.

Mon., Aug. 15: Got supplies from Columbia, along with arranging for barriers and tape, etc. Had to go with supervisor as she has to sign off on every order personally (city process). 1 hour. Scaffold brought on site by city.

Tues., Aug. 16: Applied Loxon conditioner today as a sealer and primer using a roller on the surfaces to be painted, front and back of first gate. It is a clear coating, which means you can paint right over it. Certain colors will cover it satisfactorily, like white and the reddish background. For brighter colors I will need to apply white primer in those areas first. Ordered some more paint and do some further design tinkering at home this afternoon. There is a difference between paper/digital stuff and the REAL physical environment :-) 2 hours.

Wed., Aug. 17: Blocked in most of background, a reddish color like red clay. Some white applied in areas of clouds and part of dragon. 4 hours.

Thurs., Aug. 18: Draw dragon, all freehand directly in paint (magenta). I had to change the pose a little from the original design because of the discontinuity in the concrete wall at the top which would distort it otherwise. I had originally thought of gridding it, but I like the freshness and vitality of a freehand line. Got the dragon, pearl (used 5-gallon lid as template), mountains, clouds (with swirls) drawn in now on the dragon gate. 5 hours.

Fri., Aug. 19: Some minor vandalism wiped off and I repainted over it. Whited-in areas of dragon and pearl, in preparation for next week's color application. It looks pretty good so far! This is all taking longer than I thought. 4 hours.

(Thanks to Carol Montgomery of the Helena Public Art Committee for the photos!)

Next week: More colors

Grenois

Posted in 1870-1879 on April 2nd, 2009 by

Lance Foster

Dog Gulch Standard, June 5, 1873

Edward Grenois Found Murdered

Dog Gulch - The halfbreed Edward Grenois, age 28, was found murdered this morning, lying behind the Pearl Handle Saloon, shot three times, once in the back and twice in the head. Harvey Schissler is currently the primary suspect. His whereabouts are currently unknown, though it is said his trail leads north. Evidence is being carefully gathered, given the respected position of his father, Jacob Schissler, proprieter of the Mahcomet Trading Post.

Well-liked among most of the Gulch’s citizens, Grenois had claimed to be a grandson of Pierre-August Grenois. He quickly became a well-known figure in the area, and always dressed dapper in his frock coat and marten hat. He arrived in Dog Gulch last year, during the 1869 rush, and made a placer claim on the Gulch near the site of old Apekuni House, which had been founded by his grandfather. Edward Grenois worked the claim for a time, and got some color, but soon came to prefer the amusements of the dance halls and the company of ladies. Grenois also was said to be spending much time in the local land office.

Earlier this year, Grenois was seen by several people arguing in the street with his close friend Harvey Schissler, the son of Jacob Schissler, with whom he often visited the places of entertainment in Dog Gulch. But they made up soon after, often retiring to the Schissler home after a night on the town. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schissler had taken Grenois into their home during an illness, during which time he became part of the Schissler family and was treated as a brother to Harvey. They were boon companions in all occasions.

Everyone noted how Mrs. Schissler doted on the young men, and Mr. Schissler often talked about employing Grenois at the family business, the Mahcomet Trading Post. Who could have foreseen such a turn of events.

It is a tragedy indeed when such a fine family is involved in such a situation as this. The people of Dog Gulch hope for a speedy resolution so that the family may find peace such as possible in these tragic circumstances.

Pierre-Auguste Grenois

Posted in 1810-1819 on April 10th, 2009 by

Lance Foster

Pierre-Auguste Grenois was a metis furtrapper who passed through the Greenway area in 1793, returning to establish Apekuni House to trade with the Blackfeet in 1795. The drawing is from 1812, by an itinerant peddler, artist, and preacher by the name of “Father Badger” Jones; Jones wandered through the region, often shouting to himself as “moved by the Holy Spirit,” and was considered “touched” and was thus left alone by the Native tribes. In 1813, Grenois died of smallpox and Apekuni House was abandoned.