Art Alley celebration set for Saturday

The Art Alley's Spring Celebration will be held Saturday and will feature a memorial painting to a well-known Havre artist and Havre Art Association member.

The celebration is being run by the Havre Art and Beautification Committee of Downtown Havre Matters! in partnership with the Hi-Line Arts Council and will feature art displays, art activities for children, music and food trucks, a press release about the celebration said.

The event was originally set for April 30 but was postponed due to a forecast of rain and will feature Dr. Terence Hankins playing piano in the alley, joined by other musicians, along with the Milk River Band, Blind Luck and Lucky Valentine playing live music as well.

The spring celebration is part of a cornucopia of activities in the area Saturday, including Living History.

"There is lots going on in Havre on Saturday, starting with the Bear Paw Marathon to the Bear Paw Pub Crawl wrapping up with the Art Alley Spring Celebration," the release said.

Last spring, the Arts and Beautification Committee and the Hi-Line Arts Council literally threw together the first spring celebration, in the midst of the second year of the pandemic with many people having hardly been out for more than a year.

"It was a whirlwind of pulling together ideas and activities to offer the community a fun art-focused afternoon for the whole family to enjoy," the release said. "There wasn't a clue of what to expect that spring day, April 18th, coming kind of out of COVID. The collective groups were blown away by the willingness of so many people to help. And the large crowd of people that experienced the event exceeded any expectations."

Committee member Debbie Vandeberg said in the release said the success of the first Spring Celebration was amazing.

"It was so fun and exciting to see friends and families walking the alley and enjoying a very warm early spring Saturday," she said. "The businesses lining the alley along with food trucks and downtown businesses experienced a great day.

"Havre is a great community for support," she added. "Independence Bank and Tilleman Motor Co. and Jeep have generously agreed to sponsor the Spring Celebration through their two-year commitment, for which we are so very grateful."

The release said everything is pretty well set for this weekend.

One of the events at Saturday's celebration is the painting of a memorial to long-time Havre Art Association member Mary Nault, who died Feb. 24.

Kris Shaw, a fellow association member, and the one with whom Nault co-founded Artitudes Gallery, said they want to give people who knew Nault an opportunity to celebrate her life and what she gave all of them.

Shaw said Nault had a service in Billings but many people who knew her weren't able to attend, and this event is primarily for them.

"A lot of people couldn't go so we're going to do something in the alley for people who want to come and share their stories about Mary," she said.

The memorial painting is based on an etching Nault did in college which has been colorized, Shaw said and will be painted behind Cavalier's between 2 and 7 p.m. that day.

She said the event will have food and drinks for people who want to come and reflect upon their time with Nault and share with others, as well as feature several paintings by Nault to be displayed and sold.

"Mary painted extensively over the years and has used a spectrum of media, subjects and styles," said Kris Martens, another friend of Nault and fellow association member. "One of her best known would be watercolor paintings of grids of old rusty cars."

Shaw said she and Nault were very close friends having also been members of the Montana Watercolor Society together.

Reading from a letter she wrote for the society's newsletter, she said, Nault was a huge participant in shows and workshops and wanted to become a Signature Member of the society.

She said to become a signature member one's art needs to be chosen and shown in Watermedia, a national juried show, three times. Nault died before fulfilling that dream.

"She'd been in there twice and was striving for her third, then never did get to make that," Shaw said.

She said Nault had been an artist since her childhood on a farm in Valier, always experimenting in new mediums of art, from quilting to poetry.

"Mary was always creating and never one to back away from something new," she said.

Shaw said she was still receiving images from Nault of her work-in-progresses on the morning of her death.

She said being part of the Havre Art Association with her was a great experience, part of a supportive group of artists who shared each other's enthusiasm for creating.

"The recent loss of some of our long-term friends and fellow artists, has really shown us how lucky we have been to belong to the Art Association," said Martens. "You learn a lot about each other simply by what and how they paint, colors and subjects chosen."

"Our numbers of members are few but mighty," she added. "These recent losses, challenges, successes has raised commitment to keep Art Association thriving."

She said the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted many of their yearly traditions and prevented them from meeting.

Martens said they had to cancel a long tradition of holding the annual Fall Art Show and Art in the Garden, but she's happy to say they will be holding the latter event again this year on July 17.

The mural is a continuation of work to improve the alley, located between Third and Fourth avenues and Second and Third streets.

The release said that, in 2015, the Art and Beautification Committee took on an ambitious goal to add colorful art through multiple mediums to enhance the downtown core, to give the downtown "a more visible artsy vibe."

The plan includes lighting, public art and beautification in the alleyway between the streets housing businesses including Havre Home and Hardware and Cavalier's.

The first Art Alley project completed was lighting the alley between Third and Fourth Avenues. The lights in the alley were hung in November of 2020 and became a fascination and focal point throughout the winter, the release said.

Since last spring, the dumpster on the Third Avenue end of the alley became a mural of sunflowers over the summer months.

This summer, work will begin transforming the back doors of several businesses that line the alley into works of art, along with signage welcoming folks to the Art Alley.

"Public art helps ensure that 'our place'" continues to be a unique, interesting, fun and full of color, Vandeberg said, inviting people to join in the Spring Celebration this Saturday, June 4, between 2 and 7 p.m.

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Havre Daily News managing editor Tim Leeds contributed to this report.