Missoula News | New West Network

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Pahtay

Artini, the event that has become somewhat of a social saving grace for young professionals in the Garden City, is turning one year old this week.

Most (including me) would say the event has been wildly popular. Nici Holt, the Community Outreach & Membership Director at the Missoula Art Museum would have to agree. Since Artini started, 99 new members have joined the museum at the events and Holt estimates that most -- even 90 percent -- of those new memberships are from Missoula's under 40 crowd. Artini, in essence, has succeeded in "making the art museum more fun and more accessible," Holt said.

Hence, the birthday celebration this Thursday... [more]

Column | Making it in Missoula

Thank you for you interest in our column debut! We’re working on a way to make it a little more interactive. I’m taking the reins this week, so hit me with your best psychoanalysis.

Rather than tossing you without a lifevest into the sea of connections that makes up my single life in Missoula, I’ll immerse you slowly so you can get used to the water at your own pace. Some people just have to jump in, and you may be one of those people. But then, where’s the suspense?

So here’s a short episode to get us all comfortable. Maybe we’ll just get in with floaties today. [more]

New Column

My sister and I expose our lives in Missoula: the ironies and adventures of dating, the coincidences that seem too planned, and the social interactions that inevitably evolve into micro soap operas when living in a small town. This is just the introduction; the stage is set. In the next few months, "characters" (our friends whose names we've creatively changed so we can still be invited to barbecues) will emerge and the plots will thicken. We hope readers will help thicken them by sharing advice and thoughts with us. Welcome to Making It In Missoula. [more]

Fiery Festival

Babb, Montana is about nine miles from St. Mary, Montana, on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park.

Every year the tiny town holds its 'Babbfest,' an outdoor music shindig boasting as much PBR, hemp t-shirts, Indian tacos and gourmet tequila shooters as any 20- or 30-something could possibly desire. Bands play all day long, local wares are sold in booths, and everyone generally has a jolly old time. Babbfesters camp at the festival, which makes sense: this year tickets were $40, and admission meant an all-you-can-drink party that reached its pinnacle of fun around 1 A.M. when the headlining band, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band out of New Orleans, began playing.

My parents love Babbfest. I've never been, so I tune in with a keen ear to their stories. They're fond of saying things like 'We were looking to win the award for the oldest people there' when they talk about it. I don't know why; they're fun. Not, you know, mosh pit fun, but they're fun.
[more]

Art Walk

Come join us for another uber cool New West First Friday this week when we host artist Cherlyn Wilcox this Friday, August 4th, premiering her show -- simply titled "New Paintings."

Wilcox paints primarily in oils and focuses on exploring her emotional connections with the local environment, emphasizing color and dynamic movement.

When: First Friday, August 4, 5-9 p.m.
Where: New West offices, 415 N. Higgins (in the alley behind the Old Post).
The show is up through August 25th including Artini Slam One, with the Missoula Art Museum, here at New West on August 17th.
Who: Cherlyn Wilcox and her "New Paintings"
What: Chit chat, good art, good beer.

We'll see you here. [more]

Weekend Fun and Beyond

Put on your SPF 5 million this weekend and take part in the Flathead fun. Here's a list of things you should be doing, if you're not doing them already:

1. Go to Kalispell's annual Arts in the Park. Presented by the Hockaday Museum, this festival is outdoor at Depot Park Square. It features the works of local, regional and national artists, dance performances, musicians, and tasty bites to eat. This is a family affair, so bring the kids for face painting and hands-on art activities. Admission is $3 a day and that includes admission to the nearby Hockaday Museum. Kids under 12 are admitted free. For information on participating artists, musicians and everything else, click here.

2. Do the Bull Thing at the Tobacco Valley Rodeo in Eureka. Rodeo dates are July 21 and 22, so suck in, paste on your Wranglers and get out there. For more info. on tickets and rodeo events, click here.

[more]

Missoula Open Space

The Missoula County Open Lands Working Group released a detailed 127-page report to the Missoula Board of County Commissioners on Monday recommending ways in which Missoula County can preserve its “open land and county character” in the face of relentless development pressures.

The report, culled from 15 months of research and citizen outreach by 18 landowners (two from each of the nine planning regions within Missoula County) facilitated by the Five Valley Land Trust, outlines “tools” Missoula County citizens can use “to protect agricultural lands, timberland, open space, wildlife habitat, wetland and riparian resources, or public access” – simply, the very things that make Missoula County a wonderful place to live.

On Monday night, at a potluck on Denny and Charlotte Iverson’s ranch in Potomac, the Working Group officially presented its findings to the Board of County Commissioners. “It takes this kind of effort,” beamed Missoula County Commissioner Bill Carey, the group members and county commissioners sitting at picnic tables and on hay bales. [more]

Missoula Events

Not many performers give all of their profits to charity. But Hilary Thomas, founder of Lineage Dance, a Los Angeles-based modern dance troupe, not only choreographs and performs stirring routines with the six women in her company, she also donates the money from their shows to very worthy causes.

The Northern Rockies (and Missoula) is the company's first stop on their national summer tour where they'll be "dancing for a cure" by performing Healing Blue, a benefit concert for breast cancer. [more]

A New West Event

Come join us for yet another wonderful First Friday at New West. This month, we're hosting photographer Michael Coles, showcasing "An Empty Quarter" -- an exhibition of selected silver gelatin prints of Montana's hardscrabbled, but beautiful Hi-line. This show comes to Missoula after a popular showing on the Hi-line itself.

When: First Friday, July 7, 5-9 p.m.
Where: New West offices, 415 N. Higgins (in the alley behind the Old Post).
Who: Michael Coles is a Missoula photographer who shoots for newspapers and magazines while exhibiting his work. [more]

Plane Talk

It was way too early in the day to be talking, but listening, especially in the close confines of the airport gate and jam-packed airplane, was unavoidable.

My 7:40 flight out of Glacier Park International Airport was sold out. The gate agent began offering the standard $400-flight, usable for up to one year, and by the time we were boarding, she'd upped the ante to "breakfast, lunch, dinner, and $400 flight to anywhere in the U.S....please?"

A woman standing at the gate with her two children announced over her shoulder to her travel friends, "they're paying for hotel too, so we're staying until tomorrow. I'm fine with it-- we get another day in Montana!"

[more]

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