In the past few weeks, Basin Avenue pedestrians may have noticed strange shapes emerging and gradually growing larger behind the windows of Basin’s former Artists Refuge building. Maybe they saw rhubarb leaves drying over balloons a month ago, or ladders made of black and white sticks, resting against the building for a few weeks, or perhaps the silhouette of large pillar-like columns growing week by week, until they reached the ceiling.
Indeed, Helena artist Jennifer Thompson has been hard at work, at times sleeping in the gallery space in a sleeping bag, putting together her first art installation since before last year’s pandemic-related shutdown. On Saturday afternoon, about 70 people of all ages, and from all over Montana, came to the premier of her work, called “Name, What Continues…”
Thompson’s art installation will be open for the next four Saturdays at the Artists Refuge from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and she will host a closing event on Sept. 17 from 3–7 p.m. with music by Heidi McCormick at 6 p.m.
