Mountain Time Arts seeks to build “resilient communities in the Rocky Mountain West by protecting people, culture, and our environment through diverse, bold public art.”
Learn more about Mountain Time Arts’ most recent project, “SeeBozemanCreek,” in the the interview below.
Thank you, Mountain Time Arts, for all you do!
Q: What issue(s) are you seeking to solve, and in what ways are you working to solve them?
The waters of Bozeman Creek originate high in the mountains south of Bozeman, Montana. They flow from Mystic Lake in pristine condition, and as they flow downhill through conifer forests, Sourdough Canyon, fields of alfalfa hay and grains, suburban subdivisions and into the city limits of Bozeman, the waters become diminished and degraded by the concentration and byproducts of agriculture, transportation, and development.
The final indignity occurs in downtown Bozeman, where the creek has been channelized and built on top of for over a hundred years. The ecological health of Bozeman Creek is extremely compromised, and its value to the Lower Gallatin Watershed a trifling of its ecological potential.
Mountain Time Arts, through the engagement power of Public Art installations, works to highlight the ecological and societal benefits of restoring dynamic, natural processes within our watershed to meet the need for both flood mitigation and the benefits of a healthy riparian corridor.
Restoring river health will give rivers space and freedom to flood and adjust their channels. The revitalization of Bozeman Creek in downtown Bozeman will provide a blueprint for wider reparations throughout the watershed. Given the resultant high visibility of restoration work downtown to hundreds of residents daily, the deep cultural connections between humans and water systems will be powerfully brought to life and reinforced.
The goal and foundation of all of our work is to provide opportunities for people to experience our land and waters in ways that provoke more deeply felt reflections and connections.
While the grandeur of the mountains surrounding Gallatin Valley is a main draw for both residents and visitors of Bozeman, the water that brings this area to life is often overlooked. Our current project, SeeBozemanCreek, will bridge local culture and water, emphasizing the importance of seeing and living sensitively with nature.
Making water visible and expressing its value are key to building a sense of understanding and dedicated stewardship. Public art, both temporary and permanent—with a focus on engaging a diverse range of storytellers—can capture the broad cultural legacies and stories associated with shared landscapes.
Q: What do you find most challenging in your work?
A challenge that we continually address is: How to learn from and honor the past while promoting change and pointing towards environmental health and equitable connections? To solicit dialog and invite the voices of many competing interests while holding up visions of radical change is a challenge that we hope will catalyze optimism and cooperation to do better in partnership and congruence with natural systems.
Up to the early years of the 19th century, Native Americans drew sustenance from streams and rivers throughout our region. Today, Bozeman Creek generously provides for our drinking water and playgrounds. In thanks, we have literally made it invisible, channeled and confined beneath our Main Street and downtown buildings, rendering its generosity to us equally unseen.
Water’s persistent generosity has long been matched by our greed. Across the West, waters are dammed and diverted for our use on every river.
“To give back to the unseen, we must first see it. To see a stream as degraded is to seek to understand its state before we took from it. It is an act of generosity itself to undertake the restoration of a stream. Its planning is an invitation to build community and dialogue among many points of view.
“Its execution is equal parts science, art, and attention to detail. The art and science of restoration is informed by the careful observation and understanding of the natural world, by bringing our humility and humanity to the task of learning what a river has to teach. . . . We have learned to see more broadly and more deeply into the past.
“We have learned to see water’s generosity and, in so doing, mirror it. A restored stream is an act of faith for our future world - testimony that we can overcome our greed in at least this one, sacred place.
“A restored stream benefits more than the angler who casts a line or the fish that swim its waters. A restored stream anchors a community of insects, birds, animals, trees, shrubs, and grasses.
“A restored stream generously passes its water downstream, conveying the richness of its interactions with myriad natural processes that move and deposit sediment and gravels, that replenish and release groundwater, and that provide refuge for the many.”
(Skidmore, Wheaton; Anthropocene 38 Journal, 2022)
Q: What do you find most rewarding?
The most rewarding aspects of producing public art fall into two cascading categories:
The opportunities to meet and collaborate with persons from many different disciplines and fields of knowledge is both invigorating and near infinite. Discovery is always in the air as we learn from each other. As the art is formulated together, the connections deepen and often there’s a cross fertilization of appreciation for what is possible.
This is fueled by pulses of wonder that result from blending innovative art with ground-breaking science. Over the years, the outcomes that charge us up for the next opportunity are some version of: “I wonder what’s next.” OR “Heck yah, we can do this.”
In the case of Bozeman Creek, if we can feel and identify with the pulse of the riparian system, discovering its secrets, and acting in concert with its needs; then we can address its ills and revitalize our collective watershed.
We can be our better selves.
Q: What do you wish people knew more about the challenges you seek to solve?
I wish that people, who reside in or visit the Gallatin Valley, would have a deeper connection to the land and waters that have sustained this place for eons. As Headwaters People, we have responsibility to the water that provides and protects all life as it makes its way from the mountain tops across our valley, then forming the Missouri River and flowing to millions of people across North America. These headwaters feed, cleanse, nourish, and make all life possible. Let that sink in . . . for a minute, an hour, a lifetime.
I would like people to consider:
What could the Bozeman Creek waterway become if we, as a community, honored it rather than ignored it?
What would be possible if the spirit of the creek were to be fully expressed?
What is needed to care for our water and fully support its resiliency?
As we consider the well-being of our community, we have a responsibility to the water whose gift is our life and that of all in this web of relationship that extends from this valley across the continent.
John Wesley Powell described a watershed as “that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common watercourse and where, as humans settle, simple logic demand that they become part of the community.”
I wish for all of us to recognize and value our communities in the broadest sense and to live up to our incumbent responsibilities. We are bound by the waters and a common need for these limited resources.
Q: How can people support your work?
The arts play a leadership role in bringing people together, opening minds, and driving change. People who make art, attend art events, and volunteer for artistic causes are not only supporting the arts, but providing opportunities for community growth and the formation of deeper connections to our place in the natural world.
The arts can stimulate profound revelations and appreciations for changes in view of what is possible. Art experiences can be potent motivators for envisioning an environment of mutual respect and connection. Participation in a multitude of artistic expressions will be mutually beneficial no matter the form or place.
Q: How do you create joy and hope in your life during the ecological crisis?
I find that noticing “good works” and reflecting them with appreciation and kindness goes a long way in boosting my joy and sustaining hope. Working in concert and collaboration with others is affirmational and lifts my spirit. I also have a ready laugh that appreciates the humor that accompanies many of our predicaments.
Essayist Jim Harrison, who lived in Livingston for a while, wrote, “In a life properly lived, you’re a river. You touch things lightly or deeply, you move along, because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it; you can’t figure out a banal game plan applicable to all situations, you just have to go with the ‘beingness’ of life.”
Taking the “long view”, while recognizing the urgency, provides needed balance.