Graffiti News
Aspen Decker mural brings Salish camas harvest to Missoula
Salish artist Aspen Decker has brought the gathering and baking of camas bulbs to a wall of the Montana Natural History Center in Missoula. According to the Missoulian, the mural was unveiled during the October First Friday events on October 2, 2026. Her husband, Cameron Decker, helped paint the work.
Its title, ‘Sx̣ʷeʔlí x̣èct u Qʷl̓epm,’ is given in English as ‘Camas Dig & Bake.’ Decker told the newspaper that the mural depicts a traditional Bitterroot Salish gathering that has sustained people across generations. The harvest supplies the central action, while clothing, animals and the surrounding imagery carry stories about identity and the land.
The mural occupies the center’s west-facing wall
The place to look is the Montana Natural History Center at 120 Hickory St. in Missoula. The Missoulian reports that the painting covers 800 square feet of its west-facing wall. The center owns the building and helped fund the project, alongside the Missoula Downtown Foundation.
For visitors, the composition offers a way to connect the harvest with the other images. Begin with the four women performing different roles, then examine the coyotes along the bottom and the fish above. This suggested reading follows the elements described in the report: the work connects a gathering practice with the stories and natural history of the place where it is displayed.
Four women tell the harvest through their roles and regalia
The women represent different parts of the harvesting and baking process. According to the Missoulian, their identities are distinguished through regalia rather than facial features. The colors of their clothing relate to the seasonal round or medicine wheel, giving those details a role in the cultural storytelling.
The newspaper describes the painting as contemporary ledger art. Decker explained that her ledger figures do not have facial features and linked this pictographic approach to the importance of regalia and family in expressing identity. Her account gives visitors a specific way to look: attend to what the women wear and do, rather than searching their faces for individual expressions.
The same attention extends to the pictographic animals. The report says that the colors, patterns and animal imagery were chosen intentionally. Reading those details alongside the sequence of work makes the mural a story about relationships as well as a depiction of food gathering.
Coyotes connect the camas roots with oral tradition
The coyotes along the lower part of the mural refer to stories passed between generations. The Missoulian identifies Coyote as an important storyteller for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Decker explained that these moral stories teach people how to behave, often through examples of how not to behave.
According to the report, the stories include explanations of animals’ coloring and the role of local waters, linking oral knowledge with natural history. Decker placed the coyotes near the camas roots because she associated those stories with the roots of collective identity. That explanation makes the lower band part of the mural’s subject, with a connection to the harvest above it.
The fish refer to the glacial lake behind Missoula’s name
The fish across the top connect the painting to a glacial lake and the history of the local place-name. The Missoulian reports that Decker explained this relationship to viewers at the unveiling. Their flowing arrangement provides another thread to follow after examining the women and coyotes.
According to the newspaper, Salish people witnessed the lake shape the landscape over generations and called this part of it ‘Nmesulétkʷ,’ meaning ‘place of the freezing water.’ Settlers subsequently changed the word into ‘Missoula.’ Decker said she hoped viewers would become curious about local names, the history of the land and cultural practices that sustained people before settlers arrived.
Salish authorship gives the public artwork its perspective
The mural presents cultural knowledge through an artist from the community it depicts. Decker is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and speaks Nsélišcn, the Salish language, the Missoulian reports. Her contributions to the visibility of Salish history in Missoula include translations as well as murals.
The Missoula Downtown Foundation selected her design from 25 applicants through its Downtown Arts and Culture Impact Grant Program. In a release about the unveiling, Montana Natural History Center executive director Marilyn Marler described the work as centering Indigenous knowledge and expressing relationships among people, plants and animals, according to the newspaper.
For Wallscape, this is a useful public-art story to read through both its imagery and its authorship. At the wall, visitors can connect the artist’s explanations with specific details: the women’s regalia, the camas roots, the coyotes and the fish. Those relationships offer a grounded way to consider Indigenous public art within a wider interest in murals and street art. Continue exploring through the Wallscape map, with this work’s reported address as the local reference point.