Graffiti News

Missoula’s 113-foot mural brings the river onto a building

A blue heron stretches across a new mural on the Clark Fork Riverside apartments near the Orange Street Bridge in downtown Missoula, Montana. According to the Missoulian, Ernest Doty and AJ Tiam, who works as Stay Bacon, created the commissioned painting. At 113 feet high and 6,000 square feet, the wall makes room for both monumental wildlife and quieter scenes of reading, fishing and a train beneath the mountains.

The project also brought the visiting artists into conversation with residents and gave local muralist Sophia Mathis experience working at a larger scale. Those exchanges offer a concrete way to consider what a major commission can contribute to a smaller city’s mural culture.

What does the Missoula mural depict?

The painting combines Montana landscapes with a nostalgic, dreamlike approach. Its loose starting points were the novella A River Runs Through It and the building owner’s childhood, the Missoulian reports. That makes it a gathering of memories and natural scenes rather than a literal illustration of one passage.

Anglers, magpies, a woman reading in a field and a train at the foot of the mountains share the wall. A large grizzly eats a fish. The heron connects the imagined landscape to the actual riverside: Doty told the newspaper that a blue heron flew down the Clark Fork every day while they worked, and magpies perched on nearby light posts.

Those observations explain the imagery without making wildlife sightings part of a visitor’s itinerary. The birds belonged to the artists’ experience of painting beside the river.

How large is the wall, and how did the artists paint it?

The mural rises 113 feet and covers 6,000 square feet. Photographs accompanying the reporting show Tiam working from a crane and Doty applying spray paint. The scale required skills beyond those needed to paint a smaller wall.

Doty estimated that the pair had already used more than 20 gallons of paint before finishing the sky or painting the wing across the central panel. That was a progress estimate, not a final total for the completed mural.

The setting also shaped the artists’ intention. Doty described wanting to return color and an image of nature to a place where trees had given way to a parking lot. The painted landscape expresses that intention; it does not replace the missing trees.

How did residents become part of the process?

Residents helped make the commission a social experience throughout its production. Both artists came from outside Montana, and the Missoulian describes people stopping to share what they valued about the area. Residents of Clark Fork Riverside, a retirement community, became friends with the artists, with some watching the work day after day.

The pair also stepped away from the crane to talk with local children about art. Doty relayed encounters with people who said the painting moved them to tears and others who changed their route home to see it.

These are reported personal responses, not a survey of the neighborhood. Their significance is more specific: a wall beside everyday routes became something some residents deliberately sought out.

What did Sophia Mathis learn on the project?

Sophia Mathis joined the artists to develop techniques for larger murals. The Missoulian describes Mathis as an accomplished local muralist already, making the exchange an extension of an existing practice.

Doty and Tiam said experience with skills such as aerosol painting could help local artists pursue bigger works in their own community. Learning alongside a working commission connects those techniques to the practical demands of a large surface. The reporting does not describe a formal training course or announce a subsequent Mathis project.

For smaller cities, the useful possibility is that a visiting commission can leave knowledge with artists who live there. That outcome depends on the working relationships around the painting as well as the finished image.

What can the project mean for local mural culture?

The commission links a large exterior painting with support for local artistic practice. During their stay, Doty and Tiam supported the local arts scene, befriended residents and invited participation in the work.

Doty hoped the mural would encourage other building and business owners to consider murals an investment in their communities. That is the artist’s argument, not evidence of increased property values or business revenue. The documented contribution is the combination of painting, public conversation and shared skills.

Where can visitors look for the mural?

Use the Orange Street Bridge and the Clark Fork Riverside apartments in downtown Missoula as the location references. The mural occupies the building’s side, and the reporting describes people seeing the work while walking, running, cycling or driving nearby.

Plan to view the exterior from publicly accessible space and keep residents’ access clear. The source provides no designated viewing point or visiting hours, so check present access before making a special trip. For a broader art walk, use the Wallscape map to organize other stops without assuming this particular mural is listed.

At the wall, look first for the heron, then follow the smaller scenes toward the train and mountains. That shift in attention reveals how a building-sized image also makes room for ordinary human activity.