MISSOULA — The Downtown Missoula Partnership released a master plan for the future of Missoula in 2019. Included in that plan, was the addition of several new murals.
At the 131 West Alder Street Building, a new mural is being painted by a local Missoula artist and by the end of the summer, people will be able to enjoy a large rendering of a water dragon.
The Downtown Missoula Partnership started an Arts and Culture Grant last year through its fundraising arm — the Missoula Downtown Foundation.
The grant was able to raise $15,000 both this year and the last, paving the way for four total new murals. Last year, a mural was painted on Ryman Street and in the alley by Stave and Hoop.
“The more we can do to support our local artists and foster that community is important and having art pieces downtown makes the downtown more welcoming as a whole and really helps out everybody– businesses, property owners, tourists,” says Downtown Missoula Partnership Financial Director Jack Hall.
The partnership uses a board to sift through artist applications. They require the artist to be from Montana and often select Missoulians.
This year, Lillian Nelson, a Missoula artist who received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Montana, was selected to paint a large-scale dragon on the Alder Street building.
Nelson has some experience painting murals, including three of the Missoula traffic boxes, but had never tackled a project as large as Dorothy Dragon.
Known as “the dragon girl,” Nelson has loved to paint dragons her entire life, so when she heard the property owner wanted a dragon painted on the building, she jumped at the opportunity.
“Growing up I just drew them constantly and painted them constantly,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to do a giant dragon on something, so I was like, ‘yes, this is it’.”
Nelson loves that dragons are significant to different cultures all over the world. Plus, since 2024 is the year of the dragon, it was the perfect time to express that love.
Asian-inspired dragons are her favorite style to paint, and the West Alder Building was once a Chinese laundromat, so her design was perfect for the property owner.
Last year, the Downtown Missoula Partnership received some complaints about their compensation for artists. This year, it was important for them that they increased the artist pay, according to Hall.
“I think we were a little new to it last year, and we’ve kind of changed some things up this year a little bit,” he says. “We’ve gotten some input from local artists about how to do that, and you know, basing projects on square footage instead of a set amount for who knows how big the area’s going to be, so I feel like what we’ve done this year has been a lot better.”
Nelson says she feels happy with her compensation, and that while many of the complaints from artists were valid, some people misunderstood the language in the application.
“You know it’s a huge job– it’s so hard to say ‘what’s it worth?’ because it’s so big, but I feel like at the end of the day, I’m satisfied," she says."
The property owner of the West Alder Street Building helped pay for the mural because of its large size.
The partnership hopes in the end, supporting local artists and encouraging more murals will build up Missoula and encourage more downtown activity.
“Kind of create these destination spots where people take a ton of pictures and people are like, oh where’s that? Let’s go see it again,” Hall says.
The mural is set to be completed by Sept. 1, when the partnership will host a grand reveal party for the community.
