GRAND OPENING and BIRD(S) Show

The opening of the invitational BIRD(S) show and a Grand Opening in our new location is afoot and...afly

All photography © Imagimark! Productions

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TOUCAN GRAND OPENING AND BIRD(S) SHOW Saturday, June 22, 10 am – 5 pm 1002 2nd Ave N Billings, Montana

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As the new location for Toucan was developing, from idea to design to construction to occupancy, two years all told, and a process of which many of you have been following along right here in this, the Toucan Newsletter, Allison and I always spoke of a grand opening, someday in our historical rhetoric, and, well, this Saturday, June 22 is that someday. Yes, from 10 am to 5 pm, we’re going to have a proper celebration of Toucan’s new location and renovated building at 1002 2nd Avenue North.

We’re opening our invitational “BIRD(S)” show on that day too.

So many have come to see us since we opened in February, of course, but we thought a proper, “grand” opening is finally due. We worked long and hard to make this new Toucan a reality, so a celebration seems especially warranted.

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TOUCAN GRAND OPENING AND BIRD(S) SHOW Saturday, June 22, 10 am – 5 pm 1002 2nd Ave N Billings, Montana

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We’ll have live music and artists’ booths outside in our event area, food and beverage and the BIRD(S) show inside.

We received more submissions for the BIRD(S) show than we can accommodate, so we’ve culled the artwork to that of 38 individual artists. We’ve been accepting submissions over the last few months and the work on display will be in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats, with drawing, painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture, and functional bird houses among the media represented.

For this show, Toucan invited artists, designers, and builders to submit art and construction based on the theme of “bird,” in either singular or plural form.  Inspired by a fundraiser in Billings more than 25 years ago which invited local artists and craftspeople to make birdhouses, and for which entries were displayed and a reception was held at the gallery in 1996, this new endeavor is an update meant to recapture that spirit and highlight the contemporary creativity in our community in a multidisciplinary way.

The theme is a play on the various ways in which Toucan finds itself associated with it; for instance, a toucan is a bird, Toucan is in the BIRD (Billings Industrial Revitalization District), our customers like birds. That sort of thing.

Our Grand Opening will include live music throughout the day. Here’s a schedule:

Ryan Riley | 10:30 am Chae Clearwood, featuring Andy Dompier and Ryan Riley | Noon - 2 pm Jessa Larson | 2:30 - 3:30 pm

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Artist booths outside will include the 2024 Toucan Emerging Artist Award winner, Emmit Bartsch. This monetary award is given each year by Toucan to a student graduating from the MSU-Billings Art Department to help them launch their artmaking outside the walls of the academy.

Tom Nelson will be catering, and we’ll probably lift a toast with a glass of bubbly at some point.

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TOUCAN GRAND OPENING AND BIRD(S) SHOW Saturday, June 22, 10 am – 5 pm 1002 2nd Ave N Billings, Monana

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I’ll also remind everyone that on Saturday, the Yellowstone Art Museum’s SummerFair will be happening at MetraPark from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the Billings Industrial Revitalization District’s Nest Fest will be happening from noon to 6 p.m. at North Park. And then Parker Brown and the Bleeding Hearts, along with Wes Urbaniak, is at the Red Oxx 406 Events Lawn at 6 p.m. In other words, there is a lot of culture happening in the east-of-downtown district of Billings on Saturday. An industrial district to be sure, this BIRD, but maybe a burgeoning cultural district if we can find the proper frame, the motivated investors, the will to support those things that make our shared humanity in Billings a more exhilarating flight.

Michelle Harkins, of course, is the director of the BIRD—forward-thinking, motivated, tenacious—and a couple of weeks ago I met her over at her office and delivered the prophetic, if not slightly terrifying, message: I have an idea. As you know, I told her, I’m a photographer, and what if...

The photo above is the result: the director of the BIRD being attacked by birds in an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, “The Birds.” It’s a photo I made with a commercial mindset, a bit slicker and more promotional than fine art in its intention, but whatever it is, a print will be hanging in the BIRD(S) show, as I’ve never been all that interested in segregating creative expression into academic, genre, or market categories.

As I’ve started making photographs again, reconstituting my studio along with a soft relaunch and rehanging of my shingle, Imagimark! Productions, now as part of the Toucan conglomeration of art and creativity and beautiful things and whatever culture-making we can continue to accomplish in our community, I’m thinking about, as one does, gestalt theory. An idea—exceedingly simplified as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—that is essential to, but not inevitable in, let’s call it, artmaking, and by which I mean that the whole is never a given. That’s the work. Putting together the bits and pieces to make a whole that you hope you can make transcend those very bits and pieces to become something more than everything that went into it.

The individual artworks we received for the BIRD(S) show are all made up of their own individual parts, but the artworks themselves are the parts that make up the whole of the show, which combined with our new Toucan facility, and with the food and the music and the people and the weather and the spirit of the weekend, make up the whole of, the art of, our Grand Opening Celebration.

Allison and I sincerely hope that you can be one of the parts that helps us make this greater whole of Toucan, and its place in our community, on Saturday.

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TOUCAN GRAND OPENING AND BIRD(S) SHOW Saturday, June 22, 10 am – 5 pm 1002 2nd Ave N Billings, Montana

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A huge thanks to Tom Nelson, Kate Morris, Karen Frank, and Sandra Schiavon for their inspiration and support in this BIRD(S) show and Grand Opening endeavor!

And I’ll end with a single part, a single piece of art, from the show, by Louis Habeck. I’d explain the deep, complicated connection, but I think you can parse out its meaning to us on your own.