We welcomed Big Sky’s first large-scale mural in the Little Coyote/Lone Peak Hwy Pedestrian Tunnel by
Stella Nall ‘Bisháakinnesh’, a Montana based multidisciplinary artist and a First Descendant of Apsáalooke (Crow) tribe. Stella utilizes a wide range of materials and techniques, including beadwork, painting, illustration, wood carving, ceramics, printmaking and poetry. Her distinctive visual language is characterized by vibrant colors, intricate mark-making and a sense of whimsical reverence.
Her work lives in both public and private spaces. Her murals, full of joyful, place-based narratives, can be found across Montana. Her work has been acquired to national permanent collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (Santa Fe, NM), and the Montana Museum of Art and Culture (Missoula, MT).
This mural celebrates the amazing landscape of Big Sky and the surrounding areas, the community that lives here, and the wildlife that we share it with. The imagery you see was generated by community feedback on the following prompt; “Think about the landscape/environment of Big Sky and the wonderful plants and wildlife that live here. If you could imagine a make-believe ‘Big Sky Being’, what would it be like?
Read a few of the community responses below;
“An elk or moose kinda creature that holds the sun in its antlers (summer-long days) and then when it drops its antlers it also drops the sun (winter-short days). Or maybe vice versa with the moon since they drop their antlers in the spring. Or maybe a wee huckleberry colored hummingbird. Maybe they hang out with other summer berry colored hummingbirds. They have a lot of wings instead of just two so they can move even faster!”
“Pink punk Pika! Being wild! Super cute and tough n stuff bc they have a soft heart. Likes baking and when not playing in their punk band shares tea or coffee with Buffalo, Bun, and blue Butterfly friends.”
“A deer with horns like bighorns and claws like bears. It is a deer who can protect itself.”
“A big shaggy mountain goat named Myrtle. She likes flowers, hiking and sunsets. She is friends with a mountain chickadee named Melvin who likes to perch on her horns while they adventure around the mountains of Big Sky.”
“I think of something that is a giant flying with feathery wings and they would lay in the clouds and eat them and it rains when they're sad, it would be friendly with all the birds and people and ski in the mountains when it's cloudy.”
“A version of a porcupine!! Like a really tall one with long leggies.”
“A creature that is able to navigate the terrain, stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It would be friends with all the other animals and just eat plants. Maybe it would just eat invasive species and somehow not spread their seeds? It’d be very cute and large. Maybe looks kinda like a bear, but isn’t scary and likes being friends with humans. Like a really nice dog and a bear mixed together.”
