HADLEY FERGUSON

Raised in Missoula, Hadley Ferguson grew up walking the town's surrounding trails and playing in the Clark Fork River. She draws inspiration for her paintings from the landscape’s wild contours, the stirring theatre of sky, and a deep well of lived experience that illuminates and affirms the diurnal rhythms of everyday life in the Mountain West. Her art reflects her attentiveness to place, serving to both preserve and pay homage to its enduring beauty.

Ferguson earned a BFA in drawing and sculpture from the University of Montana. After graduating, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she worked as a contract artist painting murals and artistic details for the McMenamins Co. Returning to Missoula in 2001, she continued working as a freelance artist. Viewers will recognize her distinct style in the seven-panel “Heart of Missoula” mural on the southwest corner of Broadway and Higgins, and in the monumental “Women Build Montana” murals on the third floor of the Montana State Capitol building in Helena. Ferguson’s work can also be found at Fort Missoula, Loyola Sacred Heart High School, the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation, and other public venues in and around Missoula.

R.DAVID WILSON

R. David Wilson is a textile artist and impressionist painter based in Missoula, Montana. Wilson’s work is suffused with vibrant hues and bold textures—influenced by the clean, clear colors of the Flathead Valley where he was raised, Glacier Park where he has spent countless hours since childhood, and Latin America where he lived for several years. His paintings have long been a staple of local galleries and are found in a number of private and museum collections across the Pacific Northwest and in Mexico.

To make the textile works in this exhibition, Wilson employed a punch needle technique which became popular in the late 1800s and is used primarily to speed up the process of rug hooking. The threaded needle is used in a continuous motion allowing the artist to practice a kind of slow-motion “drawing.” Traditionally it is the looped side that is presented to the viewer, while the “verso” remains hidden. But in Wilson’s pieces we see the verso, which offers a clearer rendering of the image and is often embellished with embroidery and beadwork. “After decades of painting,” says Wilson, “these textile pieces provide new and exciting ways to interpret and recreate my experiences in the world.”