Art work in progress

Warm and calm weather this past winter has been a boon to the Tippet Rise Art Center near Fishtail – a big snowfall in mid-December paused construction of new roads, utility infrastructure, buildings and artwork, but the weather has been mostly moderate since then along the spectacular Beartooth Front.
Heavy equipment, large cranes and equipment trailers surround the center’s base of operations near Grove Creek Road and dot the landscape across the 11,000-acre property owned by Kathy and Peter Halstead as contractors race to complete projects in time for the June concert season.
Art center director Alban Bassuet has practically lived at the site since the major makeover kicked off last year. The center has set lofty goals – LEED certification for sustainability, a minimal visual footprint on the landscape and cutting edge technologies aimed at making classical art and fine arts available to destination visitors and locals alike.
The focus for visitors will be the Olivier Barn concert hall. Gunnstock Timber Frames of Cody, Wyo. is heading up the project, with clear-fir tongue-and-groove paneling from Washington and rough-cut beams. Extra steps are being taken for soundproofing, especially for all the HVAC equipment in the basement. Upstairs will be the multi-media facilities, including a state-of-the-art recording studio.
Visitors will park their vehicles near the underground powerhouse and get around in electrical vehicles recharged by an 8,000-square-foot solar panel array. Henry Dykema and Sundance Solar Systems of Luther installed the panels on a strong steel I-beam frame partially sunken behind berms. Capable of generating 80 kilowatts, the panels are bifacial so they can collect energy reflected off snow in winter.
Not far away are numerous 400-foot deep geothermal wells. The collected heat from the earth is transferred to a glycol medium and pumped from the powerhouse to the concert hall.
Miles of new and refurbished gravel roads connect the main center near Grove Creek Road to gigantic sculptures around the property and the property’s west entrance on the Nye Road. It looks like mountain biking country, but while Bassuet supports the opportunity, he also warned about the loose gravel and uphill terrain.
“You have to be in good shape,” he said.
The Halsteads want to create a renown sculpture park at Tippet Rise. To prepare for that, seven solar-powered weather stations were established across the property to help determine wind strength at different locations before setting up artwork.
The University of Montana Art Department will offer a course at Tippet Rise starting in May with less than 20 students, Bassuet said. The students will listen to lectures by artists and then return in July with their own project,
“No other land art courses are offered in the U.S.,” Bassuet said, adding that the students say they want to camp on-site to experience the landscape firsthand.
The large sculptures demarcate different parts of the 11,000-acre art center, and most of them are located outside the former Isabelle Johnson ranch, which is under a conservation easement.
Within walking distance of the Olivier Barn is Patrick Dougherty’s unusual piece, “Daydreams.” CTA Architects & Engineers were hired to replicate an historical one-room schoolhouse on Stockade Road, right down to loose lap-siding and missing roof shingles on the windward side. Dougherty weaved local willows into giant brambles that cover part of the schoolhouse’s exterior and interior.
“When we asked visiting schoolchildren what they thought of it, they said it looked like something from ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” Bassuet said.
A piece by Stephen Talasnik called “Satellite No. 5 Pioneer” was still under construction. Two pieces by Mark di Suvero are on-site, including “Proverb,” a tall red tripod on the western end of the property, and “Beethoven’s Quartet,” a world-famous sculpture that came from the Storm King Art Center in New York. Visitors can hit the piece with rubber mallets to create tones.
“Di Suvero came here to see the piece installed,” Bassuet said.
The Ensamble Studio traveled to Tippet Rise to create giant concrete pieces that required some of the most powerful cranes in Montana to lift in place. Spanish architects now artists Anton Garcia-Abril and Debora Mesa were influenced by the spectacular rock palisades along the Beartooth Front.
Garcia-Abril’s father is a well-known composer who will create a piece honoring his son’s artwork, Bassuet said.
The first two finished sculptures, “Beartooth Porta” and “Inverted Porta,” were fashioned from two 350,000-pound poured-concrete elliptical hemispheres raised over two days by JMS Cranes of Billings using a Manitowoc 160000 crane.
A much larger piece called“Domo” is currently still under construction. Workers from On Site Management of Bozeman and CMG Construction of Billings built up a gravel mound about 100 feet square and 30 feet high and then excavated three deep pits. The top of the mound was lined with heavy plastic, and rebar forms were made to conform to the shape of the pits.
A batch plant was set up several hundred yards away to provide the concrete for a 20-hour continuous pour on March 15. Once the concrete has set up, the gravel underneath will be excavated, leaving a cavernous sculpture large enough to serve as a small concert venue.
The concert season at Tippet Rise will begin June 17 with a two-part piano recital of pieces by Chopin and Liszt performed by Russian-born Nikolai Demidenko, followed by the Ariel String Quartet performing pieces by Aaron Kernis and John Adams on June 18 to celebrate sculptures by Stephen Talasnik.
Classical pianist Christopher O’Riley is the new music director at the art center. O’Riley has performed in the past at the Alberta Bair Theater in Billings and performed arrangements by non-traditional musical groups like Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Nirvana.
Performances will take place on Fridays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 2 and 6:30 p.m. The hour-long concerts will be followed by 20-minute conversations with musicians, composers and artists.
Catered food will be provided by Wildflower Kitchen of Fishtail.
Concert tickets are $10, with package deals available and guests 18-and-under free. Tickets are available online at www.tippetrise.org or by contacting the art center’s director of outreach and logistics, Lindsey Hinmon, at lindsey.hinmon@tippetrise.org.