(Lander, WY) – A new mural is in the works on the side of the Lander Bake Shop, which includes a buffalo and fireweed as well as silhouettes of a trout, eagle, meadowlark, and hummingbird.
Artists Colleen Friday and Talissa Abeyta have spent the last several weeks working on the wall with the assistance of Adrienne Vetter.
The mural titled “Power, Life, and Healing” is a cohesive image that resembles ledger art and combines perspectives from the artists and their respective Tribes, Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone.
Friday, a multimedia artist, painted the fireweed with spray paint and utilized the highest part of the space.
She has a background in rangeland ecology and watershed management, and the fireweed is one of the first things that appear following a burn.
I did my master’s thesis work in the Wind River Mountain Range, and part of that was in some burned areas, she shared. When I was identifying plants, there was a lot of fireweed in those areas. There was a fire that occurred in 2017 in the basin I was working in. So afterward, there are little bright pops of color throughout the area. That’s sort of my connection with them. That’s why I like them so much.
Friday has done a few murals, including one of Northern Arapaho elder Sherman Sage in Laramie.
This is Abeyta’s first mural. Her traditional style is ledger art, which is much smaller.
The buffalo symbolizes resilience, which goes hand-in-hand with the fireweed, she shared.
Abeyta is a CWC grad and recently signed with her first gallery in Whitefish, Montana.
A celebration of the new mural has been planned for Friday, August 19 at 5:30 pm. The party will include food, drummers, dancers and guest speakers. Click here for more information.
This project is being coordinated by The Bossert Collective, a Lander-based non-profit founded in 2021 by Sophie Barksdale, Jen Pryor, and Stacy Stebner.
Their “mission is to inspire community connectedness and promote cultural understanding and appreciation through public art in Lander, Wyoming.”
This is The Bossert Collective’s second mural in Lander. The first is of Helen Higby by Adrienne Vetter.
This mural is funded by the LOR Foundation, Wyoming Humanities Council, Wyoming Arts Council, Lander LIFT, Fremont County MOVE, Wyoming Community Foundation, and Anne and Kevin McGowan.