Featured Artists
Hotels are, unfortunately, almost synonymous with bad art. So when we decided to build The LARK, we also decided to throw that unfortunate association out the window. Meet the local Bozeman, Montana artists who have worked to give our Bozeman hotel rooms and Map Room a unique, intriguing local and regional connection. They worked with us to create wall installations for our rooms and Map Room that invite exploration and tell a story about the experiences that are waiting when you stay here. We can’t wait for you to see them for yourself – click below for more info on the artists and their unique LARK creations.
Radial Map & Rocks
Patrick Hoffman is a fine art ceramicist and an art teacher at Bozeman Senior High School. He enjoyed the challenge of combining the infographic concept with artistry to create a radial map for our uniquely Bozeman hotel rooms. The map grounds visitors with the idea of “you are here,” then expands that with a different way to visualize the travel time to various Bozeman area places and activities. In the lobby, his ceramic installation is composed of wood-fired ceramic forms – symbols for structures that dot an agricultural landscape—in temporary compositions on steel sheets that can be arranged differently over time.
School Of Fish
Seth Neilson is a multi-disciplinary photographer, illustrator, graphic designer, former Creative Director at MERCURYcsc, as well as a “wayward mountaineer, reluctant enthusiast, and conqueror of the useless.” He designed his artwork for our hotel with an appreciation for Bozeman’s fishing culture. “Placing the fish at their actual recorded size and keeping them in context to each other and the room created a surprising effect,” Neilson says. The added details about location, size and weight give visitors some guidance as to where they might be able to find their own trophy fish while visiting.
Rings Of Time
“Rings of Time” is a visual chronicle of significant events in the Bozeman region’s past. Artist Bret Sander, a brand designer at Massive Studios, wanted to put the area’s human history in the context of the natural world by focusing on the structure of a tree’s annual rings in his installation in our Bozeman hotel rooms.
Marvin The Moose
The moose, with its incredible size and seemingly clumsy morphology, is one of Montana’s most impressive animals. Artist Brittany Simmonds, a brand designer at Massive Studios, created “Marvin” in one of our Bozeman hotel rooms to give guests an up-close and personal life-size look at one of these magnificent beasts.
Montana’s Mountains
One might consider Jeremy Sandlin – a self-described computer geek and lover of great design – an unlikely backpacker. He grew up in Montana, but didn’t begin exploring the surrounding mountains until attending Montana State University. “Standing on top of a mountain can bring you an unparalleled sense of perspective not only on the landscape that surrounds you but also on yourself,” he says. Sandlin, Interactive Art Director at MERCURYcsc, says his artistic goal for our Bozeman hotel rooms was to increase curiosity for Bozeman’s mountain ranges by creating a fictitious range composed of the area’s tallest peaks.
Montana In Words
Born and raised in Montana, Christian Schultz earned his design chops in Los Angeles and Seattle before settling in Bozeman, where he now owns and operates Hukel Design. National park posters, western travel signage, freight engine paint schemes and modern Scandinavian design influence his multi-disciplinary approach to design. Of his take on Montana counties, highways and infographics created for our Bozeman hotel rooms, Schultz says, “My mission was to connect with travelers, educate them about Montana and inspire traveling in this great state.”
Montana Ski Areas Snowpack
Yogesh is a designer working in Bozeman Montana. During over a decade of freelancing he’s worn many hats, but lately focusing on designing for the wild frontier of the world wide web. Yogesh enjoys the challenge of finding beautiful and simple design solutions that function on all devices and screen sizes. I also have an extensive print background and continue to design identities and collateral for the printed page. He earned an MA in photojournalism from the University of Montana in 2005. After a short stint working for weekly papers in Missoula and Hawaii, Yogesh struck out on his own to tell visual stories through design. He still has all the hats in my closet and occasionally he writes and does photography for outdoor magazines.
When asked about the piece, “I wanted to pay respect to the two outstanding ski areas [Bridger Bowl and Big Sky] that we are fortunate to have in our back yard,” said Yogesh Simpson of the inspiration behind his installation. The avid skier took historical data from SNOTEL sites and average daily snow depth totals from Nov. 1 to May 31 in a single year, illustrating the physical difference of the mountains as well.
Lobby Light
Shaw Thompson’s passion for using reclaimed materials was a perfect fit for The LARK’s quest to provide intriguing local art around every corner. Shaw produced distinctive light fixtures to complement our Bozeman hotel rooms and distinctive Map Room using both recovered pieces and new materials to build visually pleasing and proportionally balanced vessels. The LARK’s unique fixtures include parts salvaged from the internal workings of air circulation fans to the exhaust pipe shroud from army vehicles and much more. To see more of Shaw’s carefully curated items, visit his shop in downtown Bozeman Misco Mill Gallery.
Man In Scribbles
There are many steps to the creation of Sukha Worob’s art. The local educator, printmaker and installation artist starts his figural works by photographing Bozeman community members and creating hand cast rubber stamps which are then used to create populations directly on the wall. The same interest in possibility fuels Worob’s four-color dot work, which relies on stamp rollers. “I have always liked the idea that the majority of the printed ephemera that we see on a day-to-day basis comes from the same basic elements just arranged in differing manners,” he says. “Much like the figural work, this imagery is unplanned.” Sukha’s unique perspective perfect complements our Bozeman hotel rooms.
