With the coming of spring, many farm-related preparations are already underway at the Phoenix, ensuring we can direct our volunteer’s springtime energy to the creation of recycled window hotbeds, establishing a home for our seedlings to thrive. Beyond these first steps, there is much work to be done to create a thriving community farm, including those public programs that will engage our community to help bring this space to life.

HELP US FUND THESE 2017 ACTIVATION EVENTS!

Operation Phoenix Rising aims to activate the warehouse through participatory workshops and events throughout the coming months. Our current schedule is as follows:

Currently underway: We are collecting responses from a Preliminary Community Survey in the IBRC’s gallery space, as well as online. The survey is designed to give us the data necessary to plan the buildout of the Phoenix Fabrication Studios facilities with elements that are needed and desired by Butte residents.

May 3 - Wednesday Work-Outs Begin. Volunteers will help to help clean and clear what dust and debris remains in and on the roof of the 12,000 square foot warehouse. This will finally give us a blank slate of a building with which to begin offering tours, receiving tool donations and planning our build-out.

May 5 - In a partnership with Butte High School, the IBRC’s gallery space will host the annual student art show, inviting local students to participate as Operation Phoenix Rising’s youth leadership team. Community outreach through our survey process will continue at the IBRC.

May 20 - Butte's Farmer's Market begins its 2017 season on West Park Street, just outside the front door of the Phoenix Building. We will use this dynamic mixed market of food and art vendors as an opportunity to reach out to a segment of the population which is already invested in accessing high-quality food sources. Public tours will be given to anyone interested in our various projects, including our straw bale farming operation. Community members will be offered the opportunity to sign-up for educational programs and our regular Wednesday and Saturday volunteer events. The Farmers’ Market runs every Saturday from 8 am to 1 pm through October 7. We will have a booth each week as a public show of our progress.

May 21 - We will host a free, multi-week workshop for children which will focus on lessons in soil science, vermicomposting, cold-climate food production, encouraging students to start their own low-cost, small scale food garden at home. Workshop students will also have access to their own straw bale garden plot on our rooftop farm. This workshop will run every weekend through the end of June.  We will partner with experts from the Butte Gardening Club, the Small-Scale Intentive Farm Training Program (SIFT), the Montana State University County Extension office, and Butte-Silver Bow County, as well as local public gardening experts, inviting the community to come in and share their knowledge with our volunteers and workshop participants.

June 2 - Public gallery opening of the ‘Formulation:Articulation’ collection, an exhibition of prints by internationally known artist and color theorist, Josef Albers - sponsored by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. This event will kick off two months of public events and investigations into light and color, both in our space and in Butte as a whole. The show will run through the end of July.

June 4 - Operation Phoenix Rising Planning Potluck. After reviewing the results from our Preliminary Community Survey, we will begin developing our detailed business plan for the Phoenix Fabrication Studios, including a full list of any needed equipment or specific upgrades to the warehouse. If any architectural upgrades are necessary, the next steps forward on that will be taken at this time. A website and other social media outlets will be up and running by this point. Information and marketing materials will begin appearing in the warehouse windows as an introduction or quick progress report for anyone walking past.

July 7-9 - As part of Butte’s annual Montana Folk Festival, the IBRC will partner with the Science Mine (a local museum that features hands-on activities for children), to create a series of art and science activities for the festival’s Family Area.

July 12-14 - We will host a multi-day workshop series in which participants will learn the basics of photography through a series of scavenger hunts within Butte’s built, natural and industrial environments. Images collected from the workshop will be used to make digital color selections which will inform the color palette used within two collaborative public art projects. In conjunction with the workshop, the IBRC will launch a social media campaign to solicit a broader range of local color samples.

July 15 - Butte Light & Color Festival: a city-wide festival organized by artists and educators at the IBRC, Science Mine, and World Museum of Mining in partnership with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The festival will coincide with the Josef Albers exhibition in our gallery through the month of July and will include a day of interactive workshops and events for Butte-area children. The event will conclude with the installation of the public art works created through our collaborative local color collection.   

Late July: Building on the momentum of our collaborative public art projects, we will assemble  an advisory team to lead our community’s next investments in green space and public art, bridging the gap between public art and permaculture, both which can effectively activate and engage the community on location. The team will also oversee proper documentation and interpretation of lessons learned within our pilot season to develop a campaign that encourages a greater proliferation of public art within the Uptown Butte historic district.

August 4 - During the first friday Artwalk, we will begin offering public tours of the rooftop farm and the progress within the warehouse space below. The event will activate the building with music, food and printmaking demonstrations. During the first weeks of August, we will welcome new artists-in-residence to begin their work in Butte.

September 1 - First Friday Artwalk will include a public fire-based event in the evening, with the firing of hand-built clay forms around a central fire pit or raku kiln as well as metal working demonstrations in a small forge. Metalwork and Ceramic Art will be a major feature of the Fabrication Studios. Inviting the public to take part in this event will help solidify the concept of what skills and tools can be accessed inside the warehouse.

October 6 -- Final First Friday Artwalk of 2017 and the close of the growing season. We will host a community potluck that will feature the Apple Squeeze, our newly built cider press. The event will celebrate and evaluate our first growing season on the farm and will engage the community to plan for the 2018 growing season as the action and focus shifts indoors to the Fabrication Studio build-out during the coming winter months.

View more details about these Summer 2017 workshops here.