What began as a rough-and-ready study model crafted from cut-up pieces of a furniture catalog has transformed into an evocative public artwork in Jackson, which is now getting a second life in Montana. Town Enclosure by CLB Architects is an open-air, circular array of 22, 14-foot-tall cross-laminated timber panels that spent three years installed on the Center for the Arts’ front lawn. Now, the artwork has been relocated to Bozeman, where it will begin a new chapter in its unexpectedly dynamic life of community engagement.
Town Enclosure was originally commissioned in 2018 by Jackson Hole Public Art with support from the Center for the Arts. “We raised funds, announced a blind call for proposals, and worked with a selection panel to identify the best proposal for the site,” recalls Carrie Geraci, Director of JH Public Art. The goal was to activate the under-utilized public green space fronting The Center. CLB’s proposal struck a chord with the jury for its duality as both a free-standing sculpture and a public gathering place.
“We wanted to create a locator in this sea of grass,” says Eric Logan, Principal at CLB Architects, who led the project team. “It was partly about creating a boundary, but also about playing with the planar quality of the installation. As you move around it, things appear and disappear. It has an ethereal quality.”
Softly weaving together views of landscape and architecture as one moves through and around it, Town Enclosure embodied JH Public Art’s goal of activating the space to bring people together. “This was a community-built artwork,” says Geraci. “Many donated their time, expertise, and services.” Logan agrees: “Despite our best efforts, we were never able to get the idea to fit the budget,” he says. “But there was enough interest in the project that we were able to pull together a band of contractors, engineers, landscapers, excavators, steel fabricators, and more who donated time and materials to make Town Enclosure a reality.”
Over the course of three years, the planar pavilion was the site of a host of planned and improvised arts and cultural activities. “It was used for life drawing classes, drama rehearsals, music performances, dance workshops, flower arranging classes, and more,” recalls Geraci. For Logan, the success of Town Enclosure was less in the physical form it took, but in the human interaction, it fostered. “It became this armature for exploration in performance,” he says. “It had this changing character about it that really activated the park.”
Now, the installation is getting a second life in Story Mill Community Park, a recently opened 60-acre park in Bozeman, Montana, where CLB has a second office. “My hope is that the pavilion will be discovered and experienced by as many people in Bozeman as it was here,” says Logan. “I’m optimistic that local arts groups will use it as a performance venue so it can have the same kind of rich life that it had here in Jackson.”
Ultimately, Town Enclosure continues CLB’s long history of contributing to public art projects in Jackson and beyond. “It helped cement my faith in contributing to our community, which is one of the core values of our firm,” says Logan. For JH Public Art’s Carrie Geraci, the benefit of the project continues to live on: “Public art is free and accessible to all. It contributes beauty and inspiration — a spark that generates more creativity.”
