By Ellie Boeschenstein EBS CONTRIBUTOR
Artist and muralist Casey Lutz has created a new feel on the side of the Wildlands building wall in Bozeman’s Northeast Neighborhood. The piece is a representation of the rugged spirit of the American West and his work as a whole is thoughtful, yet can also be abstract at times, and shows precision and detail as well as raw expression.
Lutz’s artistic journey began at a young age when he got into graffiti art. Doing spray paint tags soon evolved into Lutz’s dad letting him paint his childhood bedroom, when he was 16, which would count as his first-ever mural.
“I painted a Bob Marley mural in my bedroom that my dad still has up today,” Lutz said. “So that’s always really funny to go home and be like, oh, that’s where it all started.”
For a while, Lutz continued his art as a side gig. He studied graphic design at Montana State University but it wasn’t until after graduating and a year working for K2 Sports and Red Bull in Seattle, that he decided to return to Montana and dive into his art career full time.
“There was another mural artist that I just loved his style and his work,” Lutz noted. “I was like, man, his stuff is very similar to what I like to draw and he’s getting paid tons of money to paint these things on buildings so I was like, why am I not doing this? So I just kind of put it out there that I wanted to paint murals.”
Lutz mentioned how ever since he put the word out that he wanted to paint murals, his work has been stacking up ever since.
“I kind of laughed. I was like, once you tell people that you’re a mural artist, you better watch out because the murals come in and you just keep getting them over and over and over,” Lutz said.
When it came to the mural on the side of the Wildlands building, which he has titled “Ode to Bozeman,” the opportunity came to Lutz at a perfect time. Lutz had an art opening at the gallery next door to Wildlands when his friend came in and mentioned that Outlaw Real Estate Partners, Wildlands developer and owner, was looking for an artist to paint a mural on the building’s blank exterior wall. Lutz met up with Mike Magrans, OREP’s CIO and the main collaborator on this mural. Together they looked at a black, red and cream colored painting featuring a cowboy and a mountain-scape and decided they wanted the mural to fit a similar style but to also tie into the north side and the history of Bozeman. Lutz and Magrans worked out what they wanted to be represented and how to best represent their ideas in the mural. Once they had an idea of what they wanted, Lutz got to work.
“I went and did a bunch of research on old Bozeman. I went to the library and sat and just kind of fed my brain with some more stories of the north side,” Lutz explained. “I found out there used to be this old brewery that exploded and that the north side was actually a bunch of brothels and artists, and kind of this almost grungy part of Bozeman at first and then just learned more about the evolution of the north side throughout the years.”
Lutz has mentioned his favorite part of Bozeman is the Northeast Neighborhood, and he has enjoyed watching it evolve over the years.
“Everything was character,” Lutz said of the neighborhood.“ There was so much artwork all over the houses and through people’s yards with different fences that were made of skis and different homes where artists had created their version of what Montana meant to them.”
Lutz said that despite the area’s growth, he has decided to accept the changes, as opposed to complaining about them, and find interest in the development.
When discussing the more technical process behind creating the mural, Lutz gave insight to some of the challenges that come with painting on such a vast space, outdoors and on complex surfaces. Brick is a challenging canvas for paint, and needs to be a certain temperature for adhesion, above 40F, to be exact. Lutz explained how Montana’s quickly changing seasons became a major challenge; oftentimes Lutz would sit and wait with a temperature gun scanning and waiting until the brick became a temperature he could paint on.
Lutz wants the mural to have impact—both on the community and anybody who comes to the Wildlands building.
“It was really cool of Outlaw to do … to actually reflect the neighborhood and that, to me, is so important,” Lutz said. “They didn’t just say, ‘Hey, put a piece of art here,’ instead they said, ‘Do something that matters.’”
Lutz has a few upcoming projects in Bozeman and beyond, some in warmer climates so he can still work in the winter, including a project in Puerto Rico. If you’re in the area, you can see his completed piece at Wildlands, and a slice of Bozeman history to go with.
