HELENA — If you find yourself walking on Rodney Street in Helena, you may find photos imprinted on the doors of businesses such as the Grateful Bread and B & B market. Through the photos of people living on Rodney Street, their stories can be shared for years to come.
“Rodney Street is…” is a Myrna Loy Creative Placemaking Project, in collaboration with the City of Helena. It’s a 12-month artist-led exploration of the unique creative and historic identity of the Rodney Street neighborhood that was funded by a $100,00 grant.
Through the photos of people living on Rodney Street, their stories can be shared for years to come.
"So, we landed a grant from the national endowment for the arts to do this creative place-making project," The executive director for the Myrna Loy, Krys Holmes said.
"[’Rodney Street is…’ project] is not only a place to come and experience arts, but we are also a creative force in the community."
A few resident artists are involved in making this happen, including Jeanie Warden, who is taking the pictures and does the videography for the project.
"I ask anybody if I can take a photo of them, and I am calling it the faces of Rodney, and I thought well instead of just framing them and putting them up, I could put them on doors, and then it would be more interesting and different," she said. "And, then the second part is I am doing video interviews also and trying to tell the story about Rodney, where it began, where it's at, and where it is going."
The interviews are collections of the people who live and work in historic buildings or homes. They’ll be used for so the people of Helena can learn the historical significance of where they work or live.
"Do the story gathering, taking the historic parts of the story, to the person living in the home or doing business in the home to the residence being able just to walk by and actually know their history of their street and for all the people of Helena to know the history of their street," said Warden.
