Back in the Mix: Barrett family excited to build another downtown anchor

Laura Barrett can’t stay away from downtown Bigfork.

Barrett, who with her husband, Jack, opened Bridge Street Gallery and Wine Cafe in 1984, is busy this week preparing Collage Gallery for a new show of found-artifacts art. The Barretts sold Bridge Street Gallery in 2000 and that property became La Provence restaurant (now Mosaic). Last year the Barretts bought the Sacred Dancing Gallery and this year are moving ahead with their  goal of making the downtown Bigfork gallery a mainstay. Collage is in the former Kootenai Gallery building created by George and Elna Darrow at the corner of Grand and Electric avenues.

Laura Barrett still has the enthusiasm that has helped her build businesses. She and Jack operate a gallery in Puerto Vallarta. The new Collage, she said, will bring a newfound sense of freshness to the art scene in the Flathead Valley. They display and sell antiques, contemporary art, collage and are working on vintage book collections. “It is a collage,” Barrett said. “I have lots of ideas but we’re just getting started.”

The Barretts bought the gallery space and opened Collage last summer.

“I like the more avant-garde, experimental works, even performance as art,” Barrett said. “I regard a gallery as an educational process, and providing entertainment.”

Stroll through Collage and you’ll find antiques such as a Civil War pistol, a Chippendale desk, shipwreck bottles from 1700, and Andrew Wyeth prints. There’s a Rudy Autio pottery piece priced at $36,000. The collage art display opening this week is from Jason Merganthaler, a Helena artist who combines antique items into works of art for “Metal and Wood Reassemblage.” His birds on display are made of rusted wrenches, pliers, hinges, shears and horseshoes. A colorful, bullet-riddled piece of tin forms the basis for another work. The show opens Friday with a reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Laura Barrett no longer wishes to work the kind of hours she did when they opened Bridge Street Gallery in early 1980s.

“I got really tired of hitting the deck at 6 a.m. and going until after midnight,” she said. She’s ready to pour her energy into Collage and help make it a downtown anchor, as a gallery and a community center. “We want to be back and be a part of Bigfork,” she said. “We’re hoping to make this good for the town.”