In Focus: The Edge Brings Art & Theater To Bigfork Community

“It’s just a great space to create and people come in here and they feel creative. They want to, they want to make art,” says Patricia Feld, the Artistic Director for the Edge Center.

With a 288 seat theater and a gallery open to artist from all over the state, The Edge Center has made Bigfork, a small town of 400 people, a must visit for all creatives.

“It’s great because I retired up here and found this place and was thrilled to find it and all of the people who work here are volunteers. We only have one part-time paid staff member,” says Karen Ferlaak, a member of the Edge Center gallery committee and the director of the current show at the Edge Center.

Every month, there is a new featured exhibit, not to mention theater productions put on by Bigfork community members. With things changing every month, attendees are bound to find something new each and every visit.

This month’s featured artist, Adam Swanson, says about his work, “I draw inspiration from the environment. You know, I’m an environmentalist, I guess if I were to say it. I kind of paint about the human relationship with the natural world and alternative energy sources and our relationship with animals and humans that are animals, that sort of thing, so that’s the kind of thing that gets me excited.”

The Edge Center is connected right to the school in Bigfork, so you can imagine that there are a lot of student productions that go on in the venue. But over the years, the Edge Center has grown into something more than just a place for schools. It’s become a place where everyone in the community can come to break out of their shell.

“Before we built The Edge Center, we were pretty sure that it would be used by the school and by the local community theater group,” says Feld, “And we had no idea how much this theater is used.”

Staying on the cutting edge of the new and the now has been the center’s goal ever since it was built in 2005. The many volunteers who put their time and heart into The Edge hope to keep it that way in the future while also inspiring more creativity in the Bigfork community.

“I really do believe it has stimulated arts. People think, ‘Wow! There’s a place here that honors painting and I kind of like painting. Maybe I’ll take it up again,’ and then they turn out to have fulfilled and enriched their lives because the place is here,” says Feld.

You can find a list of show dates and theater shows on The Edge Center’s website here.