Wendy Chapman did not expect her costume to be named Best of Show Friday night at the Prichard Art Gallery’s 25th anniversary celebration. But one judge said the detail in her hat and dress exemplified the inspiration for the evening’s theme the original Moscow Mardi Gras.
Moscow Mardi Gras began in the late ‘80s because the shop owners in downtown wanted to increase business during February, said Charlotte Buchanan, co-founder of Moscow Mardi Gras. She said it started small with a dance in the building that is now Champions University Grill & Bar, and from there it grew.
It was then that David Giese, an art teacher at the University of Idaho, recognized what Buchanan and other shop owners were doing as an opportunity to get involved, Buchanan said. Giese brought with him the idea of designing elaborate milk carton paper floats and establishing the tie to the university by having first-year art and architecture students create the floats that became a large part of the celebration.
“The woman (Chapman) that did the Best of Show, I mean, I don’t think people realized the detail, even the top of her hat it was plated with detail, and see that was the spirit of the floats,” Giese said. “Many of those floats were that detailed or even more detailed … it was a moment in time.”
For the 11 years that Giese and Buchanan ran the Moscow Mardi Gras, students were assigned groups for the milk carton paper floats and collaborated ideas to make one cohesive design that they would then walk through downtown during the parade, Giese said.
“Some of them were truly, truly phenomenal. They were unbelievable,” Giese said. “It got to the point where 30,000 people were on Main Street in downtown.”
The popularity of the event — which started with one dance location to several, in addition to the parade — and the money generated is what made the tie to the Prichard and UI even stronger. Giese said the Chamber of Commerce estimated that it was the largest financial weekend for Moscow amounting to about $4 million — out doing both Homecoming and the day after Thanksgiving.
“After we paid all of our expenses, we would give approximately $10,000 to the Prichard for programming for the next year, and at the time that this was going on, we were in the top 10 gifters to the university because at that time people did not give to a public university. They figured it should be funded by the state,” Giese said.
The traditions of the early Moscow Mardi Gras ended after Giese went on sabbatical and Buchanan moved to Seattle, along with OSHA regulations that require floats to be 95 percent non-flammable. But the impact the event made on the development of the Prichard is why it was chosen for the theme of its 25th anniversary, said Roger Rowley, director of the Prichard.
“So going back to the Mardi Gras parades and what that meant artistically to the town as well as the importance it played for the gallery seemed like the crucial thing looking back at the start of our linage,” Rowley said.
Since floats weren’t an option, Rowley said he cooperated with the advance sculpture class to have students create costumes that follow the theme of the floats.
“It was fantastic. I mean, the way the students came through and took it on and made it their own and just went wild away with it was just really great…” Rowley said. “And so you know, their ideas and just the reaction we had from the crowd and everything was just fantastic.”
Chapman said students in the advance sculpture class were approached about the project within the first couple days of class and have been working on them since, putting in about 100 hours total. Chapman’s design originated with several components, including the traditional milk carton material, nature and the Mad Hatter, along with some influence from sculptor Nick Cave.
“I came up with the Mad Hatter thing and then with the roses, and then the dress just fell into place because of the hat. My hat was my first inspiration,” Chapman said.
But hers was not the one she thought would take the Best in Show prize.
“Totally surprised. Didn’t expect that at all. I was expecting my friend Mig (Mignon Whitt) to win it all,” Chapman said.
Whitt’s costume, The Gallery Spirit, won the Best Traditional award.
“Well, I wanted to stay in the tradition with the Prichard gallery so I wanted to make sure that it was Mardi Gras theme and make sure it was white milk carton paper because that is what they had used before,” Whitt said.
Like Chapman, Whitt said she and their peers spent many hours, including Saturdays and Sundays working on the projects. She said the class got excited, started to bond and feed off each other as they started to work with the paper.
“Then we got a piece of the paper — of the milk carton paper — and we started playing with it,” Whitt said. “We started cutting it, we started stripping it, we started ripping it apart, we soaked it in water, we braided it, we made every single possible curl that we could do … we laced it, we did everything we could, we cut into it, we made it pop up like a pop-up card, we did everything that we could, and then we started putting our costumes together and … it spiraled.”
She said her inspiration, like Chapman’s, came from a character.
“Actually, Dr. Seuss’s ‘Cat in the Hat’ believe it or not,” Whitt said. “I had developed this kind of a sculpture, not really a person — not a costume — but an actual sculpture that was pieced together. And I really love texture so I wanted to do a lot of texture, a lot of form so that when the light hit it there would be a lot of shadows.”
Whitt and Chapman said they were excited to see the crowd’s reaction to their costumes and for the whole celebration.
“You know, I want to see the crowd’s reaction to how we are and how we dance to the music and how we perform for them,” Whitt said. “And to see the little kids’ faces and see the people that were here before in the Prichard gallery and how they watched it to evolve to watch them see how this new generation is taking control and moving forward with this, with what they started.”