Montana Meth Project designs public-art campaign to capture attention and change lives

"Blood"-stained jeans and tennis-shoed feet dangle out of the trash bin.

Rising behind them is a stark bare-wood coffin with a spray of funereal flowers nailed to the front.

"Don't Trash Your Life," the bold sign cautions. "Meth is Death."

Positioned as it is on the west lawn of Depot Park on South Main in Kalispell, one of the Flathead's busiest thoroughfares, motorists can get a good look at the sculpture as traffic stacks up at the Center Street light.

Judging from early reports, it has been getting those looks.

This grim warning is the work of three Kalispell Junior High eighth-graders, Chloe Thornton, Kaiti Barta and Tierney Strandberg, all 13, and a Flathead High sophomore, Gillian Thornton, 14.

But, as an entry in the Montana Meth Project's "Paint the State" contest, it goes beyond the typical junior-high art project.

It is one of 30 or so public statements that the Paint the State contest elicited from Flathead County, Kalispell police Chief Frank Garner said.

Others offer eye-catching painted signs or more three-dimensional statements.

Summit Preparatory School students created one of the more unusual entries when they drew an emaciated and shackled meth addict on the side of the school nurse's cow. "Meth: Not Even Once," the bovine message reads.

All will be on display at least through this weekend.

The public-art campaign is designed as another venue to capture attention, and hopefully change some lives that could be ruined by methamphetamine use. The Montana Meth Project threw enough money behind it to get young artists' attention - each county winner gets $3,000, plus a chance to compete for the statewide $10,000 first-place prize.

Each entry in the contest carries the statewide meth campaign slogan - Meth: Not Even Once - or a similar anti-meth theme.

It's a contest requirement, but also a firmly held conviction for Barta.

Just a couple weeks ago, Barta said, she learned that an out-of-state cousin was hospitalized after meth-initiated circumstances ended with him being attacked by a man wielding a hammer. Brain damage makes it unclear whether the 18-year-old man will live, Barta said.

"I'd just like to send the message, don't do drugs," she said, "because I know what they can do to screw up your life."

She, Thornton and Strandberg all said they have seen - even among their own classmates who just finished their

seventh-grade years in school - alcohol, partying and drugs become a growing attraction for many.

"Because Kalispell isn't that big, I don't think people know it's a problem," Strandberg said. "But obviously it is. They don't expect it here. Sooner or later you're going to confront it, so it's easier to know what happens.

"Nothing good can happen if you do meth," she said.

Neither is anything good among the components of meth, said Barta.

"Why don't you just drink a bottle of bleach?" Barta asked, adding that one person's meth addiction can "screw up the whole family."

Thornton's empathy was sharpened by her work on their entry.

"People are just hurting themselves," Thornton said. "They deserve better lives. I think it's just horrible that people do that to themselves. You try it once, you're addicted for life. Then it's just a living death."

The girls learned about the Paint the State contest from a brochure distributed this spring in their junior-high English classes. Barta and Thornton, talking "on a random night … said 'let's do it," the girls recalled.

Chloe's sister, Gillian, started helping and then Strandberg got in on it, as well.

As they prepped to enter the contest, the three girls checked online for rules and deadline information. Intending to hit the contest Web site - www.paintthestate.com - they mistakenly went to the Montana Meth Project's home site.

Just one visit to www.notevenonce.com was enough to sicken the three girls.

Indeed, regardless of age or experience, many Montanans likely would be revolted by the images and straight talk on the Web site.

After that sobering detour, Thornton, Strandberg and Barta were more convinced than ever that they needed to get out the word that meth is nothing to mess with.

But the girls opted to take a bit lighter tone with their entry - using the rhyme, "Meth is Death," and the word play between the trash can and the message on their sign, "Don't Trash Your Life."

Rather than making light of their subject, they went for the psychology of making the entry interesting enough to attract interest but not repulse the viewers.

And they decided to see whether they could involve the community by asking businesses and civic groups whether they could donate toward the cause.

"It was cool to see how many people gave," Thornton.

That list includes Kalispell City Parks and Recreation, which donated the space for the display, Evergreen Disposal for the trash bin, Jim Palmer Signs for more than $150 worth of weather-proof signs, and Chief Garner and the Kalispell Police Association, as well as Evergreen Lions Club for pledging to reimburse expenses of as much as $100 for any entry that applies for the cash.

The girls were grateful that they will receive the reimbursement, but conscientiously limited their costs to about $20 -"we didn't want to take advantage of them," Thornton said.

All the design, organization, public contacts and physical work for the entry were carried out solely by the girls - with parents providing only a place to work and vehicles to haul materials.

They said they had a lot of fun hanging out together and creating their art, but Thornton articulated their more serious goal: "It could save a life."

To apply for the Evergreen Lions and Kalispell Police Association reimbursement offer, of as much as $100 for documented expenses, contact Chief Frank Garner at kpd@kalispell.com or call him at the police station at 758-7780.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.