and was commissioned by the city of Missoula.
This is a most impressive sculpture that represents the flow of the mighty river. It is a 30 foot high swooping steel arc and is 75 feet long.
Michael Golins most recent sculpture ” Go with the Flow” commissioned by the city of Missoula, MT - completed May 2013 – started May of 2012 – 22 pieces of stainless steel & mild steel pipe – designed, fabricated and installed by Golins Forge, i.e Mike –
Largest city sculpture in Montana
“You can hear the reverberations of the city transferring through the pipes,” Golins said as he finished installation of the 7.5-ton artwork along Pattee Street. “And a big wheel goes there – when it’s attached, it sends sounds through the pipes like a rain stick. You spin it here, and you hear the river there.”
Golins won the commission to provide Park Place with public artwork last year. The project invitation asked for something “linking – if not drawing – individuals from the downtown community to Missoula’s vibrant riverfront system.”
“Each piece was a shade under 3,000 pounds,” said Iron Horse Towing’s Scott Wolff, who donated the crane and flatbed truck necessary to haul the five pieces from Golins’ foundry in Potomac. “It was 16 feet wide on the truck. We just barely fit on the highway.”
The artwork uses the same structural steel found in oil derricks or football goal posts. Golins worked out the math of the design, then sent his numbers to a special metal-bending facility in Chicago.
The big vertical arch is part sky blue, part polished steel. It looks like a curling rapid in the river, set against the grass-and-sky panels of the parking garage’s exterior wall decoration. Pedestrians on the sidewalk will pass under its shadow.
But the horizontal half of the sculpture will fascinate anyone who gets close enough to explore. The hollow pipes carry the sound of voices and the rumble of street traffic through twists and curves to anyone listening on the other end.
From the Golins Forge