First Friday attendees gathered at Sightline Gallery on North 19th last week for “Vanishing Vistas,” a series of watercolors by Mara Hensley documenting mountain sightlines that no longer exist from downtown sidewalks. Each painting is labeled with the address, date, and the specific condo project that interrupted the view.

Hensley, who has painted the Bridgers from her cottage on West Babcock for thirty-two years, began the project after the fourth-floor addition across the street blocked her morning light. “I started carrying paper on my walks,” she said. “People would ask what I was painting. I’d say the mountains. They’d look up and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could see them from here.’”

The gallery occupies the ground floor of a building that replaced a single-family rental in 2022. Owner Jules Travers, who moved from Missoula in 2019, said the exhibit has drawn an unusual cross-section of Bozeman. “We had a contractor from the Ridgeview project standing next to a woman who got priced out of her apartment on Tracy,” Travers said. “They both bought prints. Of different views.”

Kyle Dornan, a physical therapist who relocated from Denver in 2021, purchased the piece labeled “North 19th and Peach, October 2019 — before The Apex.” He said the painting hangs in his condo at The Apex. “It’s grounding,” Dornan said. “To remember what was here. The mountains are still there. You just have to go higher to see them.”

Hensley’s work incorporates pigments mixed from soil collected at each construction site, a practice she describes as “holding the transition.” The gallery provides kombucha and smudge sticks at the entrance. A sign near the guest book reads: “Witnessing change is also a form of stewardship.”

The exhibit runs through September. The mountains remain visible from the foothills.