Vail Artist Unveils Heart-Shaped Time Capsule for GoPro Mountain Games

“Maybe I’ll come back some day decades from now, see those characters inside this piece and remember this time in my life.”

Natalie Morton, 17, didn’t just drop a token into a box. She dropped a piece of her current identity into a 4-foot-tall, heart-shaped time capsule sculpture. It’s called “Heart of the Games,” and it’s the 60th birthday present artist Pat Milbery is giving the town of Vail.

On paper, it’s a public art project. In practice, it’s a participatory event where locals and tourists alike spend 15 minutes designing wooden tokens, then surrendering them to a larger whole. Milbery, the GoPro Mountain Games resident artist, argues that this is what public art should be. Not just a mural on a wall that you walk past, but a process where the community feels the “flow state” alongside the creator.

“The process is where the flow state is found,” Milbery said. “Artists are always chasing that feeling — once their pieces are created, they go back to engaging in another artistic process that will get them back to the flow state again. In a work of public art, to not involve the public in the process, it doesn’t give them the opportunity to enjoy what should be the most enjoyable part.”

The setup is simple. Milbery has a booth in the CoLab area in front of Solaris. He’s got 48 colors of acrylic marker pens and a stack of wooden tokens. Visitors pick a token, draw on it, and drop it into the sculpture. The act of dropping it in — hearing it clap against the others, is the point. It’s about that “collaborative energy.”

For Morton, who designs monster characters, the token was a way to freeze a moment. She spent about 15 minutes on hers before giving it away. “It’s a beautiful thing, to spend time creating something and then immediately give it away,” she said.

Let’s look at the scale. This isn’t a $2 million steel monolith that dominates the skyline and requires a dedicated maintenance crew. It’s a 4-foot sculpture. It’s made of wood and tokens. It’s located in a high-traffic event zone. The cost to the public? The article doesn’t list a specific dollar figure for the materials or installation, but it notes that “public funds are used to pay for the piece.” The funding source is clear. The artist is identified. The mechanism is known.

What remains unknown is how many tokens fit in the heart. Is it a tight squeeze? Will it overflow by Sunday night? Milbery didn’t say. He just wants you to feel the contribution.

The project is currently active. If you’re in Vail this weekend, you can walk up to the CoLab, grab a marker, and add your voice to the collective. It’s low stakes. It’s highly visible. And it’s designed to be enjoyed by anyone who walks by Solaris, long after the GoPro Mountain Games crowds have dispersed.

It’s a reminder that public art doesn’t always need to be permanent to be valuable. Sometimes, it just needs to be present. And for the people of Vail, that presence is currently taking the form of wooden hearts and monster drawings, stacked up in a single, large heart.