The Story

Year Completed: 2020

Dimensions: 14’ x 24’

Mediums: Acrylic paint on drywall

Commissioning Agency: Friends of the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Collaborators: Friends of the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and Refuge staff

The Watershed Mural was painted during the first winter of the Pandemic and was one of the silver linings of the pandemic for me. During this time I painted 2 murals

Today, when I enter the Refuge’s Education Center, our history is marked in a very visible way. There is a painting on one wall that I painted during the internship I held there while in college in 2002. A forest mural, which I painted in 2013, graces another wall. Now there are 2 more murals gracing the education center’s walls—a Watershed Mural that captures the entire scope of the watershed, including the forests, the estuary, the river, and Mount Tahoma (Rainier) all in one image—and a Wetlands Mural which showcases permanent and temporary wetlands of the refuge.

Painting these murals was truly a homecoming, as my story and the Refuge are intertwined. The murals themselves were designed as teaching tools—allowing staff to visually show elements of the Refuge to school groups before heading out on the trail. I love that the art I make continues to live on, educating and inspiring others, even when I am not present.

Included in the gallery below are 2 images of the Wetland Mural, painted during the same timeframe as the Watershed Mural.