The largest single piece mural in the National Parks

Terry Baldino, Chief of Interpretation at Death Valley National Park and David Blacker director of the Death Valley Natural History Association and Tom Gamache of Wandering Around Outdoors announce the installation of one of the largest single piece murals in the national park system.

Commissioned by David Blacker, the mural was recently installed as the featured interpretive display in the park’s Furnace Creek Visitor Center. The seemingly “as large as life” panoramic mural  (23 feet wide by 5 feet high) of the park’s world famous Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes suits the outsized scale of the park. For most park visitors, the mural is the first visual experience when entering the visitor center. The impression can be overpowering and lasting. “Where is that and how can I get there?” is the question most often heard by the rangers who attend the information desk directly beneath the mural. 

In the tradition of historic panoramic landscape art, the mural is a state of the art, single piece, seamless panorama made up of a composite of 6 individual medium format photographs encompassing the entire dune field in the foreground with the lower elevations of the Cottonwood Mountains in the background.  

The story of the creation of the mural goes back thirty or more years. Beginning with his first visit to the park in the late 60’s, Tom has been fascinated and intrigued by the difficulties inherent in interpreting and capturing landscape images as large as those in Death Valley. By the third week of February 2005, inspired by the possibility of making unique images of the parks flowers thanks to the record rainfall that year, Tom made a number of contacts with park officials about the probability of capturing the dunes from a heretofore-untried angle that he had researched. They were enthusiastic.

After numerous visits to the park, Tom finally resolved the light and texture of the dunes he had envisioned. He produced a 36inch X 6 inch mock up of the proposed mural. Approval came quickly and the process began.  Long time friend and Wandering Around Outdoors Photography Workshop co-instructor Van Webster of Webster Communications was enlisted to engineer and design the presentation and mounting system. Master scanner Curt Grosjean of The Darkoom Digital Lab was enticed to do the scanning and stitching.  Brian Shore of Totalgraphics of Agoura Hills, California was contracted to do image prep, printing and laminating. 

The mural had to be archival. It had to last many years longer than regular displayed art might have. Because the mural was to be installed at counter height in a high traffic work area where liquids and other damaging materials would be ever present the entire installation, including the mural itself, had to be rust and rot resistant and, most difficult, the image itself had to be UV and liquid protected with an over-laminate.

The uniqueness of the project exacted a longer learning curve than had been anticipated. The installation date was twice pushed forward. Finally when all the conditions were right the mural was printed and laminated during a 10 hour period spanning two days. 

The installation of a “vinyl wood” sub frame took more than six hours. The hanging and installation of the murals superstructure and the mural art itself took more than six hours. 

Terry Baldino Chief of Interpretation at the park said,  “I have been working with both Tom Gamache and Van Webster since 1994 at Great Basin NP. Once again … they have done exceptional work not only photographically but the installation of the mural is first rate. They outdid themselves again.

Thanks to David Blacker and the Death Valley Natural History Association we have a state of the art mural. Staff is still commenting about it, and they've been working with it for many months now. 

It has quickly become a major attraction at the Visitor Center.

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