Constant LIfe

Spanning nearly the entire length of the Mid-Columbia Medical Center surgical hallway, this fabric mural provides color to a stark environment while offering viewers an engaging & soothing diversion.

When a patient is rolled down this hallway on a gurney to the surgical center, they are immersed in a landscape very familiar to them & they relax as their mind is taken off their impending operation. A burst of rainbow color is the last thing the patient sees before going through the surgery doors. Art can be a powerful, healing force & this mural, I am told, has lifted the spirits of many who see it.

The images were chosen to elicit memories & pique one’s curiosity. Balsam, lupines, oaks, the Columbia River gorge, cherry orchards & fields of wheat lead up to a stylized “basket” of historic & contemporary photographs of the hospital & the area. A few of the images include a local Native American basket weaver, salmon fishing before Celilo Falls was flooded by the dam, a wind surfer, harvesting wheat with horses, The Dalles flood of 1894, a steamboat & local merchants. The petroglyph of Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) floats in the sky as a reminder & guardian.