These are some of the other new paintings for the Mount St Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake, Washington. Commissioned by Washington State Parks, they are part of the interior exhibit plan and it’s complicated enough that I’ll just let the art speak for itself. There’s more than this, and the last post I published, but you’ll get the idea.

I wanted to explain the newspaper at the top. When I started painting these a few months ago, I opened one of my file cabinets to find maybe a map of the park, and this thing jumped out at me. It’s been sitting here now for 43 years, as I bought it for $2 right after the eruption – and I imagined it saying “me, me, I’m finally here to help”. And it did, as several of these paintings are direct results of the photos in this yellowing magazine. Serendipity, I think the word is.

This painting deserves a bit of explanation. Left side, immediately after the blast, right side might be today, 43 years after the blast. The elk returned immediately, and in their footsteps in the ash, water gathered and supported many critters as they expanded back into the ash zone.

And below is the mountain today (or, two summers ago when we hiked there). It’s recovering nicely and it’s always fun to see how nature finds a way to cover every inch of ground, even after it’s been blown to smithereens.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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