Idaho Museum of Natural History participates in Underpass Gallery project by painting mural

POCATELLO — Staff from the Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University spent the better part of two days painting a mural design for Pocatello’s new Underpass Gallery.

The museum hopes to have its design completed in time for the First Friday Artwalk at Old Town Pocatello on Dec. 4.

The Underpass Gallery is an initiative headed by “D’Beau” Darin Black, owner of Decadence Board Shoppe in Old Town Pocatello. The project aims to provide a legal outlet for creativity while also improving the appearance of the underpass, located on Center Street.

The Museum’s mural design.[/caption] As part of the project, artists, such as the Idaho Museum of Natural History, submitted designs for a space in the underpass walkways.

The museum submitted a sketch of a buffalo with circles of color throughout its body, along with the museum name. The museum’s design was one of several that were recently approved by the Mayor’s Governance Committee, a group charged with reviewing all applications in an effort to ensure art that is offensive or inappropriate does not become part of the gallery.

“The bison, which sits out front of the museum here, has been sort of the official-unofficial mascot of the museum for the last few years so whatever we designed, we wanted to be sure to incorporate that,” said Nicholas Clement, assistant manager of the Idaho Virtualization Laboratory at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. “The design was all done with the use of software we use at the museum on a daily basis and we wanted to use colors and bubbles in an effort to get everybody involved museum-wide with the project.”

According to Anthropology Collection Manager Amber Tews, the hope was to have each staff member at the museum complete one or more of the circles on the bison to create a collaborative project.

The Idaho Museum of Natural History’s design is a 5-foot space, located on the north wall of the south side pedestrian walkway of the underpass. The design is located on the west end of the walkway.

“It’s really cool that the museum could get involved in this kind of community project,” Clement said. “These kinds of projects don’t come around too often, so we’re glad to be involved.”