Petaluma woman paints 59 national parks

Editor’s note: Since this story was published, Mary Fassbinder has become aware that a new National Park was created earlier this year. Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, became the 60th national park in February. Fassbinder plans to visit and paint the park in June.

A crowd of people gathered around Mary Fassbinder’s easel, perched on the side of a misty trail with breathtaking views of Upper and Lower Yosemite Fall. The Petaluma artist dabbed a couple of drops of colorful oil paint at the bottom of her tall, narrow canvas, representing tiny tourists gazing up at the immense falls in full spring cascade.

With those last brush strokes, Fassbinder’s four-year odyssey was complete, and a new one was about to begin. In late April, Fassbinder finished her goal of painting all 59 national parks with the iconic Yosemite Falls as her final plein air masterstroke.

“I felt very proud of myself that I actually did it and finished it,” said Fassbinder, who turned 59 just before visiting her 59th national park. “At the same moment, I said ‘Now it’s just beginning.’”

Her artistic journey complete, Fassbinder is now focused on writing a series of children’s books on the project, and curating her paintings for displays in airports and national parks around the country. The book series, “is a great catalyst to get children interested in our parks. They’re the future of our parks,” said Fassbinder, who owns Fassbinder Gallery on Western Avenue.

Fassbinder, who taught herself to paint more than two decades ago, bought a 1984 Westfalia van and set out on her journey in 2014. The first stop was Isle Royale National Park, a remote island cluster in Michigan bordered by the brilliant blue waters of Lake Superior, where she painted a scene of a placid mash by a wood.

Her journey has taken her to the deserts of the Southwest, the rugged Maine coastline, even to Hawaii and American Samoa. It has not been without peril, though.

Once, in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in the Colorado Rockies, Fassbinder was hustling along an icy trail along a steep, precipitous gorge, laser focused on catching the morning light illuminating the scene. Without thinking of her safety, she pushed on past a railing until she nearly slipped and fell to the rushing river hundreds of feet below.

“I froze in my tracks and stood there with tears in my eyes,” Fassbinder said. “I thought I could die right there. When the scene calls, you kind of lose yourself. You lose your sense of safety. I don’t see anything else but the scene.”

Near the end of her goal, with most of the national parks on canvas, Fassbinder hit a snag. Eight park are in Alaska, but Fassbinder, who has financed the mission through selling her paintings of pastoral Northern California landscapes, didn’t have the money for such a trip.

A patron of her gallery encouraged her to keep following her dream, and so she sold the Westfalia and set off for the northern-most state, where she painted Mt. Denali, icy glaciers and other Alaskan scenes.

Fassbinder is excited for the next chapter. She is working with documentarian Vince Beeton on a film about her painting, a with a publisher on the book series. She is also teaching all levels of painters at her gallery in west Petaluma.

“There is so much more to be done here,” she said.

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)