John Knapp's Gallery Union Bulletin Article

Painting the past
By ANNIE CHARNLEY EVELAND Of the Union-Bulletin
Walla Walla Union Bulletin Sunday November 3, 2002

Artist John Knapp’s portraitures of Dry Falls are depicted in two pastel renditions, mounted in a frame and hanging in the new Whitman College Science building’s atrium. Above, is the artist’s conception of how the falls would look under a massive flooding assault 12,000 to 16,000 years ago; and below, in its present appearance.

Local artist
renders a
recreation of
ancient flood

John Knapp likes to use pastels, especially strong shades of orange, cerulean, umbers and ultra-marines.

The painterly result – two vastly different “then” and ”now” perspectives of the same site – is both a geology lesson and an aesthetic tour de force.

Knapp’s interest in drawing geological time began last year when the Walla Walla resident visited an interpretive center at Dry Falls, Washington.

An award-winning pastel artist, John Knapp works on a project recently in his Walla Walla studio

The aerial illustration he saw inspired the local businessman and artist to not only draw its present appearance, but also what the Dry Falls would look like under a massive flooding assault 12,000 to 16,000 years ago.

To make his rendition as accurate as possible, Knapp tapped Whitman College faculty for input: geology professor Robert “Bob” Carson, biology professor Paul Yancey and Yancey’s wife Susan Weiler, a biology research associate.

Knapp had no trouble replicating its current appearance, but he needed a geological perspective from which to create the ”then” picture of Dry Falls, situated between the upper and Lower Grand Coulee Dam on the northwestern part of the Columbia Plateau.

The time period Knapp captures occurred in the pas two million years, when gargantuan ice sheers capped much of the northern globe. As they advanced, the glaciers – up to two miles deep in places – stretched massive icy fingers down into southern Canada and the northern United States.

Repeatedly, when 2000-foot-thick ice dams blocking Cabinet Gorge in Idaho broke, the freed water that had backed up in Montana raged across several states. Carson noted Glacial Lake in Missoula held almost 500 cubic miles of water, comparable to one of the Great Lakes.

When the ice dams failed, the water flooded the Columbia Basalt Plateau, created Dry Falls, scoured Eastern and Central Washington, filled the Willamette Valley in Oregon and emptied finally into the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Scientists estimate up to 18 cubic miles of water disgorged every time an ice dam failure occurred. The cataclysmic flooding backed up at Wallula Gap and flooded the Yakima and Walla Walla River valleys.

About 40 times over thousands of years, the lake filled and the ice dams failed, leaving marks still visible on the landscape.

"Based on the estimated speed of 60 mph, a 400-foot drop and approximate water volume, I determined the shape of the falls,” Knapp said.

“The level of water was also an issue as the flood progressed. As the flood advanced, the water level changed (above and below the cliff), “ Knapp said.

“After that time the water rose to about 50 feet above this level, covering all of the land,” which wouldn’t be an interesting image, he said.

“Another issue was the amount of dirt, debris and ice found in the water.” It would be coffee brown with "a tangled mess of vegetation and dead animals, much of which would have been deposited either around Touchet, WA or all the way down to the Willamette,” Knapp said. ”With this number of factors, the color of the water seen in this painting is just an educated guess.”

Using reference photos taken while in the field, Knapp worked in his studio with colors on textured pastel paper. It took two weeks per image, each about 11-by-35 inches. Matted and placed in a frame the end result is about 36-by-45 inches.

The college bought the completed work, which currently hangs in the new Whitman Science Center.

Yancey described Knapp's efforts as “fantastic!” And useful. ”After all we have three geologists who are studying the (Dry Falls) area.”

He said they hanged the framed work in the science center’s atrium Thursday, where the public can view it. A bonus is a framed detailed geological information page Carson composed that hangs with the work.

If you have a chance, look closely at the “before” picture. Two mastodons can be seen lumbering at cliff’s edge on the far left top tier of the raging falls. Unaware that they’re possibly minutes away from doom.

The Art Gallery

of

John Knapp