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It’s a Wrap-Windy City Arts Sponsors Art on a Third Gondola Car
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Tuesday, June 19, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Big Wood River is about to rise.

About 1,900 feet, to be specific.

Windy City Arts just finished wrapping a third car on Sun Valley’s gondola. And this one features jaunty depictions of the Big Wood River as it flows through the Wood River Valley.

The car will be in the lineup when Sun Valley Resort cranks up the gondola from River Run Lodge to the Roundhouse for the summer season on June 22. The ribbon cutting will be held at 4:30 p.m. Monday, July 2, at River Run.

Windy City Arts provided the materials and the labor for this gondola wrap.

“We wrapped two gondolas for the Ketchum Arts Commission and we’ve wrapped multiple utility boxes for them. And we do a tremendous amount of work for Sun Valley Company,” said Troy Larsen, who owns Windy City Arts. “So my wife Linda and I had the thought that it would be nice to sponsor one of the art pieces ourselves as a way to say that we’re part of this community and we want to give back.”

The latest wrap started, as always, with a selection of art.

“There were 20, maybe two dozen submissions,” said Courtney Gilbert, who chairs the Arts Commission. “We had a hard time narrowing them down. There were a few colorful geometric patterned ones that I really liked but the Forest Service prefers to have the art blend into land. There were a lot to do with nature—sunsets, the Silver Creek area, a map, animals….”

The winning artist was Claire Remsberg, a Boise artist who is this year’s Crater Lake artist-in-residence.

A plein air painter, she has done a couple vinyl wraps of vegetables for traffic control boxes in Boise. She also has served as artist-in-resident at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon and shown her work at shows in Boise, Gig Harbor, Wash; and Hood River. Ore.

She dubbed the panels she made for the gondola “Big Wood Trio,” with individual panels named “Big Wood Wave Parade,” “A Stick in the Big Wood” and “Big Wood Wavy.”

Remsberg painted scenes of the Big Wood River and Trail Creek on site using oil on canvas.

Troy Larsen took her work and resized it for the sides of the gondola, which is about 8 feet by 8 feet. He then printed it on heavy quality vinyl, or window perf, which contains tiny holes that allow those sitting in the gondola to see out, and let it dry. He then laminated it to protect it from the weather.

“It’s quite labor intensive,” he said. “It’s a good full day of work in the studio.”

Larsen handed the sheets of vinyl off to Fred Avila and Chad Huckaby. And last week the two found themselves in one of Sun Valley’s maintenance bays next to the River Run Lodge where workers had plucked gondola car No. 43 from the lineup.

Off came the bumper guards and out came the propane torches, with which the two men blasted the existing Sun Valley logo, As the logo heated up, the two peeled away the rays of Sun Valley’s trademark sun.

Avila scrubbed the gondola car with rubbing alcohol, cleaning off any dirt, as Huckaby took off parts that protruded through the window.

Next the two wrapped a dark blue-green wrap on the corners, cutting it to fit with an X-acto knife and molding it around window parts with what resembled a dentist’s pick.

“This is the hardest part of the whole thing,” said Avila. “It’s kind of like doing surgery.”

Avila and Huckaby worked quickly and efficiently as if they’d been doing this all their lives.

Avila said he got his start at age 8 when he rebuilt a motorcycle.

“I’m really good at knowing how to take cars apart,” said Avila who attended Bellevue Elementary and Wood River Middle and High School.

The Larsens sent him to a wrapping class in California where he learned to wrap a Ford 150.

“They don’t trust you to wrap a Ferrari right off the bat,” he quipped.

Avila followed that class up with additional classes in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

He since has wrapped a Hummer, a gas tank on a motorcycle, the Blaine County Sheriff’s cars and Mountain Rides buses. And they’re about to embark on a project wrapping collection cans for The Hunger Coalition.

Wraps protect the paint on cars, Avila noted—some businesses that lease cars use wraps promoting their businesses, rather than paint the cars.

“Some people are even wrapping coffins now,” said Linda Larsen.

Finally, the big moment came. Avila and Huckaby took out one strip of the 8-foot-long vinyl and laid it  on half of one of the windows. They took out the other and lined it up next to the first so that the whitewater in the river scene matched.

Avila lifted up the bottom half of one piece while Huckaby tore off the liner, exposing the perforations that will allow skiers and boarders to see outside. They did the same to the top half.

Then Avila scraped the vinyl now sitting on the glass with a three-inch long hand squeegee that resembled a wax scraper for skis, ensuring that it was smooth and that there are no bubbles.

“The hardest part of this job is patience and perfection,” he said. “One mistake and you have to rip the vinyl off and do it again. And it costs us a lot of money to reprint the vinyl. At the end of the day, it’s just a sticker—but an expensive sticker.”

The first gondola featuring a Boulder Mountains scene by Ketchum artist Ralph Harris took three days to wrap as the guys worked through the idiosyncracies of laying the vinyl down on a canvas with a curvature. The second featuring the 2017 total solar eclipse took two days.

This one took one—seven hours, to be precise.

Avila stepped back and gave it an admiring look.

“This is why I love this job. You take someone’ dream or vision and, all of a sudden, you’re putting it up and ‘Wow!’ ” he said. “I think this makes gondola riding super fun. And it should be able to last 10, 15, maybe even 20 years.”

“We were so lucky to be able to do another,” said Gilbert.

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