Who you gonna call? How about Mom?

When one of the owners of White Pine Outfitters in Moscow wanted to beautify a drab exterior wall at her business, she knew just the right person to turn to.

Sierra Larson-Nash asked her mother, accomplished painter Amy Brackenbury, to travel from her Colorado home to brighten up the Jackson Street building with a 10-foot-tall, 60-foot-long mural.

“I like to paint anything,” Brackenbury said. “Anything. And so, to do this was an awesome chance.”

The Asian-inspired blue and white design, which can be seen from the intersection of Jackson and Third streets, features fish swimming through a flowing river. A fitting design, given that White Pine Outfitters offers guided fishing trips. The business’ address is 118 S Jackson St.

Larson-Nash said she and her husband Tyler Nash, moved White Pine Outfitters to the Jackson Street location in October 2019 and went to work renovating the place. They inherited a white and gray exterior wall with chipping paint, cracks and bricks that needed to be replaced. Larson-Nash said she was embarrassed to post a photo of the building online.

She said they “really just wanted to do something to kind of brighten it up.” So far, according to Larson-Nash and Brackenbury, it has received positive reviews from the public.

Brackenbury said it has caught the attention of people who didn’t notice the business before.

“That really wasn’t the point of it, but that’s the benefit of it,” she said.

They stuck to the minimalist color scheme because adding more colors seemed to stop the “motion” of the river, Brackenbury said.

“This is, I think, a very elegant way to depict the rivers and the fish,” Brackenbury said.

As a professional artist, Brackenbury’s works have been shown in galleries around the world. Her skills are varied, but she loves painting on large canvases, which made the White Pine Outfitters project a fun challenge for her.

“Painting takes tons of courage,” she said. “It takes guts to give it a try. You try it and if it works, great, and if it doesn’t work, it’s only paint. You just paint over the bad parts.”

Brackenbury, who is impressed by the other murals she has seen around Moscow, enjoyed almost everything about painting the mural, especially the opportunity to work with her daughter.

“The only thing I didn’t enjoy on this was the heat,” she said, laughing. “I couldn’t believe how hot and dry it is in the Northwest.”

The mural is not her only contribution to White Pine Outfitters. Murals and framed original paintings done by Brackenbury adorn the walls inside the building.

As the daughter of an artist, Larson-Nash is used to being surrounded by her mother’s art. The walls of her childhood home were also galleries of Brackenbury’s works.

“We always had just beautiful art in our house and it was really nice just to grow up around so much beauty,” she said.

More art is on the way at White Pine Outfitters. A secondary mural is planned in 2022 on the east wall facing Bucer’s.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.