By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — It started with a Bill Wilson dream and came to reality with Jim Walters’ persistence, some divine intervention and the work of a community of communities.

Rumple Memorial Presbyterian Church dedicated the installation of two frescoes by Ben Long in its newly completed Gathering Space on Feb. 16. Testimony to the significance of the event: the large crowd packing the sanctuary for the worship service — and everyone remained to file into the Gathering Space for the ceremonial blessing.

“We are calling them our Fresco Ministry,” explained Pastor Kathy Beach in an interview with Blowing Rock News before the worship service, “as part of our outreach efforts. Our hope is that the frescoes will connect with people who might not come to worship service but when they enter the church to see the frescoes they will encounter the biblical art and engage with the biblical stories. So we really feel this is an outreach beyond the walls of the church. Some estimates (suggest) tens of thousands of people may come through these doors who might never come otherwise. So this extends and expands our ministry.”

They almost painted over them.

Beach suggested it was fortuitous that the frescoes, purchased from a closed hospice facility in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., became available at a time when the church was in the middle of extensive renovations.

“Had we not been going through the renovations,” said Beach, “we would not have been able to receive the frescoes because we wouldn’t have had a place to put them. We didn’t have any big walls. While the timing was not completely perfect, it is remarkable that we were planning on knocking out walls and creating this huge Gathering Space. Three years ago there was no place to put them on our campus. It all fit in really nicely with everything else that is growing and expanding in the church’s life.”

Both of the fresco subjects are derived from Psalm 23, arguably the most popular of the Psalms.

During her worship service sermon outlining the Fresco Ministry, Beach recalled that a congregation member, Bill Wilson, had approached the church leadership about a dream he had of Rumple having a Ben Long fresco.

“It was October 2021 and Bill shared his dream with Alice Salthouse, a co-chair for the ongoing capital campaign. The dream had woken him up in the middle of the night. Rumple, he told Alice, should have a Ben Long fresco. It could be added to the capital campaign,” Beach recalled.

“Alice shared the idea with her co-chair, Cullie Tarleton and me,” Beach added. “We took the proposal to the capital campaign committee but ultimately it was decided that the campaign was too far along and another huge and expensive element would be difficult to add,” said Beach.

So the idea was rejected. Beach explained that the Holy Spirit was nonetheless still at work. Only three months later, in January 2022, the Rumple pastor said she received a phone call from a complete stranger, Jim Walters.

“Jim said he was calling to talk with about Rumple obtaining two Ben Long frescoes. I remember catching my breath. I could not believe what I was hearing. Jim told me the story about these two frescoes tucked away in an old hospice chapel, in Mt. Pleasant and they could likely need a new home. Would Rumple be interested?”

Beach called in Salthouse and Tarleton to meet with Walters about the possibility of moving these frescoes to Rumple where, Jim suggested, they would be close to other frescoes on what is referred to as “The Fresco Trail” in North Carolina. But these, said Jim, would be at Rumple, in Blowing Rock.

‘Bucket List’ Stuff

In a separate interview, Walters told Blowing Rock News that he had a long interest in North Carolina-based Ben Long frescoes and he found all of them except two, of which nobody seemed to know where they were being housed.

“I was trying to look at all of Ben Long’s frescoes as a bucket list item,” said Walters, “but I could not find the ones in Mount Pleasant. I searched and searched and searched. After a lot of work going to the Secretary of State, the Chamber of Commerce and the Register of Deeds, I found out where they were. When I finally saw them, it occurred to me they didn’t appreciate the paintings. They were going to paint over them.”

My grandmother ran the Blowing Rock newspaper.

The artist, Ben Long, was also in attendance for the Rumple installation on Feb. 16 and confirmed Walters’ fears. He said the frescoes were commissioned in 2006 by Mabel Stowe Query, but she reportedly died in the hospice before they were completed in 2009. As the hospice business failed, went through numerous name changes as well as changes in ownership, the Ben Long frescoes were all but forgotten.

“It is kind of interesting,” said Long. “When they sold the hospice in Mount Pleasant, (the new owners) didn’t know what they were so they almost painted over them. But, thankfully, somebody figured it out.”

Thanks to Walters, the new owners not only realized what they had but also were presented with an opportunity to save the frescoes.

With Beach and the rest of the Rumple church leadership now on board with the idea of bringing them to Blowing Rock, realization of the project’s completion gained momentum. In an April 2024 presentation at Blowing Rock Art & History Museum focused on Ben Long frescoes, Walters explained that Tarleton did an exceptional job of negotiating a fair price for Rumple to pay for the art, then arrangements were made to dismantle the pieces from their wall mounts.

“A welder had to lay down on the floor underneath the murals and use an acetylene torch to cut away the brackets on the wall that were holding them,” recalled Walters, in describing the process to Blowing Rock News. “For the transport company, I estimated the larger one would be 1,000 pounds. They got to the location and had to bring back different equipment. It weighed closer to 3,000 pounds.”

A “Fresco Update” from early 2024 includes how the frescoes were dismantled in Mount Pleasant, S.C. and prepared for transport to storage in Charlotte.

After transporting the frescoes to Charlotte where they were stored for almost two years, the art was brought up to Blowing Rock and carefully inserted through openings in the walls of the new, yet unfinished Gathering Space, using a massive crane.

After the transfer and installation was complete, it was just a matter of finishing the renovations of the Gathering Space, as well as putting the finishing touches of the frescoes by Long and associate artist, Roger Nelson.

It is a miracle and God’s hand is surely in the middle of it.

“It is the 23rd Psalm,” said Tarleton, “because it was originally for a hospice center and Ben wanted the patients there to go into the chapel and take comfort in visually seeing the 23rd Psalm. The large one has more visual elements of the 23rd Psalm. The smaller one is the Good Shepherd, also relating to the 23rd Psalm. ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.’ That is the core of the Psalm and Ben shared his interpretation of those verses.”

Tarleton admitted that taking possession of the frescoes was a challenge given the context of the renovations.

“We went down to Mount Pleasant in the fall of 2022 and removed them from the wall down there, then moved them into storage in Charlotte,” Tarleton recalled. “It was my expectation that we would surely have them installed at the church within a year, but a year came and passed. We were coming out of COVID-19, but anytime you get into construction, remodeling and restoration, it always takes longer that you expect. So we finally got them here in November of 2024 and have been planning this day ever since.”

Tarleton related how the acquisition of the frescoes was embraced by Rumple’s leadership and, ultimately, the broader congregation.

“These frescoes and our Fresco Ministry adds a new dimension to our overall ministry. It is a natural extension of our mission outreach because of the biblical focus of the 23rd Psalm, one of the most popular psalms in the Bible. Ben Long is one of the foremost fresco painters in the world, so we are doubly blessed to receive these,” added Tarleton.

For Long, having the 23rd Psalm frescoes not only saved from being painted over but finding a home in Blowing Rock is meaningful. He spent a lot of time in Blowing Rock as a child and was married here.

“I am thrilled they ended up in Blowing Rock,” said Long. “My grandmother ran the newspaper here for awhile. I have special memories of Blowing Rock.”

Impact beyond Rumple

The impact on the Blowing Rock community goes well beyond Rumple Church.

“This is an amazing cultural light being shined on the community,” Blowing Rock Art & History Museum executive director Stephan Dragisic said after the blessing ceremony. “While Rumple will share the (biblical) story behind the frescoes, we at the museum are shining a light on the artist and the art form. We will be doing that, always thinking the frescoes are here now and a part of our community. As this groundswell of appreciation for art and culture builds, you will witness the broader discovery of the Elliott Daingerfield piece across the street at St. Mary’s Church, of the Elliott Daingerfield studio at Edgewood Cottage, and of this museum, too. This south end of town becomes a destination within the larger destination (of Blowing Rock.”

It is not lost on civic leaders that the frescoes will have a significant impact on that “larger destination,” Blowing Rock, generally.

“These frescoes certainly add to the inventory of assets that we have in town which reflect on the culture and history here,” said Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority executive director Tracy Brown. “It is great to see Ben Long out and about. Just his coming to town creates a lot of buzz. This should end up being a win-win for the town as well as the church and I look forward to seeing how the public access is achieved.”

Plans for ongoing public access have not yet been completed but are underway, Rumple elder Alice Salthouse explained to Blowing Rock News in a phone interview.

“We have a good number of volunteers and docents, to help guide visitors and answer questions,” said Salthouse. “We have to coordinate the schedules of the volunteers as well as the schedules of the church staff. These plans should be completed soon. I am so excited that we have been able to pull this together. In some ways, it is a miracle and God’s hand was surely in the middle of it.”