This is a bit last minute, but I will be taking part in this years Escalante Canyons Working Art Festival Everett Ruess Days Plein Air Competition all next week September 19-25 in and around Escalante, Utah. This event was created to celebrate the life and work of the artist Everett Ruess who disappeared from the rugged canyon country near Escalante, Utah, in 1934 and was never seen again. He was just 20 years old. Although his burros were found near his camp, his fate remains a mystery. Everett Ruess was an artistic, adventurous young man who set out alone several times to experience the beauty, as well as the fury of nature in the American West. During the 1930s, he met and discussed art with painter Maynard Dixon, and with well-known photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Dorothea Lange. He was lured first by the splendors of Yosemite and the California coast and later by portions of the lonely Red Rock Country of Utah and Arizona. He is best known for a series of linoleum block prints.
"I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities." - from the last letter Ruess sent to his brother, dated November 11, 1934.
Like his thinking! I can't wait to be painting there!
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