It's the weekend of the Colorado Art Ranch Artposium here in Salida. The brain child of Grant Pound and Peggy Lawless, Art Ranch is a nomadic artists' and writers' program. The Ranch travels to two Colorado towns each year and adopts themes that reflect the area's heritage, natural resources, topography and people.
The program is composed of two parts: a two-day Artposium open to the public, and a one-month residency for contemporary artists and writers. Since the beginning of May, Salida has been hosting five artists-and-writers-in-residence from across the country, and this weekend we've been deep in the throes of the Artposium itself. I was honored to be asked to present a little session on field journals yesterday morning, and was delighted to have a full house. Which I promptly took outside. Of course.
For once I remembered to take a couple of photos as folks were working... so here are some journalers and journalers-to-be perched along the Arkansas River, just behind the Steamplant Theatre, headquarters for the weekend events.
If nothing else, my workshop participants will remember this weekend whenever they encounter ants... since most of them were overrun with the little buggers when they sat down along the trail. (Occupational hazard.) I saw lots of little ant drawings on journal pages.
It was a great day. Local author Kent Haruf got us started in the morning with a fabulous reading, and last night we had an always-interesting session with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose current project, "Over the River," is slated for a section of the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City. In between we had fly-fishing and poetry and journals and assemblage and river-guiding, and a great presentation by molecular-geneticist-turned-photographer David Goldes. David has been a delight to talk to this weekend, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the work he has done exploring the qualities of water.
So today it's back for more! Congratulations to Grant, Peggy, and to local organizer Susan Tweit for pulling together a great weekend. In September Art Ranch is off to Durango, and I'm already looking forward to the trip.
Well, that just sounds like a brilliant way to spend a weekend!
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