Dear Friends –

It has been a while since I have written you, as I have been pretty busy with lots of stuff.  The result of all that was my arrival to the Escalante Arts Festival in a state of low energy.  Nonetheless, I did 5 paintings there (one of which I wiped) because the 'umph' simply wasn’t there.  But I will say that two of those paintings helped lift my heart  in spite of being quite non-traditional, and I am sharing those with you here:

 The first, 'House of Glass Magic' was created at a local Escalante artist's studio.  Sandy makes amazing 3-D glass objects out of broken antique bowls, plates, vases, etc.  He has tables outside amidst the glowing rabbit brush studio filled with broken colors and other cool stuff which he uses to make his art.  There was something quite magic about this place, and it served to put my heart into the painting.  I was grateful, and this painting does have a new home.

 The second painting, ‘Rodeo Memories’, I completed at the rodeo grounds where Escalante holds their youth rodeo for Pioneer Days.  While I was sitting in the bleachers contemplating the views, a young boy and his dog approached.  He asked if he could come up into the bleachers with me, which of course I welcomed.  Then he proceeded to tell me about how he participated in the rodeo and how he fell off the calf after 3 seconds, and what happened to his friends that also rode.  He said that he liked to come up to these bleachers every day just to sit and remember how fun that all was.

 That kind of set the stage for that painting.  From then on, I saw those grounds through the eyes of a young child, and quite frankly – the painting shows it. See what you think.

 So that is all that I have for Escalante.  But as usual it was a pleasure to visit that wonderful Grand Staircase National Monument.  May it be preserved forever.

Margie Lopez Read

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