The Artist who Disappeared in to the Wilderness
Escalante, Utah (United States):
Everett Ruess, where are you?
That is the compelling question underlying the three-day Everett Ruess Days that ended Saturday in Escalante, the last place the 20-year-old California vagabond artist was seen in November 1934 before disappearing into the surrounding wilderness.
Escalante resident Steve Roberts, owner of Escalante Outfitters, is president of the festival committee that organized the event. He said in the four years Ruess wandered the Southwest, much of it in southern Utah, he wrote letters, poetry and journal entries about the area's awesome beauty and left behind a set of block prints depicting the region's grandeur and vegetation.
"He was one of the first people to recognize this area for its aesthetics," said Roberts, who helped raise $35,000 in cash and in-kind donations for the festival, including $8,000 in prize money for artistic competitions.
Some artists also set up booths that took over a street in this town of about 1,000 residents adjacent to the Grand Staircase Escalante Monument.
Roberts, from Missouri originally, has lived in Escalante for two years and produces Vagabond amber ale in honor of Reuss, featuring an image from one of his block prints on the label.
At his store, where he sells equipment for back country hiking, Roberts also has some shelves lined with different books of Reuss' writings. The writings and printing blocks that he carved were discovered in the 1970s in a house belonging to a brother.
Since then, Reuss' popularity has steadily grown. At the festival, lecturers talked on the young transient's writings, concerts were held and cowboy poets recited their works. A movie on Reuss by a Japanese production company also was shown. Harriet Priska, festival director, said Reuss is popular in Japan and Europe and has a fan club based in France.
Priska said Reuss began exploring the chiseled canyons and high plateaus of southern Utah at age 16, around the time he diagnosed with pernicious anemia, a blood disorder for which there was no cure. She said his mother Stella, a "liberated
woman," taught Reuss about block printing and his father Christopher, a travelling salesman, wrote home frequently, instilling in the young Reuss the practice of writing. Priska believes, as many do, that knowing he was going to die, the terminally ill Reuss wandered off into the desert to die alone.
She also emphasized that while there is a mystique surrounding Reuss' fate, including one story that he was murdered by rustlers, it is not the main focus of the festival.
"Most people believe he died," said Priska. "But it is not the purpose of the festival to discuss his death. It is to bring people to the area so they can see and respond to it like he did, with art and poetry."
Oct 10, 2005
Mark Havnes, The Salt Lake Tribune
Escalante, Utah (United States):Everett Ruess, where are you?
That is the compelling question underlying the three-day Everett Ruess Days that ended Saturday in Escalante, the last place the 20-year-old California vagabond artist was seen in November 1934 before disappearing into the surrounding wilderness.
Escalante resident Steve Roberts, owner of Escalante Outfitters, is president of the festival committee that organized the event. He said in the four years Ruess wandered the Southwest, much of it in southern Utah, he wrote letters, poetry and journal entries about the area's awesome beauty and left behind a set of block prints depicting the region's grandeur and vegetation.
"He was one of the first people to recognize this area for its aesthetics," said Roberts, who helped raise $35,000 in cash and in-kind donations for the festival, including $8,000 in prize money for artistic competitions.
Some artists also set up booths that took over a street in this town of about 1,000 residents adjacent to the Grand Staircase Escalante Monument.
Roberts, from Missouri originally, has lived in Escalante for two years and produces Vagabond amber ale in honor of Reuss, featuring an image from one of his block prints on the label.
At his store, where he sells equipment for back country hiking, Roberts also has some shelves lined with different books of Reuss' writings. The writings and printing blocks that he carved were discovered in the 1970s in a house belonging to a brother.
Since then, Reuss' popularity has steadily grown. At the festival, lecturers talked on the young transient's writings, concerts were held and cowboy poets recited their works. A movie on Reuss by a Japanese production company also was shown. Harriet Priska, festival director, said Reuss is popular in Japan and Europe and has a fan club based in France.
Priska said Reuss began exploring the chiseled canyons and high plateaus of southern Utah at age 16, around the time he diagnosed with pernicious anemia, a blood disorder for which there was no cure. She said his mother Stella, a "liberated
woman," taught Reuss about block printing and his father Christopher, a travelling salesman, wrote home frequently, instilling in the young Reuss the practice of writing. Priska believes, as many do, that knowing he was going to die, the terminally ill Reuss wandered off into the desert to die alone.
She also emphasized that while there is a mystique surrounding Reuss' fate, including one story that he was murdered by rustlers, it is not the main focus of the festival.
"Most people believe he died," said Priska. "But it is not the purpose of the festival to discuss his death. It is to bring people to the area so they can see and respond to it like he did, with art and poetry."
Oct 10, 2005
Mark Havnes, The Salt Lake Tribune
