It's no Bluff — Arts festival in southern Utah town will cover a range of disciplines
Still, a surprising number of artists live in the area. There are weavers, writers, potters and painters.
Ian Corbett, a local Episcopal priest, is helping to organize the third annual Bluff Arts Festival, to be held next weekend. Corbett says the residents expect to host at least 500 visitors. The theme is "From the Canyon to the Stars." This year, nature writer Terry Tempest Williams is a featured speaker.
Over the course of three days, there will be basketmaking demonstrations, music, a history lecture, art exhibits at eight different sites, as well as writing workshops and panel discussions about personal narrative and the environment. The festival features other nature writers in addition to Williams, including her husband, Brooke Williams, and Mary Sojourner, Greer Chesher and Ann Weiler Walka.
On Sunday, the arts festival combines with a Navajo fair to feature food, dancing, crafts, games, a children's art workshop and a discussion of Navajo astronomy.
Because this festival emphasizes writing, discussions and history, Johnson explains, it is as much a humanities festival as it is an arts festival.
Corbett notes that San Juan County is the poorest in the state and is also the only county to have a non-Anglo majority. He thinks one of the main benefits of the festival is to give people an insight into each other's cultures and ways of looking at the world. Also, he adds, it gives exposure to artists and brings in offseason business for restaurants and motels.
Because Bluff does not have one central public building, the visitors will see the art on a gallery stroll on Saturday evening. (The stroll is titled Trail of the Artists.)
For example, Twin Rocks Trading Post will display Denna Carney's retablos and James Olson's jewelry and sculpture. A variety of Navajo basket artists will also be featured.
Twin Rocks owners and brothers, Steve and Barry Simpson, have been in business in Bluff for 18 years. They feature artists who live within 50 miles of Bluff and have seen their business take off since the advent of the Internet.
Their first love has always been baskets, Steve says. And as the world came to appreciate the beauty of the Navajo baskets, he has seen the prices double and double again.
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