Wednesday, August 13, 2014

America's Second Best Ideas



Gates of the Arctic NP and Tongass Wilderness, SE Alaska
This year celebrates 50 years of the Wilderness Act, America's ongoing contribution of Best Ideas, along with establishing the National Park System in 1916.  If that was the best, then implementing the NPS- Artist in Residence and Forest Service- Voices of the Wilderness programs must have been America's second best ideas.   After all, artists were integral in selling the whole NPS thing in the first place.  Today the artist advocate and interpreter has a similarly vital role in reintroducing us to our national wilderness heritage as pressures of expansion, commercialism and climate change push against the NPS mandate to conserve, protect and leave unimpaired. 

I'll share more information about this wonderful program and my own experiences in the upcoming Sketch-Journal workshop at the Gig Harbor History Museum, Sept 6 and 7th, 10am to 2pm (take one or both classes)  Call 253 858-6722 extension 5 or stop by the museum to register.  

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