The Sixth Annual Escalante Canyons Art Festival/Everett Ruess Days, held September 25 and 26 in Escalante, is proud to present a varied, entertaining and educational schedule of speakers.  Funding from The Utah Humanities Council, Envision Escalante, and Speaker Volunteers brings this array of professional and local historians, authors, scientists and artisans to this year's festival. 

The Thursday prior to the festival, Jerry Roundy, local resident-historian, will focus on the "Death Hollow Trail" at 7:00 p.m. at the Escalante Interagency Visitors Center.  Friday morning's Chautauqau, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Festival Plaza, will provide personal anecdotes and insights on Everett Ruess’ disappearance, his impact, and the recent discovery of his remains that has taken national headlines. Historians and family representatives will lead a roundtable on his impacts to society.  This forum will try to present the essence of Ruess and what has driven mankind to forever seek new worlds and engage in self-discovery.

At 2:00 p.m. at the Visitors Center, archeologist and longtime area resident Larry Davis will discuss "The Ancient Inhabitants of this Area in the 12th Century."  The Ancient Puebloans inhabited this difficult environment for 10,000 years, and Davis will explain how the ancients adapted, survived, and increased in population as a sedentary people.  He will have his audience regress in time to learn if they would be able to adapt and survive.

"Wallace Stegner at 100" will be Steven Trimble's topic following Davis at 3:30 p.m.  To mark the 100th anniversary of Stegner’s birth, Trimble will reintroduce Stegner’s Utah-based writings and seek to involve his audience in a community dialogue.

On Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Escalante High School auditorium, well-respected authors and art historians Donna Poulton and Vern Swanson, who have combined their substantial knowledge and expertise to create the book "Painters of Utah's Canyons and Deserts," will be the festival's keynote speakers. Their book traces the artistic history and visual drama of Utah's wild places.  Poulton and Swanson will  elaborate on the contents of their book which includes many paintings and information about area and transient artists whose focus has been on the wonders encompassing this area. 

The Visitors Center is the venue for all of Saturday’s talks, beginning at 11:00 a.m. with Paula McNeill, Art Professor from Valdosta University in Georgia.  She will present "The Sculptured Furniture of Utah Artist David Delthony."  This year, Delthony has been chosen to be representative of the artistic talent in the Escalante Canyons area.  An award-winning artist, Delthony has exhibited his uniquely sculpted exotic furniture in Europe and the United States.  He is the 2002 recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship Award and a 2005 recipient of the Utah Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. Delthony – and his wife, Brigitte, who is a potter – have an open-studio west of Escalante.

Frederick H. Swanson, noted Utah author, will speak at 2:00 p.m. on "Exploring the Canyon Country in the Early Twentieth Century."  He will relate the adventures of "The Cowboy and the Lawyer," two men who witnessed the scenic and geological marvels of the Escalante region before the era of highways and tourist facilities.  The program includes historic photographs from the travels of Dave Rust, a backcountry guide from Kanab who, beginning in 1915, made extensive explorations of the Aquarius Plateau and the Escalante Canyons with his friend, George Fraser, a Wall Street attorney.  These adventurers shared a deep appreciation for the amazing landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. 

Concluding the 2009 Festival Speakers series will be astronomical artist and author, Michael Carroll.  Carroll and his associates portray real desert landscapes of the Southwest in a surreal association with photographs of the realms of discovery beyond Earth.  His presentation, "Mars in Escalante: How the Deserts of Utah Show Us What Future Travelers Will Find in the Cosmos," will enthrall the audience with depictions of space-age art grounded in our real landscapes. 

For more specific information and a complete schedule of the 2009 Escalante Canyons Art Festival, check the website at www.escalantecanyonsartfestival.org.