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Reader Participation Day: Where Do You Find The Best Art In the National Park System?

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on June 29, 2011 - 1:49am

Where do you find the best art in the National Park System? We're not talking about cheap, foreign trinkets, but nice artful objects that you take home, and put on display, and which trigger memories of your visit when you gaze at them.

My travels have brought me a beautiful hand-thrown ceramic bowl from a Mount Rainier National Park artisan, a framed trio of paintings from Acadia National Park, and a limited edition poster of Double Arch Alcove in Zion National Park.

Then, too, a number of framed maps -- both relatively present-day and historic -- of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, and Zion also grace our walls.

So, where do you collect your national park art, and is it in the form of paintings, ceramics, carvings, or some other form?

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on June 29, 2011 - 6:18am.

Hawaii Volcanoes national park has great art in the lodge and nearby art gallery.

Submitted by Danny Bernstein on June 29, 2011 - 7:19am.

I live so close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, which has great art in all its visitor center.
The Folk Art Center, outside Asheville, is the premier place to get wonderful, authentic crafts. All the submissions are juried and it is a great honor to show your work there.

Further north, Moses Cone Memorial Park has the same type of quality crafts.

Danny Bernstein
www.hikertohiker.com

Submitted by Raphael (not verified) on June 29, 2011 - 10:54am.

Joshua Tree seems to attract a lot of Goldsworthy-esque environmental artists.

Submitted by one old ranger (not verified) on June 30, 2011 - 3:23pm.

In most parks, all you have to do is step outside the visitor center and look around.

Submitted by Ilex_Opaca on July 1, 2011 - 9:30am.

Once a year Mesa Verde hosted potters from the Santa Clara Pueblo. They demonstrated how they made their famous solid black pots and even fired them right there in the traditional way. I ended up with a beautiful pot and a quail for a steal!