Barbara Marriott, Paint 'n Spurs: The Men Who Founded the Cowboy Artists of America: Four men walked into a bar and over booze, beer and laughs they created a new art organization that represented America’s historical heritage. They called this creation The Cowboy Artists of America. The year was 1965; the place was the Oak Creek Tavern in Sedona, Arizona. Fred Harman couldn’t attend the Oak Creek Tavern meeting, but he was there at the organizational meeting in Charlie Dye’s studio, three months later, with the other four founders. This is when the nitty-gritty of bylaws and rules were established. The creation of this organization was not a whimsical act, nor was it a delusionary one. These men were fine artists and perfected their skill over many years. What made them unique is that they were also cowboys. Men who had worked the range, branded cattle and rode the long trail. Now, over fifty years later, these cowboy artists, or artist cowboys, are together again in an informative and delightful biography of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America called: Paint ‘n Spurs.
Wang Xing Shi, Seclusion and Awakening: "If you believe, believe deeply. If you cultivate, cultivate fiercely.” With these words begins the incredible tale of the Chinese Buddhist Master, Wang Xing, and his quest for awakening. Taking these words to heart, he started his intense journey at an early age, running away from home to ordain as a monk in a Buddhist Temple. He carried this fervor with him to school, where he would volunteer to clean the public lavatories for two years in between his studies at the Buddhist institute. This was a starting point for his great devotion to his purpose. And when he finally decided that academic study would only take him so far, and that a more direct approach was called for, he had himself sealed into a cave for two years.
Kristin Gleeson Anahareo, A Wilderness Spirit: Growing up with the name Gertrude, an Algonquin/Mohawk girl in a small Ontario town during the First World War, Anahareo was more at home climbing trees and swimming in the river than sewing samplers. When she was nineteen, she convinced her father to let her work at Camp Wabikon, a vacation spot for New Yorkers hoping to experience the wilderness. There she met charismatic trail guide, Archie Belaney. With his long hair and buckskin pants, Archie symbolized everything she desired — an adventurous man of the wilderness. Archie wasted no time in inviting Gertrude to see his traplines in the bush. That decision would change her life forever.
Barbara Marriott, In Our Own Words: The Lives of Arizona Pioneer Women: "I have lived for months where my only neighbors were Indians and my one music the howl of the coyote." - Charlotte Tanner Nelson It was a land the devil wouldn't have, made of sand and mountains filled with wild beasts and wild men. Yet in the eighteen hundreds the women came. Some came to join an adventuresome husband or son, some because of their religion. They traveled the hard trail, suffering from lack of water, horrendous weather, disease and death. And once they arrived in the desolate wilderness they lived in tents, dugouts and log cabins. Everything for their life, from soap to food, from clothes to medicine they made, or grew, or did without. Husbands left to work far away leaving them to fight Indians, take care of the home and farm, and sometimes bury their children. From 1935 until 1939 Federal Writers' Project workers interviewed Arizona pioneer women, who were then in their seventies or older. Their interviews, here in their own words, tell of heartbreak and joy, success and disappointment, and the building of a state.
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