Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness’ executive director Phil Hough travels to Seattle in the first week of September for meetings with Woodland Park Zoo officials and a chance to show the two films Wildman Pictures has produced about the Scotchman Peaks proposal. The Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library will host the free September 5 showing of En Plein Air and Grass routes: Changing the Conversation. The showings are cosponsored by FSPW and Conservation Northwest. Both films were shot in and around the proposed Scotchman Peaks Wilderness and highlight how FSPW works for wilderness designation for the Scotchmans.
En Plein Air features the unique art outreach of the Extreme Plein Air, a backcountry painting expedition ala Thomas Moran, focusing particularly on two artists who can take credit for helping create the event. “Jared and Aaron came to me and said they wanted to paint in the back country,” says FSPW Program Coordinator Sandy Compton, “and I was happy to oblige them.
Fine artists Jared Shear of Thompson Falls, Montana, and Aaron Johnson of Moscow, Idaho, are featured in En Plein Air. The second film, Grass routes: Changing the Conversation, concentrates on the outreach, stewardship and advocacy of Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness and how they lead to some unconventional partnerships in the quest for national wilderness designation.
“We depend heavily on community consensus,” says Hough, “and we find that the way to achieve that is to start from common ground. Most people have many things in common. By starting there, it’s amazing how we can minimize our differences and come to agreement about things that are important to all of us.”
The films will be shown beginning at 6 p.m. at the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library at 5614 22nd Ave. N.W. in Seattle. The library number is 206-684-4089. For more information, contact info@scotchmanpeaks.org
