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William Kittredge: Rancher turned Writer
Published
8 years agoon
Posted By
Outlaw PartnersBy Doug Hare EBS Staff
William Kittredge grew up working on his family’s sprawling MC Ranch in the Warner Valley of southern Oregon, only deciding to pursue a writing career at the age of 33.
“I thought it was about sentences and paragraphs, fashioning elegance out of what you already knew. I didn’t yet see that writing like any art is chancing to know freshly. As such it’s always worth doing; it’s worth finding gestures that suggest understandings,” Kittredge wrote in “Hole in the Sky,” a memoir recounting his decision to leave the ranching life behind.
After studying creative writing at Iowa Writer’s Workshop, “not a discipline anybody ever heard of in our part of the world,” Kittredge wrote, he taught for three decades at the University of Montana and still resides, at the ripe age of 83, in Missoula.
Currently working on a quasi-sequel to “Hole in the Sky” called “Another Summer to Run,” Kittredge has produced a body of work that both dispels the myths of the Lone Ranger American West, and poses profound questions about the future of the last, best place.
Although he changed careers, the author never left his roots behind. His narratives are burnished and tight-lipped much like the ranch hands he worked with and the cowboys he idolized growing up. He is erudite without coming across as a pretentious intellectual critical of the changes he has seen during his lifetime. And as Western culture moves away from an authentic relationship to the land, Kittredge portrays a sort of show-business parody without ever sounding self-righteous.
Like any good writer from this region, his words evoke the sanctity of majestic landscapes and praise the self-reliance and rugged individualism that are still at the heart of the Western experience.
I just finished reading Kittredge’s “The Next Rodeo,” a collection of new and selected essays, which I had trouble putting down. While his nonfiction works, “The Nature of Generosity” and “Who Owns the West?” and his only novel “The Willow Field,” each represent his distinctive voice, the author is most at home writing essays that move effortlessly between the personal, political and philosophical.
“Drinking and Driving” takes a hard look at the author’s battles with alcohol and extramarital affairs, while “Owning it All” is a searing account of the author’s relationship to his father and grandfather.
The namesake piece of “The Next Rodeo” tells the story of a rural Oregon rodeo but ends up revealing how the changing economic landscape of the West reflects an untenable situation for a healthy democratic culture. He writes: “The quandaries westerners face will have to be flexibly resolved by the raggedy and the rich, up-country and downtown.”
Pick up anything by William Kittredge and you can’t help but agree that he has earned his reputation as the Bard Laureate of the American West. We should all be grateful that he left the ranch and that his influence from teaching generations of writers and his many brilliant contributions to Western literature will continue to impact the literary world long after he puts his pen down.
Doug Hare is the Distribution Coordinator for Outlaw Partners. He studied philosophy and American literature at Princeton and Harvard universities.
The Outlaw Partners is a creative marketing, media and events company based in Big Sky, Montana.
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april, 2024
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We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a
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Event Details
We all are familiar with using a limited palette, but do you use one? Do you know how to use a limited palette to create different color combinations? Are you tired of carrying around 15-20 different tubes when you paint plein air? Have you ever wanted to create a certain “mood” in a painting but failed? Do you create a lot of mud? Do you struggle to achieve color harmony? All these problems are addressed in John’s workbook in clear and concise language!
Based on the bestselling “Limited Palatte, Unlimited Color” workbook written by John Pototschnik, the workshop is run by Maggie Shane and Annie McCoy, accomplished landscape (acrylic) and plein air (oil) artists,exhibitors at the Big Sky Artists’ Studio & Gallery and members of the Big Sky Artists Collective.
Each student will receive a copy of “Limited Palette, Unlimited Color” to keep and take home to continue your limited palette journey. We will show you how to use the color wheel and mix your own clean mixtures to successfully create a mood for your paintings.
Each day, we will create a different limited palette color chart and paint a version of a simple landscape using John’s directives. You will then be able to go home and paint more schemes using the book for guidance.
Workshop is open to painters (oil or acrylic) of any level although students must have some basic knowledge of the medium he or she uses. Students will be provided the book ($92 value), color wheel, value scale and canvas papers to complete the daily exercises.
Sundays, April 14, 21 and 28, 2024
Noon until 6PM.
$170.
Time
14 (Sunday) 12:00 pm - 28 (Sunday) 6:00 pm
Event Details
Trivia from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Waypoint in Town Center. Participation is free, food and beverages available.
Event Details
Trivia from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Waypoint in Town Center. Participation is free, food and beverages available.
Time
(Wednesday) 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location
The Waypoint
50 Ousel Falls Rd