Scottish photographer
Ken Paterson celebrates the life of John Muir with an exhibition in the home of
John Muir in Martinez California
This past week Scottish photographer Ken Paterson has journeyed from Edinburgh to the United States to deliver a talk around his photographic exhibit, "In the Footsteps of John Muir". The exhibition is in the home of John Muir, a National Historic site in Martinez, an hour north of
San Francisco.
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Ken Paterson at John Muir's home in Martinez, CA where his exhibit, In the Footsteps of John Muir, is now on show.
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'It is a great pleasure and privilege to be showing my work in the house where John Muir, as a family man, wrote so many of his books full of his thoughts, experiences and passions for the great outdoor wilderness of his beloved Yosemite and the 'Range of Light', as he named the mountains of the Sierra Nevada".
"I have called this exhibition 'In the footsteps of John Muir'. A grand title considering the many miles that Muir climbed and walked over the course of his lifetime.'" noted Paterson.
"In the footsteps of John Muir" has been touring as an exhibit in the USA since 2014. The exhibit has been developed in conjunction with the American-Scottish Foundation.
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John Muir statue as a boy, in Dunbar High St.
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To date the exhibit has been shown in the - Arsenal Gallery, Central Park, New York, - Federal Hall National Memorial, Wall Street, New York (Federal Hall is where George Washington was invested as the first President of the United States of America), as well as in Washington DC and Chicago.
During the later part of 2016 the exhibit was on view at President Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site, Hyde Park, NY before now journeying to Martinez, CA where it will be on show through December 2017.
The exhibition images, 'In the footsteps of John Muir', is part of Paterson's Famous Scots project which is chronicling the incredible depth of achievement of famous Scots.
Paterson hopes to then take the photographic journeys and develop an internet based educational resource to bring to the attention of current and future generations of Scots, the incredible influence the Scottish Diaspora has brought to the rest of the world.
"In the Footsteps.." takes one from Muir's hometown of Dunbar to Yosemite and various places Muir spent time in.
The next phase of the exhubit for Spring 2018 will include a new series of works celebrating the new John Muir Way in Scotland and some John Muir Trust properties.
During his talk in the Muir house in Martinez Ken described the Scotland John Muir left at the age of ten to start a newlife with his family in Wisconsin.
Muir did not return to visit his hometown of Dunbar until he was nearly sixty. In the meantime the three days that Muir spent alone with President Roosevelt led to the creation of several American National Parks, which in turn led to the epithet 'Father of the National Parks", and is widely credited for the modern conservation movement.,
A presentation of a blanket hand woven in the officially registered Muir tartan, was made by Paterson to the John Muir National Historic Site on behalf of the designer David McGill of International Tartans. The Muir tartan features colours from some of Muir's writings, blue and white to represent the planet Earth spinning through space, and gold for the thread that links all living things on the planet.
'When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and spotted with continents and islands, flying through space with the other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.'
John Muir
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.'
John Muir
In the footsteps of John Muir is currently on show at:
John Muir National Historic Site
Martinez. California
May 15th to October 15th
Federal Hall National Memorial
Wall St, New York
May 25th - July 25th
For further information please contact
Camilla Hellman
American-Scottish Foundation
e. americanscottishfoundation@gmail.com
t. +1 212 605 0338
www.americanscottishfoundation.org
