Day 8

George Hill, Native American Artist

Day 8

            After a good night’s rest and hearing nearby wolves howl through the night, I wake up to the tent overheating from the sunlight. We began our day with a hardy breakfast and a little relaxing time before our big day. Currently we are at the Wellpinit High School catching up on our blogs. Today we will be meeting with George Hill who is an Native American artist that grew up in the Spokane area. His main mediums are sculpting but since marble’s price has risen, his new medium has shifted to drawing.

            Mr. Hill arrived at camp and began to tell us about his past. After Mr. Hill got out of the Vietnam War, he had an attitude that he was bad man that couldn’t be touched. His friends actually feared him and couldn’t trust him to go drinking. So he thought about it and figured he had to change his life around. George began to use art as a way to sooth his anger and express his emotions. Over the last 20 years, Mr. Hill has built a collection of art and has taught many students.

            To begin our lesson with Mr. Hill, we are asked to cross our legs and draw a quick outline of our feet. Mine came out misshapen but George viewed it and said it’s just the beginning. “Just get comfortable. Don’t look at the paper and focus on your feet.” The more I tried sketching my feet after 3 times, my sketches became more recognizable. Then it was time to focus on an object for about 45 minutes and do a quick critique. I laid on my belly to focus on some pine cones in the grass. The more time I focused on a cone and grass, the more detailed lines I created. About a hour passed when George had to leave and Warren stopped by the campsite.

            Our second activity of the day was canoeing the Roosevelt Lake. Everyone got dress to swim and we all packed into the vans to follow Warren to the lake. We arrived to a beautiful beach with a wide lake. Boats were jetting by and people on the shore were enjoying swimming. Warren warned about crossing the lake that a possible large boat could tip our canoes or kayaks. Alden and I buddied up on a kayak and right away grabbed our life vests and mastered rowing our kayaks. We motored the kayak to circle everyone else in canoes. I got a great exercise on my chest, shoulders and arms rowing down the lake around a distance of 5 miles round trip. After the kayak adventure, I managed to get a quick dip before leaving the lake.

            One last event of the day was being in ranger station just west of our campsite. We traveled up the hills passing many trees to get to the summit. 10 minutes of driving, we reached our destination. Still the tower stood another 75ft in the air. Warren led us up to the top of the tower and the view kept getting better. Pretty soon we reached the very top where the ranger stays. No one was home so we just kept outside on the catwalk. The view was way better than I expected especially when the fresh air passed through us. Many photos were taken and I will have them post ASAP.