Cozy Tamomile

The Cinder Cone in Skamania County, Washington.

In the spring of 2014, Foster Huntington and a small group of friends broke ground on this property in the Columbia River Gorge. A year later, they finished construction on two treehouses, a wood burning tub, and a bowl for skating. 

Here’s a film about the build, directed by Foster:

National Parks Posters

Done during the Great Depression as part of the Works Progress Administration these images beautifully capture the sights to be held in the US. These were part of Federal Project No. 1, specifically the Federal Arts Project which served to employ out-of-work artists to create works of art for public consumption. Examples include posters, murals, and sculptures as well as teaching and training in the arts. 

Other programs seperate from the Federal Arts Project were aimed at music, writing, and theater.

The list of artists employed the Federal Arts Project is expansive and unfortunately I’m not able to provide the name of the artist who did these. If you know who did these please tell so proper credit can be given.

So there were 14 original National Park posters- Bandelier, Fort Marion, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Smoky Mountains, Lassen, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, Wind Cave, Yellowstone (Old Faithful), Yellowstone (Lower Falls), Yosemite, and Zion- plus a bunch “See America” posters featuring places like Arches and Carlsbad Caverns, and a second, unfinished design for Glacier National Park.

Of the images above, the Zion, Carlsbad Caverns, and Yellowstone are all original WPA designs (though Zion’s color balance is a bit wacky).

The Yosemite, Acadia, and Algonquin designs are all contemporary and digital- the biggest tells are vector artifacts, anachronistic NPS seals, modern fonts (rather than hand-drawn lettering), and, in the case of the Algonquin park poster, parks that aren’t within the purview of the WPA. :)  For credit’s sake, the Acadia poster is by Steve Thomas, and the Algonquin poster is by Cameron Stevens.

The Badlands poster, however, is contemporary and traditional- it’s a screen print done by the artist (and ex-Ranger!) Doug Leen, who runs Ranger of the Lost Art.  I am obsessed with this guy.  Doug has spent twenty years researching and recreating the original WPA posters (a number of them are only known from crude and faded B&W photos, so the individual screens had to be redrawn by hand), and he’s continued on to design commissioned posters for other parks in the traditional WPA style:

…I adore his work because of how carefully he mimics the original style, buuut it also means that his stuff is constantly stolen and passed off as original WPA work!  Despite the fact that Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park wasn’t know as such until, y’know, 1960. :)

Go check out his site, read up on the history of the whole project, buy some posters- all of Doug’s work has the NPS stamp of approval, so I can guarantee that no one is recreating these posters with the same amount of fastidiousness and care. :)