Are museums collecting modern landscapers?

[Heroique]

But would a dictionary compiled by Ed Abbey say the same thing?

I would say YES. Abbey was every bit the academic that Thoreau was – and, like the cabin builder at Walden, he was both more and less than one, too.

Many examples come to mind, but here are just two:

1) Abbey wrote a moving tribute to Ralph Waldo Emerson and delivered it as a lecture for a class he (Abbey) taught at the Univ. of Arizona. One academic praising another academic within academe. (See his essay titled "Emerson.")

2) Outside academe, I'll let Abbey speak for himself about his own academic inclinations. For a 2-week boat trip, mostly alone, down the Colorado River, putting in at Moab, he considers the following items important enough to mention – I feel no need to put the relevant item in bold, but it ain't the .357!

"In my boat, I carried enough food for two weeks, a one-man tent, a sleeping bag, some warm clothes in a rubberized bag, five gallons of drinking water, and the many other items needed for a week or more in the wilds – cigars, bourbon, The Portable Tolstoy, matches, Demeral tablets, pen, notebook, a .357 and a P-38." (See his essay titled "River Solitaire: A Day Book").

Hmm, maybe I should add this list to the "10 Essentials" thread...

[Drew Wiley]

So you're implying he was a fake all along???? Not that I'm shocked. When we all piled into the tiny Mexican restaurant in town, most of the people wore cowboy hats and had cow poop on their boots. Some were working cowboys, some real Indians, and some university professors. I've got family members in the latter category. Reminds me of when I went back to DC, when someone wanted me to partner in their ad agency. A tree had fallen in someone's yard. We got on our shredded Levis and one of them borrowed a beat up old pickup and a chainsaw, to split up the firewood. They were all golf buddies. One was a big time corn lobbyist, another was the CEO of a major oil corp, another was actually a senator, then there we two photographers. They all hung out together on the weekends. On Monday, the put their suits on and shifted roles, and probably publicly called each other the devil. Clock in /clock out.

[Kirk Gittings]

Every dictionary online gave about the same definition. And FWIW, believe it or not, EA could be a name dropping snob.

[Robert Langham]

Show your landscapes to a few curators and find out. I had one acquired by the Farmington Museum today and they were really glad to get it. Got a gate photo from Hubbell Trading Post to ship to their collection this week. Might have two different landscape solo shows coming up and a fairly major traveling show of my Bestiary work kicking off 2016. My feeling is that many folks are reluctant to show their work but curators usually happy to be solicited.

[Kimberly Anderson]

Well done Robert. Your approach to the museums about their purchases and how you approach the solo shows might be an interesting insight for many here who have never sold work or had a show. Care to give us any details?

I'll be in Farmington the weekend of the 26th. I will have to see if I can sneak in and see it.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I've teased this tiger's tail long enough. Semantics personas can be fun. We used to have a union negotiator in these parts who would dress up in overalls and
talk like a sailor, then would sit down against a dozen lawyers. They all figured he was some dumb hick who would be a pushover. He spoke pure redneck with plenty
of rare expletives, and always went out of his way to ask the meaning any actual legal term in a contract, as if he didn't understand a word of it. But he'd be holding all the cards the whole time, and by the time those long ordeals were over, he consistently skinned them all alive.