When Terre Jones embarked on a three-month sabbatical in September of 2008, his goal was to link the beauty and wonder of America’s national parks to the arts. As the president and chief executive officer of Wolf Trap, he aimed to use his passion for photography to record the magnificence of many national parks new to him and perhaps turn the images into projects to further the relationship between them and America’s only national park for the performing arts.
Traveling a circuitous route of more than 18,000 miles, he covered 88 national parks, from Acadia in Maine to California’s Death Valley and Joshua Tree parks. To finalize his quest, he journeyed to Alaska’s Denali National Park in March 2009 for a week that added another thousand miles to his itinerary.
Back home, he studied the 19,000 photos taken along the way, whittling them down to 9,000 and eventually to 300 for a book. On Saturday, he and Wolf Trap Opera Director Kim Witman will present the images in “Through the Artist’s Lens,” a multimedia presentation enhanced by music. Copies of Jones’ book that inspired it will be available after the show.
| Onstage |
| The Discovery Series presents America’s National Parks: Through the Artist’s Lens |
| Where: The Barns of Wolf Trap |
| When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday |
| Info: $35; 877-965-3872; wolftrap.org |
“My goal in photographing the national parks of our country was to connect the land and the people,” Jones said. “I rather fancied myself accomplishing something like John Steinbeck’s ‘Travels With Charley: In Search of America,’ although I don’t write as well as Steinbeck and didn’t take a dog along. Some of the parks were new to me, such as Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont, now one of my favorites. I knew of others, like Acadia, but had never visited it.
“From New England, I traveled across the Midwest to the Rockies, the West and the Southwest in no particular line and reached Death Valley in December when it was raining and snowing somewhat. The precipitation there per year is less than one inch, so that was an unusual sight to see. At one point, I reached Idaho, but missed a couple of parks I hoped to see in that state. The beauty of traveling at my own pace allowed me to spend more time in surprising places.”
“People think of national parks for the iconic photos taken in many of them, but I try to look at them differently. I look for things that make a place personal and intimate, not in the grand scheme, but close up shots that give you the feeling of being there.”
Witman began planning her portion of Saturday’s show by contemplating some 60 of Jones’ photographs from his book and sharing them with the four Wolf Trap Opera alumni who will perform the music to accompany the presentation.”
