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Show iCr TT O Park Record Thursday, December 4, 1986 Page B9 nDDQCBiin " II ii i ' i A double life: Kamas painter blends life, art and history by ROBIN MOENCH I 1 mJ I I A mm t If : ... Record contributing writer "THEY SAID I WAS a wild Indian In-dian when I was growing up and now I've proved it," laughs ar-tistoutdoorswoman ar-tistoutdoorswoman Valeria Yost. Valeria enjoys the outdoor life to the fullest she paints it and she lives it. So involved in it is she, Valeria has an identity in an era in American history when men and women carved rough lives out of the Western wilderness. She is, in this role, a Lakota Sioux. . Understanding Valeria's double life is the key to understanding her watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings. draw-ings. Her art is on exhibit at the Valline Gallery, 1101 Park Ave., until un-til Dec. 20. . It is Valeria's first one-woman show. And, although the casual observer can appreciate the naturalistic beauty of her art, it can be enjoyed more completely if you know that it is built on historically accurate detail touches that are easy to miss. VALERIA GREW UP on a ranch near Modesto, Calif., where her family raised livestock. She established a rapport with animals and picked up on their personalities. per-sonalities. Today animal portraits are a large part of her commission work. Her interest in the outdoors developed as she camped out in the Coast Range and the Sierras with her parents. She had an eye for wildlife, and would take charcoal from the campfire to draw animals and scenes of camp life. Her artistic gift was recognized quickly. Her parents gave her her first watercolor set when she was 8, and a perceptive art teacher pushed push-ed her to improve, never settling for a mediocre effort. "I went through tubes of paint and art boards," said Valeria. "And she said, 'You can do better."' bet-ter."' Valeria became so adept, she began selling her paintings to pay for her art classes while she was still in high school. It could be those early buyers got in on a good thing. "Now people are banking on the fact that in five years a piece they bought for $250 or $500 will be worth $1,000," said Valeria. VALERIA AND HER family moved to Utah and settled in the Kamas Valley and into the High Uintas Mountain Man Group, a club with a membership of 25 families whose involvement with history and the outdoors is a way of life. Valeria, her husband, Ernie, and their children, Jared, 14, and Shawntel, 11, felt right at home with the group. One of half a dozen in the area, the club follows the traditions of the fur-trapping era of 1825 to 1840. Members make their own deerskin clothes and period belongings and meet in costume once a month. Valeria found a mentor and friend in Gerald Red Elk, a Sioux shaman, or medicine man, who was born and lived all his life on a reservation in Montana and worked - - vtir m js i k c ii ... '! A'ryfSBm H As 4i -tt'.r-Fj'.: " Above: In "Deer Slayer," Valeria Yost painted a scene from summer, when Indians In-dians moved to the mountains to cut new lodge poles. Below: In "Old Buck Takes the Kids Fishing," Buck's passengers have slipped through the fence to the fishing hole, leaving the patient horse waiting. The artist is often commissioned to catch animal personalities in portraits. Hobm Moench Dressed as Blue Flower Woman, Valeria wears mink casings on her braids and carries a turkey wing fan. with Brigham Young University to document the life of his people. Valeria describes him as a thoughtful man with independent ideas. A popular theory claims that the ancestors of Native Americans arrived on this continent by crossing cross-ing the Bering Strait (between the Soviet Union and Alaska). "But Dad Red Elk told a whole different story than the scholars," said Valeria. The symbols on the headband of his headdress reflected his belief that "The People" as the Sioux refer to themselves emigrated, not from the north, but from South America. . . . IT WAS HE who honored Valeria with the Sioux name and symbol that came to him in a dream. He called her Blue Flower Woman, and her symbol a stylized blossom decorates her clothing and implements, which are patterned pattern-ed after those of the Red Elk clan. "This isn't the tube, this isn't Hollywood," said Valeria, stressing that her Indian role isn't playacting, play-acting, but recreated history. She brings the same stubborn love of fact to her art. "I'm an avid reader," she said. "I go through old diaries and journals." As a result, her paintings are not just pretty pictures. They tell a story, and the facts come from history and observation. Each animal in her paintings is one she has watched and feels she knows. As much as three years of research goes into some of her watercolors. "I'm not an instant artist," she said. Her workroom is lined with books on outdoor lore and Indian life and texts on animal habits. From a file of snapshots beside her drawing board, she chooses pictures of v. y s jr v-u V; v . Ml) r j . f Gerald Red Elk honored Valeria with the Sioux name and symbol that came to him in a dream. He called her Blue Flower Woman, and her symbol, a stylized blossom, decorates her clothing and implements, im-plements, which are patterned after those of the Red Elk clan of Montana. sites often from the Uinta Moun-tainston Moun-tainston her doorstep she incorporates incor-porates into her work. She often rides on horseback into the hills around her house for an afternoon of sketching, sometimes bringing home flowers or sage to copy. Her attention to truthful detail says as much about her character as it does about her art. "If I paint a mule deer, it's going to be in mule-deer country," she said, "not in some clover patch." HER LIVING ROOM resembles a taxidermist's shop. Moose and deer heads project from the walls, a stuffed pheasant stands on the TV set, and a red-tailed hawk seems about to sail from its perch. "These are my models," she said with a sweep of her arm. From them she gets her colors and anatomy right. When her club meets Valeria dresses as Blue Flower Woman in one of her seven homemade dresses, among them a a home-cured, home-cured, natural white deerskin dress for fancy wear and a brown deerskin deer-skin "camp dress" for everyday. The leather dresses are so durable she expects them to last five years. When they get soiled, she said, she brushes them with sandpaper. These dresses, along with the moccasins she makes for herself and her family, are decorated with beadwork, a handicraft that along with leather branding she also teaches. In the last century, mountain men met for a week or two in the summer to trade and socialize. The tradition continues today. During rendezvous, as the event is called, the modern counterparts of Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith wear period clothes and use period tools. Last summer a national mountain-man convention was held on Elizabeth Ridge in the Uintas. "There were 3,000 of us," Valeria said. "We had our own medical crew, our own fire crew and our own police department." RENDEZVOUS RULES are strict to preserve the historic spirit. "You can't carry pop or beer cans. Anything modern like a cooler or a Coleman lantern has to be covered up." And "flatlanders," or tourists, are barred. The "buckskinners" sleep under hides instead of in sleeping bags and dress warmly (last July ice coated the homemade tipis and lodges) in elkskin vests, woolen leggings leg-gings and overdresses, and wool blanket "capotes" or cloaks. They carry their belongings in wooden chests and relax in "Indian chairs" willow backrests propped on the ground. They use black-powder black-powder rifles (Valeria is an expert with these old-fashioned weapons) and carry lead balls, carved powderhorns and flints in "possible bags" leather purses that held "everything possible" that mountain moun-tain men might need. For Valeria, the mountain-man life is a state of mind. "You live it regardless of what else is going on." Her spare time is spent on projects like making a "squaw saddle" sad-dle" of moosehide stuffed with padding pad-ding arranged on a wooden frame, or stitching new soles to the uppers of the family's well-used moccasins. moc-casins. "I think a part of me was born 150 years ago," she smiles. "There are times I feel uncomfortable in the modern world." But for the non-conformist Yosts, all this true-to-life activity isn't enough. Within a year or two they plan to move to property they own in northern Idaho. There they can be even closer to the undeveloped outdoors. Part of the Lewis and Clark Trail runs near their new home. You can't get much closer to history than that. y- ifW 77 j 3' . sr ii 1 1 i irL, I E B d MUSIC and DANCING HV Cinemas MOVIES Sneakers "Saturday night live" features live entertainment and dancing 9 to 1 a.m. The Columbine A private club with piano music 7 nights a week. Located at the Resort Center. Steeps Steeps at the Base will be offering apres ski Hors d' oeuvres and "Disco Dancing" nightly. There will be live entertainment for holidays and special events. Opening soon. The Pub at the Yarrow Park City s favorite, Kat James at 6-10 Wed. thru Fri., 8-2 Sat. Complimentary Hors d' oeuvres. Baja Cantina Thursdays: Local musicians JAMM NIGHT, 9 p.m. Fri. & Sat.: DON RUFFATO, 9-12 p.m. Located at the Park City Ski Area Grubsteak This week hear Brian Ellison play light and modern pop rock from 9 p.m. til 1 a.m. CROCODILE DUNDEE PG AN AMERICAN TAIL G SOMETHING WILD R See display ad for times. Located at Holiday Village next to Alpha Beta. HOME VIDEOS Alpha Beta Now features over 1 ,000 movies for rent in VHS. Open from 6 a.m. to Midnight. |