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Show 6A Sun Advocate, Price, Utah Wednesday, OctoberU J98J PHOTOGRAPHY AND STORY: Al Hartmann of the Sun Advocate To the Desert Ha ve you ever seen the desert in the early, early dawn, with the dew still on the lily, and the starlight not quite gone? Have you been there at the noontime when the autumn sun was high, watched purple haze on distant mountains, as white wooly clouds float by? Have you seen it on an evening when the twilight shadows fall, and the last red sunbeam lingers spreading magic overall? Have you watched with eyes for beauty, beauty wrought in God's own way? If you ha ve, 7n sure and certain you 'll be back again some day. By Olive Hunt Olive Hunt has been writing poetry for most of her life. Her favorite themes - As I walked GREEN RIVER up the path and up the stairs I was surrounded by rocks. If I was a rock hound, I would have been in paradise. As I started to knock on the door I heard, Come on in in a loud but friendly voice. I thought, wait a minute, isnt this Olive Hunt an elderly, serene She likes to paint, write but not be a housewife poetess and painter. This voice doesnt fit in with my preconception of her. Upon opening the door my preconception of Olive was thrown out the window. Across the room from me was a humorous and d lady with white hair. I knew after just a few minutes that she had been around. Her first words to me were, As you can see, I like to paint and write and run around in the desert but I dont like to be a housewife. Olive Hunt is as native a southern Utahn as red sandstone. She was born in Kanesville, went to sharp-witte- . TP&wK'sx--?- , , , -- s r ' J1 ' are nature and humanity. - ' A Olive shows a fossil specimen out of her t . grade school in Loa, lived part of her life in Hanksville and her later years in Green River. As a child she helped herd her fathers cattle. At 14 she worked for $1 a week washing clothes over a washboard for a family of five. I was married at 16, she said. I should have been spanked and put to bed instead. Olive loves the desert and shes not afraid to let others know it. I learned the beauty of the rocks, trees and even the weeds, she said. I get my ideas for my poetry and painting from nature and changing seasons.1 When she was a young girl she took three painting lessons. With only this much direction she started to paint, mostly for her pleasure but later on for friends and other desert lovers. She paints the things she loves the best, from her cabin in the Henry Mountains to Dead Horse '1 'a w, vast collection. Even at 86 she manages to get to the Point. I believe in painting what I see, she said. I have a pretty accurate eye for colors and theres plenty out there to get right. While still a young girl she started to write poetry. She now has 125 poems which are ready to be printed. The poems are of the things she knows the most, mother nature and human nature. With her increasing age she seems to have acquired a clarity that most of us never realize. She has taken to writing words of wisdom. The theres a lot of beauty in my head, Id soon be talented than she said. beautiful. You know which will take you farther. As if her poetry and painting arent enough things to do, Olive is d rock hound. Her a collection stretches throughout her house, onto the front porch and around to the side of the house. Her rock garden is actually just that, everything from petrified palm wood to jasper and pigeons die-har- blood. I pretty well know one rock greatest thoughts of man from another. If I dont know by are born; when with grief his soul now, I never will, she said. is torn. This writer got a crash course in Let sin stay a mistake; never let it become a habit. He who never doubted never lived. And he whos never conquered doubt has naught but doubt to give. Olive is grateful for her talents. Im not beautiful anymore, but geology and mineral identification. Now whats this one called, Bonehead, she asked. I think its jasper, I said. What! if that was any better a piece of petrified wood itd bite your hand off, she said. Boy, you young people are slow in the head these days, she added. wm desert to go rock hounding. |