![]() Frank Solivan and Jillian Lea return to the festival this year to perform on The Gap Stage at 3:30 on June 8th. Frank combines the pure, hard drive of classic bluegrass with contemporary acoustic music sophistication. Along with his band, Dirty Kitchen, Frank has toured the world and racked up a steady stream of accolades, including two Grammy nominations and two awards for IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year. Jillian Lea grew up playing classical, folk, jazz and Celtic music with her twin sister and music-loving parents. She was classically trained on the flute before focusing her attention on the penny whistle. In recent years, she has gravitated to the world of bluegrass and the upright bass. Jillian has toured with regional and national acts for decades. We asked Frank and Jillian about coming back to our festival. What about our A.T. Festival makes you want to return? We are thrilled to be a part of an event that celebrates the A.T. and the Great Outdoors. These places have been such a huge part of our lives and health that we cannot imagine living in a world that did not protect such places. Are you hikers? Hiking is what we do to find peace. It is our solace through hard times or overwhelming times. It is hard to describe the joy and comfort the woods lend. It is as though we know everything will be fine. Our favorite local place is Crow's Nest in Stafford. We also love to go around the reservoir at Mott's Run in Fredericksburg. Our go-to A.T. spot is accessed at Sky Meadows. We love the views and the challenge of the elevation changes. We are planning a multi-day hike from Sky Meadows to Harpers Ferry to take on the notorious "Roller Coaster." Gotta love the feeling of conquering a challenge. What's new/noteworthy with your music recently? We are excited to be taking our music to Martha's Vineyard this summer. We have never been there, and we can't wait to bicycle all over the island and maybe spot a whale! Frank is taking his full band to Bolivia this summer to celebrate distinct American culture and how music can bring people together across language and cultural differences.
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![]() Morris Jensen loves to travel and paint. His sketches and paintings have recorded journeys in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, the U.S., Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Thailand, Vietnam, Kenya, France, Greece and Corsica. Jensen comes to the States this year to hike the A.T. in Virginia, sketching as he walks. He'll bring his new pictures to the festival's "Art of the Trail" show. We asked Jensen about his art and hiking. Does sketching enhance your hiking experience? I hike to sketch; nowadays, I rarely go out hiking or walking without taking a sketchbook. When sketching, I stop and get to see all sorts of things others may miss. As I sit quietly, the kingfisher returns to its fishing perch, the deer, having been spooked by a group passing by, returns to drink. The hardest thing to do, especially if hiking in a group, is to stop and sketch. You feel bad for holding the others up; so, let them go ahead and share the art with them later. What sort of sketches do you do on the trail? Mainly atmospheric rather than realistic. It depends a lot on the subject. An atmospheric sketch can only be captured at the moment; a realistic painting can be reproduced later from a photo. Other types of sketches that I like to do and ones I like to give away are 8x6-inch postcards of simple views as I’m hiking along, a hill crest, a fallen tree, or stump, a small bridge. I can then add a person's figure to these sketches at camp on an evening or on zero days. I attach my contact details to the back to stay in touch. And sometimes I get commissions this way. What art supplies do you carry with you on a hike? There's no one best kit to carry—as all trips differ from each other albeit a day hike, a few days camping or a six-week Camino trip. Now, I’ve seriously had to rethink my kit for my three-month Appalachian Trail project, mainly because I need to be able to carry everything I'll need along the trail, including food and water. I will carry two paint boxes, both designed for travelling. My first holds 14 pans and is for general painting. The second—a Painters Pocket Palette—holds 12 colours for mixing more greens, greys and earth colours, plus a few reds. (My go-to red is Alizarin Crimson.) You need to know your colour wheel and keep the old paint in your paint box corners for those greys needed to paint tree branches, rocks and rainy skies. I am not a brush snob; I take old brushes, cut them down to about six inches and throw them into a zip bag. I'll carry large and small flat brushes, various rounds, a short and a long rigger and a trimmed fan. By far the heaviest thing I carry is paper, so it's best to give it away. I cut and carry about 60, 8x6-inch rectangular sheets of watercolour to paint on and give away as gifts or exchange for beer, snicker bars and tea bags. Other items I carry are sponges, a folding water pot, a kneading eraser, a viewfinder, a spray bottle and a folding seat. I also bring a craft knife for trimming pencils to a chiselled edge. This all adds to my weight, which is why I need a separate front pack. All in all it weighs about 2 kilos/ 3.5 lbs. What will you be working on as you hike? I'll be sketching many more scenes than painting them because it puts less pressure on me to produce full watercolours. I'll also carry a small sketchbook for details like fallen trees, the fire pit next to a shelter, a lone privy and the interesting old bridges. Also, local fauna and flora. All these subjects can, with the aid of photo references, be added to a full painting once I’m back home in my studio. This leaves my main sketchbook free for fuller scenes. I will do a few full watercolours, as show pieces for the A.T. Festival, and for this I will need a dozen or so sheets of high quality paper. This needs to be transported in a lightweight but solid case to avoid damage and humidity. Pen and wash is primarily an urban sketching technique that can be adapted for landscapes. Using a permanent ink pen I first draw the subject before filling in the colour, a handy method to capture details in topics such as stone and wood shelters and sign posts. ![]() Lisa Kovatch of Simply on Union has supported our A.T. Festival as a vendor from the start, and she returns this year with her ever-popular Chestnut's Beeswax Food Wraps—plus more! Her eco-minded wares are a perfect reflection of the festival's mission of environmental protection. Here's a guest blog from Lisa: As a child, I lived in Kenya, where vibrant hues and bold patterns dominate textiles and where the landscape we explored on family camping safaris was vast and untamed. Creativity and resourcefulness abounded, and remain traits I value to this day. I use traditional methods to make useful, eco-friendly products with a whimsical, modern twist. When I learned that microplastics are in our waterways and even in the food we are consuming, I was motivated to reduce the use of plastics in our household. My CHESTNUT'S line of reusable Beeswax Food Wraps, a compostable alternative to single-use plastic wrap, has grown to include small-batch, plant-based soap for the kitchen and bath, natural lip balms, and shampoo bars. I love the alchemy of making cold-process soap and blending essential oils to scent my products, which delight the senses while being kind to the environment and our skin. All my packaging is compostable and/or recyclable. I enjoy helping others achieve a zero-waste lifestyle that is both stylish and fun! My little studio is tucked into the rolling Blue Ridge foothills near the Shenandoah River in lovely and historic Bolivar, West Virginia. I feel fortunate that there are so many wonderful local trails that I can easily access from my front door, including the Appalachian Trail, and that I am able to watch the seasons unfold in the hills around me. As an A.T. "dreamer" myself, I love looking out my studio window and seeing the thru-hikers walk by on their way north in the summer. I keep my yard kind of wild and it's not uncommon for hikers to remark that they like the "toilet paper" I have growing—mullein plants! ![]() This year's festival hosts an invitational art show, "Art of the Trail," featuring the work of A.T.-inspired artists. Here's a guest blog from one of our artists, Monica Aguilar of Chasing Trails Art. In 2018, I hiked from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. This was a 2,200 mile journey that spanned six months of hiking up and down the mountains of the East. It was hard work; sometimes I cried because it was so difficult and other times I cried because it was so beautiful. I was inspired by the beauty around me. The big and small views from the small flowers that bloomed as I walked into spring and summer to the sweeping vistas. Hiking the trail showed me that life is about slowing down, creating and living the life you want to live. That journey inspired me to pick up a paint brush and create again after many years of not painting. Since then, I have completed numerous "human-powered" adventures, including bike-packing the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and part of the Pacific Crest Trail. These adventures have served as an inspiration for much of my work. I believe that in nature, we find ourselves and are able to challenge ourselves in ways that the synthetic world cannot. My goal as an artist is to be able to help bridge that connection for people to discover a love for the outdoors and find their own challenge to inspire and drive them. ![]() Here's a guest blog from Rick Oxner, friend of the fest and owner of Warm Peet—both a sponsor and a vendor at this year's event: Warm Peet will be back for its fourth year at the Loudoun A.T. Festival. After all, this festival is where we launched our company in 2021, and it feels like home to us! Some things have stayed the same: we still make great socks and we still donate 100% of our profits to mental health organizations and nature conservation. In other ways, 2023 was a year of transition for us with personnel changes, departure from social media and a move to the Boston, MA, area. Moving forward in new directions is always exciting. We have a robust festival schedule this year, kicking off on May 18th in Boston at the NAMIWalks event where all profits will go to NAMI Massachusetts to support their work promoting mental health awareness. Find our complete festival calendar here: www.warmpeet.com/events. New sock designs and weights are in the works, and we anticipate launching new product lines by the end of the year—but, in the meantime, we have the same great OGs and no-shows available. We are also working on a retail presence in the northeast; details to come! Besides the Loudoun A.T. Festival, one of our local recipients of Warm Peet donations has been Rock Recovery located in Arlington, VA. This year, Rock Recovery will be supporting Warm Peet at the A.T. Festival and manning our vendor tent. I can’t say enough about the work they do and how much I appreciate their support. Rock Recovery bridges mental health treatment gaps by providing access to services including therapist-led groups, mentorship and community-based empowerment programs—regardless of financial position. The nonprofit specializes in treating eating disorders, one of the most destructive and deadliest of mental health conditions about which there is still much stigma and misunderstanding. Many people are surprised to learn that one in 10 individuals will struggle with an eating disorder in their lifetime, and that those suffering range from very young to very old and include all genders and ethnic groups. All Warm Peet profits from the A.T. festival will support Rock Recovery—and, through the end of 2024, you can use the code “recovery20” for online orders, and all profits tied to that code will go to them as well. |
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This page features artwork by Mike Wurman, an artist invited to participate in this year's Art of the Trail show.
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