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    Picturing the Parks

    Texas photographer takes us on an amazing trek through every national park

    Tarra Gaines
    Aug 10, 2016 | 2:25 pm

    When photographer Mark Burns was growing up in Houston, he didn’t have many everyday opportunities to gaze upon great mountains and sweeping vistas, but that changed when his family went on vacations. In those family car trips to West Texas and Big Bend and then on to New Mexico or up into Colorado, Burns first began to understand the magnificence of this country’s vast landscapes.

    Now, years later, that appreciation has found its ultimate expression in his photographic exhibition The National Parks Photography Project, on view at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum beginning August 10.

    I recently had a chance to speak with Burns about the exhibit and what set him off on this monumental quest to capture one defining image from each of the 59 U.S. national parks. The project began over five years ago, after he created and produced the exhibit The Culture of Wine for the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station: Jean Becker, Bush’s chief of staff, asked if he had ideas for another exhibition.

    Even back in 2010, Burns was already thinking about a photographic way to commemorate the National Parks Service centennial anniversary in 2016. After an advisory committee was brought together and a “collaboration” with the Parks Service was made, Burns set off on his journey that would take him to every national park.

    The wild trek
    ​
    Though he began relatively close to home in the southwest, Burns eventually drove to all of the national parks in the lower 48 states in his Toyota FJ Cruiser, racking up about a 160,000 miles during his five-year odyssey. When driving wasn't an option, he left the Cruiser at home and flew to Hawaii, Alaska, and American Samoa to complete the list.

    “The third and fourth years, I was really all over the place, traveling extensively,” Burns explains, describing the route that took him 9,000 to 10,000 miles in one trip. “Some of the trips that I did took me from Houston through New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, over to Montana, and then back down through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico to Houston.”

    Many of the the parks he visited multiple times, “chasing weather and also trying to be there during different seasons,” he explains.

    From the onset, Burns planned on taking black-and-white photos of the parks, not only because of his artistic appreciation of the medium but also because he felt it was the best type of photography to link the parks in the 21st century back to the previous hundred years.

    “Right from the beginning, I made that connection in my mind that it would be a neat bridge to have people looking at photographs that would have a contemporary date, but they would be in black and white, and that would look similar to those [photos] of the 1910s, '20s, and '30s,” Burns says.

    The land and sea alone
    Looking at this vast expanses frozen in time on paper, visitors to the exhibit might notice that there are no people amid the mountains, rivers, glaciers, beaches, and cliffs, as Burns made a decision early on not to include the “human element.” He did include a few man-made structures, like Proenneke’s Cabin in Lake Clark National Park Alaska, and the lighthouse at Biscayne National Park, but only when they were an important element of the landscape or represented the character of the park.

    Burns also felt it necessary to draw a distinction between landscape and wildlife photography. The few animals captured in the photos, like the brown bears in the Katmai National Park, are such a part of the topography of those particular parks that he felt they had to be included.

    He also creates a balance in the exhibition between iconic images probably familiar to most Americans and those places of wilderness yet to be overwhelmed by the vacationing crowds. For example, while he captured beautiful pictures of the Yellowstone River, he realized after repeatedly hearing “Where’s Old Faithful?” that his photo of the famous geyser would have to go in the exhibition.

    Yet, when I ask Burns if there was an underappreciated park he grew to admire, he is practically poetic in his descriptions of Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California, a park he had originally just wanted to check off his list but that he revisited several times just to see the change of seasons.

    Texas beginnings
    While the The National Parks Photography Project might have officially begun five years ago, it's apparent while talking to Burns that this was a journey that truly began with those family trips of his childhood.

    “My dad would take my brother and me. For a period of about six or seven years, we would go to into southwestern Colorado and New Mexico. That’s were I cut my teeth in landscape photography,” Burns says, telling the tales of his first attempts at photographing the Southwest. Instead of the usual whines of a kid asking if they were there yet, he would ask his dad to stop along the road so he could get a picture of some image that had caught his young photographer’s eye.

    “We went to Big Bend some, and I certainly enjoyed going out to West Texas and Big Bend because it was such a different environment from Houston. My eye started to see landscapes probably in that Big Bend area.”

    Now, Texans can take their own journey into the wilds of our national parks with just a few steps into the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

    ---

    The National Parks Photography Project is on display until August 30 at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

    Yosemite Valley.

    Mark Burns photo of Yosemite Valley
      
    Photo by Mark Burns
    Yosemite Valley.
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    news/arts

    Elon News

    Dallas bookstore and publisher gets federal arts funding axed

    Luciana Gomez
    May 7, 2025 | 12:17 pm
    Deep Vellum stack of books
    Deep Vellum
    Stack of books at Deep Vellum

    A Dallas arts organization got its budget chopped by the federal government: Deep Vellum, the bookstore and publisher at 3000 Commerce St., lost a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant due to federal government budget cuts.

    According to owner Will Evans, the award, which is granted annually, has been terminated as of May 31. The bookstore had received $20,000 for the past six years.

    Deep Ellum started as a publisher in 2013 and opened their bookstore in Deep Ellum in 2015. Since then, they have become a center for literature lovers. Evans is a translator whose mission has been to translate the world’s best novels into English for American audiences.

    Evans was notified on May 2 via an email that was reportedly sent to grant recipients nationwide. The note read:

    "The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities."

    The new priorities included projects that elevate the Nation's HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.

    The Grants and Public Affairs departments at NEA did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday May 5, the Literary Staff was laid off, and the agency is facing possible elimination entirely, as part of the 2026 Discretionary Budget Request presented to Congress on May 2.

    This year's grant to Deep Vellum was earmarked to fund the translation, publishing, and marketing costs of four books:

    • Carapace Dancer by Natalia Toledo, translated from Zapotec, published trilingually with Spanish and English translations alongside the original, translated by Clare Sullivan
    • Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird of New Zealand, making her US debut, illustrated by Dallas artist Gino Dal Cin
    • Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz, translated from the German by Max Lawton, a 1001-page masterpiece and English-language debut
    • The Ruins by Ye Hui, translated from Chinese by Dong Li, the English-language debut from one of China's most distinguished and independent poets

    The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent federal agency established by Congress in 1965 as a funder of the arts and arts education in communities nationwide anxd a catalyst of public and private support for the arts with the goal of advancing opportunities for arts participation and practice, according to their website.

    In their last stats document updated in November 2024, their FY’24 budget was outlined as $207M (representing 0.03 percent of the total federal budget), with 80 percent of their budget supporting grants and awards to organizations and individuals across the country. They typically offer over 2,000 grants each year.

    "It’s been a strange few days for us, and for countless other nonprofit publishers, magazines, and arts organizations," Evans said.

    Despite the cut, Deep Vellum plans to continue to promote literacy through unique books translated to the English language.

    “This is not going to imperil our future but it’s something we need to consider as we move forward. These books are extraordinary, and they add so much for readers and culture. We just need to find additional revenue to fund them," Evans said.

    Evans was first to reveal the funding cut but a number of organizations across Dallas and Texas have seen similar cuts including Ballet North Texas, Flamenco Fever, Dallas Theater Center, and Bishop Arts Theatre Center, as well as a number of groups in Austin.

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