Purple Hat's "Purple's Sunset" is showing this Saturday and Sunday, February 10 and 11, 2007, at the 7th Annual Revieller Festival at Madera's famous Quady Winery!

"Purple's Sunset," a stunning sunset image taken from a 11,550 northern California peak, is a spectacularly sized 60" x 12", and is printed on canvas, gallery wrap style, on stretcher bars! "Everyone thinks it's a painting," says Purple Hat, "but actually it's a photograph!"

Fresno based, Purple Hat, a member of Fresno's exclusive Love Song Art Shows (http://fresnoart.atspace.com) is also a wilderness poet, and has written this poem about the image:

"PURPLE'S SUNSET"

So my buddy
Joe,
Joe Bag,
Joe Bag A Donuts,
called,
and said he wanted to go to the Sierras,
so he could shoot the full moon from atop Leavitt Peak,
the next night,
and before you could say ghiardia,
we were on our way,
making,
it seemed,
at least as many stops
as Hunter Thompson did in smell A,
before he left for Vegas!
We ever so slowly progressed up highway 108 to Sonora Pass,
where we engaged in our normal pre-hike carbo and fluid loading
at least until we ran out of chips and beer,
and blurrily went to sleep,
I think!
Anyway,
that's my story,
and I'm sticking to it!
The next morning,
we couldn't believe our eyes,
for a van showed up,
and a woman with a backpack got out,
and then the van took off.
At Sonora Pass,
you can either hike north,
or south,
which gave us
pretty good odds
that our adventure might get significantly richer!
But alas,
Sarah,
a retired former professional triathlete,
from Switzerland,
was going north,
all the way to
Canada!
Not only was Sarah doing the PCT,
but she was doing it fast,
30 miles a day,
and she was doing it heavy,
with a 70# pack.
"Hey," she said to me,
"I like your purple hat.
Can I have it?"
Making another of my monumentally really stupid decisions,
I told her no,
but she gave me my backpacking handle,
"PURPLE HAT."
It was tough to leave such an accomplished backpacker,
let alone head in the opposite direction,
but we did,
heading south six miles,
literally along the very top of the Sierras,
until we got to the base of 11,550' Leavitt Peak,
where our adventure kicked into high gear!

Somehow we got to its rocky top,
just before dark,
and to our west,
owing to all of the particulate matter in the sky
from all of those forest fires that year
was an,
no,
was the,
most incredible sunset
I'd ever seen,
Grabbing my camera,
I snapped "Purple's Sunset."
Others had made a low three sided shelter
out of the dinner plate sized rocks
and while it was only 2' high
it kept the wind off of me
as I pondered,
in my nice warm bag,
the ying of the destruction of trees and the death of animals,
and the yang of the beauty that I'd witnessed!
Poor
Joe,
Joe Bag,
Joe Bag A Donuts,
stayed up all night in the cold and wind
trying to get his shots.
On awakening,
I was reminded of my thought,
for to the east,
the rising sun struggled through all of the same
particulate matter,
which again acted like a prism,
separating the light into shades of black,
then blue,
and then white!
Grabbing my camera,
I snapped "Blue Sunrise."
When
Joe,
Joe Bag,
Joe Bag A Donuts
awoke,
he told me he'd gotten nothing,
but cold,
last night!
"Well,"
I said when he asked,
"I got a couple of nice shots."

Purple Hat

Get 10% off the purchase price of "Purple's Sunset" this weekend at Quady Winery, by bringing in a copy of this poem!