”A Rare Treat“
24 X 30 Oil
Inspired by an actual scene during the sesquicentennial re-enactment of the Pioneer
Trek, A Rare Treat portrays events at the end of another long day of travel. In 1997,
David was fortunate to travel with several other artists, sketching and photographing
the camps and travels along the trail. Typical of David’s interest in the common
scene, A Rare Treat focuses our attention on the beauty and interest of the mundane.
The Mormon corral presents a lively, interesting scene, three hundred men, women,
and children grouped within the space occupied by the encircled wagons very naturally
making it so. A few of the families have small tents that are put up both inside
and outside the corral; the rest sleeping either in their wagons or under them. The
whole outfit is divided into messes of convenient size, and, as soon as camp
is located, the first thing to do is to start the fires; those whose duty it is to
provide fuel foraging around in every direction for ‘chips,’ sage brush, or any other
material available, and soon forty or fifty bright little fires are twinkling inside
and outside the corral, with coffee pots, frying pans, and bake ovens filling the
air with appetizing incense. . .and as soon as the camp work is done the younger
element
gather in groups and ‘trip the light fantastic toe’ with as much vim as if they had
not had a twenty mile march that day.”
William Henry Jackson
Private Collection