american wilderness

Ranger Doug sells reproductions of the WPA National Parks posters. I love Ranger Doug. Recently my dad sent me two packages of Doug's postcards (these are big packages; i have a lot of postcards hanging on my wall). The color palate and the block print aesthetic does a lot for me. I am particularly fond of the twilight purples burnt oranges. Also, the services the posters advertise: "field trips,""motor caravans," "nature walks". Oh! Adventure!

I think I love these posters because I want to see the America they portray, an America beautiful and wild and various, in spite of the depression or the war. I want to roam across this America. Nature, big and eternal as it is, forgets war and poverty and suffering, and I, an American wanderer, clamor to be immersed in nature, to exchange self-consciousness for the openness of air, and to feel myself not an American citizen, but a part of the American landscape.