Ucross Arts Festival Draws Large Crowd

Music, artwork, and books were all on display at The Ucross Arts Festival on Sunday, August 28 at the Park at Ucross. Over 500 people came out to enjoy the warm, sunny day, listen to the music, and enjoy good food from the food trucks that were set up.

The Ucross Arts Festival is a part of Sheridan’s Celebrate the Arts event.

Ucross Foundation President Bill Belcher welcomed the attendees and introduced the performers. He talked about the event.

Featured performer was Jalan Crossland, nationally acclaimed as being a premier acoustic guitarist, banjo player and singer-songwriter. He was a fellow at the Ucross Foundation.

Crossland, a Tensleep, Wyoming native, has been nationally acclaimed by audiences, critics and his musical peers as being a premier acoustic guitarist, banjo player, singer-songwriter and showman.

A one-man band, Crossland said he has been playing music since 1983, and added, “I play guitar and banjo and harmonica well, and mandolin and foot percussion fairly badly.”

As well as many regional awards, his guitar work has earned him the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship Runner-Up honors in 1997, and the Wyoming State Flatpick Championship title. He has recorded ten albums, and they were available for purchase at Ucross, as well as on his website.

During the intermission between Crossland’s music sets, Brandon Hobson, author from Las Cruces, New Mexico, read an excerpt from one of his works. He is a recipient of the Ucross Fall 2021 Fellowship for Native American Writers, and had this to say about his fellowship.

Hobson’s latest novel Removed, and was published in 2021 and won the Western Heritage Award. Another book, Where the Dead Sit Talking, was a finalist for the National Book Award, among other distinctions. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Tribe in Oklahoma, has four books published.

Although not present at the event, Savannah LeCornu, (LeCorn) a spring 2022 recipient of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists, contributed a small print of her artwork for each participant at the event.

Upcoming events at the Ucross Foundation will include a Grand Re-Opening of the Ucross Art Gallery, on November 4, with an exhibition opening for Time, Mark, Memory: Ucross at 40.

The Annual Ucross Community Christmas Celebration will be held on Dec. 17.