The Nature Consortium's 13th annual Arts in Nature Festival is this weekend, August 20th and 21st at Camp Long, 5200 35th Ave. s.w. This eclectic performance-based festival will bring a weekend of live music, dance troupes, aerial & fire performances, a Museum of Sound, interactive arts activities, and outdoor art installations.

There will also be performances by these artists:

Side Saddle - Lelavision – The Cabiri – Christian Swenson – Hexaphonic 3 – Ama Trio – NorthWest Dance Syndrome – Ranger & The Re-Arrangers – Sixth Day Dance -The Beaver Deceivers – Dixie King Brass Band – The Early Music Guild – The Rabbit Stew String Band – Caspar Babypants – Giant Puppets Save the World – Billy & The Bouncers – Minor Dissonance - The Lonely Coast

For the schedule of performances, go to http://www.naturec.org/festschedule2011/

If you’re interested in volunteering and available on Saturday, August 20, or Sunday, August 21, please call 206-923-0853 or email nancy@naturec.org.

A special feature of this year’s Arts in Nature Festival will be the Historic Clark Schurman painting, now framed and on display at the Lodge at Camp Long.

A generous donation by West Seattle framer Kay Rood has made possible the framing of a large Clark Schurman painting of Mt. Rainier for permanent display at Camp Long.

In 2006, Clark Schurman’s granddaughter, Laura Reason, donated the painting for Camp Long’s 65th Anniversary. Finally it will be on display in the main lodge of this city-owned park just in time for the Arts-in-Nature Festival. Seven other paintings capturing Schurman’s beloved mountains will be on display Saturday and Sunday in the alcove adjoining the main room of the Lodge.

“He was a natural-born artist and he loved mountains,” said Dee Molenaar, a painter and mapmaker who met Schurman in 1939. Schurman, known as “The Chief,” was the chief guide from 1938 to 1941 at Paradise, a popular high point on Mount Rainier. As a climber, he sketched and painted his journeys into a book published by The Mountaineers in 1939.