It’s called “Storytelling by the River.”

Picture this: A campsite enticingly located across from a strategically located downtown structure known as “The Turquoise”. The Turquoise now sports a new mural of many colors which is representative of the gathering of many cultures, and is offering a pre-storytelling soup cook-off potluck — a fundraiser for the Bluff Community Foundation. (You put money in a box in front of the soup of your choice.)

Then we cross Bluff’s main street to the campsite itself, situated next to a storied place for overnight lodging called the Recapture Lodge, which just happens to be adjacent to the San Juan River.

It’s the evening of October 17. For atmospherics, besides the river, there’s a campfire and impromptu music into the night.
There will be a reading by featured guest Debbie Weingarten, winner of this year’s Ellen Meloy award for desert writers, and an open mic for storytellers of all stripes.

And that’s just for starters — the festival, set in Bluff, Utah, population 250, stretches on throughout the weekend, encompassing seventeen workshops, numerous art displays highlighting the artwork of the Four Corners area, indigenous and otherwise, studio/gallery tours, more storytelling, more music, a standup comedian, oh, and a film festival featuring the same sort of cultural cross-pollination as the array of artwork — the workshops carrying everything from writing to basket weaving, to silversmithing, to stuff for kids…

One might wonder how such a thing happens in a tiny town like Bluff. Bluff is a straightforward two-hour coast from Moab. There are some nice restaurants and places to stay overnight, a couple of trading posts and several RV parks. There is one gas station (connected to one of the trading posts) next to a convenience store that offers, among other treats, a breakfast pizza.

An unlikely venue, perhaps, for a regional arts extravaganza, but look again. The people of Bluff, sitting as they do at the edge of Monument Valley, the Bears Ears National Monument and the Hovenweep ancestral ruins, among other area attractions, take their position in the Four Corners art world very seriously.

I’m talking with Anne Brown, a two-year resident of Bluff and the outreach coordinator for the festival, which is now in its 20th year. She tells me the main purpose of the event is to provide an opening for Four Corners artists to display and sell their art at the Saturday art market.

But there is so much more. The film festival on Friday night, she tells me, is, again, about the Four Corners area and features a number of indigenous film makers. “My favorite part is the drive-in screen,” she says. “It’s huge. They tie it to the side view mirrors of trucks in the Community Center parking lot” --

Anne is representative of a sizeable segment of Bluff’s populace. A writer with a life-long background working her various talents, she jokes that out of 250 Bluff residents, 150 of them are writers. “That’s what happens when you have a lot of old retired people who move to the middle of nowhere,” she says, adding that younger people are now moving in as well, given the chance to work remotely from Bluff.

As for the festival itself, she cites the community’s avid participation in every aspect, from working the multitude of events to keeping it all cleaned up with a communal program dedicated to recycling. “Everybody pitches in.”

The nitty-gritty: The festival runs from Thursday evening, October 17th through Sunday, October 20th. Book reservations asap, in Bluff, if available, or in neighboring Blanding, Utah. Useful links: bluffartsfestival.org for the latest info and schedules; and bluffutah.org, which will tell you everything you need to know about booking a place and what the area has to offer.