Integrating the Arts and Ecology
In 2019, WE EXPANDED OUR ORGANIZATION AND ARE NOW
100% NOT FOR PROFIT.
PROCEEDS FROM CABIN RENTALS GO DIRECTLY TO SUPPORT OUR NONPROFIT OPERATION AS EARNED INCOME.
OUR MISSION
“Enriching our community by building a creative network of practitioners in the arts through inspiration and place.”
Mancos resident, Holly F. Cruser brings her almost 50 years of experience growing daylilies to Willowtail Springs for a walk-about among the extensive gardens that include collections of numerous dayliles. We have over 70 cultivars lilies! Come learn a bit of the history, allure and even recipes that feature these remarkable and diverse plants.
Cost: $30 per person (*12 people max for each class)
FEATURED ARTISTS
Dan Groth
dangroth.com
Sponsored by 2016 Durango Arts Center
Elizabeth Kinahan
elizabethkinahan.com
Sponsored by Durango Arts Center
TESTIMONIAL
“As a lifelong lover of Nature, trained forester/entomologist, avid birder and devotee of the Arts, I see Willowtail Springs as important in myriad ways. Ecologically, its spring, umbilical to an invisible aquifer in the midst of an arid pinyon-juniper forest, breeds life. The structures and plantings exist in harmony with, and in some cases enhance, the native landscape. Perhaps its strongest asset in this age of increasing human disconnection from “wildness” and over-obsession with technology is its celebration of two things: our proper oneness with the environment and the resultant creativity that reunion ignites. Education, perhaps our species’ most noble enterprise, is rampant at Willowtail Springs. The place, together with its creative owners and adoring visitors, deserves to reach its boundless potential.”
~David Leatherman, CO State Entomologist
“This is a place that is timeless. The only voice you hear is the stillness and quiet, the present. Inspired by the wilderness and the creatures that inhabit it, the sounds of the breeze and the view of the setting sun. In nature we gain deeper understanding of ourselves and our place on this earth. This knowing comes from the land, is apparent to almost anyone who arrives. It’s immediate and almost magical. Only poetry can best describe what is felt in this place. To some it may feel sacred, to others it’s a connection lost. There is a growing list of retreats and residencies available in this graceful setting”.
~Margy Dudley, artist and photographer
Land Acknowledgment
“Willowtail Springs is located on Diné Bí Kéyah, traditional Navajo land, near the escarpment of the northern sacred mountain, Dibé Ntsaa. It is also part of the open range of the Ute people, now living on the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute Tribal Allotment reservations to the southwest and southeast. Additionally, Mesa Verde and the surrounding lands in Montezuma County and the Four Corners Region were occupied by the Ancestral Puebloan People a thousand years ago. We honor the past, present, and future indigenous people residing in this region and recognize them as long standing stewards of this land, amplifying our work by their historical presence and their living contributions to land preservation efforts across this region.”