BY KAREN BOSSICK

Cute little lamb faces will abound this weekend as the Trailing of the Sheep Festival trots out scads of amazing wool and sheep art at Saturday’s Sheep Folklife Festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Hailey and the Happy Trails Festival Closing Party from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at Ketchum Town Square.

You’ll find another very cute sheep piece peeking out on the world at Saddletree Gallery in The Courtyard at 360 East Avenue across from Ketchum Town Square.

Sun Valley’s Dru Shoemaker, who fuses together exquisite glass pieces, crafted the sheep glass art. It appears at the gallery along with other glass art pieces of hers, including a glass elk “painting” that has to be seen to be believed and several 16-inch fused glass bowls.

Dru Shoemaker’s glass painting of an elk must be seen in person to fully appreciate.

Shoemaker said the sheep piece was inspired by the sheep tradition in the Wood River Valley, as well as time spent at the Robinson Bar Ranch east of Stanley as a child.

“My family befriended numerous sheep ranchers and herders while caretaking for the Robinson Bar Ranch in the early 1970s,” she said. “I became very fond of them from this childhood experience. My sheep piece doesn’t have a name but it represents the gentle animal I came to appreciate as a child.”

Dru Shoemaker reveled in her time at the Robinson Bar Ranch, which for awhile was owned by singer Carole King.

Dru Shoemaker, her father and her brother take a snowmobile ride in this photo taken in 1967 or 1968.

The Robinson Bar Ranch is located near Sunbeam in Custer County north of Sun Valley.