May 2011

[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with Robert Lemler]

 

kicker: Lemler teaches "Light & the Figurative Subject in Oil"

Nude Telluride's Ah Haa School continues its summer immersions program with an intensive in "Light & the Figurative in Oil." The class is scheduled for Thursday, July 7 –  Sunday, July 10. The instructor is Robert Lemler.

We hold these truths to be self evident.... Art and light became twins at the end of the 19th century with the emergence of the Impressionists, but throughout art history, artists have used light to direct the eye of the viewer. Rembrandt, for instance, routinely lit eyes, the windows of the soul, and hands. Vermeer transformed light into dots, blobs and dashes of white paint that danced in the foreground of his paintings, suggesting the eye land here or there. (And then go goofy about the details in the overall image.) 

[click "Play", Julia Wentworth discusses Wild West Fest with Susan]

 

From a walk on the wild side to a celebration of the Wild West...

Wild West 2003- Ben 021 Telluride's Sheridan Arts Foundation hosts the 20th annual Wild West Fest, June 5 – June 11, 2011. Inner-city youth, artists and performers from across the nation visit  town for a week-long immersion into Western arts, culture and customs.

An integral part of the Wild West Fest is the Chip Allen Mentorship Program or C.A.M.P.,  created in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America

By Lauren Metzger

Ahhaa_june Hello Telluride. Though the weather does not reflect it, the summer season is starting! The Ah Haa School has quite the lineup this summer of dynamic local artist exhibitions, both in Daniel Tucker Gallery and our East Gallery. I am proud to announce that this June we will be featuring the photography of Carl Marcus and the oil paintings of Susan McCormick. Both will remind you of the beauty this amazing region holds and that spring is coming!

Carl Marcus has a true talent for capturing nature's awe-inspiring beauty. A constant supporter of the Ah Haa School, I was first introduced to Carl while working on my first auction several years ago. He had donated one of his "magical landscapes" and it did indeed take my breath away. When I asked him about how he is able to capture this beauty, he replied, "The images try to recreate the aspect of vast spaces in unfolding nature that literally take away ones breath; and attempt to convey them to others; not so much the detail, but the underlying immensity of the micro and macro." He added that always having his camera with him and being open to what is happening around him, are the times that those images present themselves and he is able to capture and share them with everyone. Thank you Carl, for being open! Other current works will be displayed with these magical landscapes. Which by the way will be 5 foot images. This is a show not to be missed!

By Lisa Barlow

Frozen Pond I am sitting in the most celebrated restaurant in the world and I have just been served a piece of ice. It is almost as if the pretty white bowl in front of me is empty, except that across its top is a perfect meniscus of clear frozen water. “Frozen Pond” the waiter announces with a smile, while another waiter taps mint dust with green tea and sugar across the top. We are handed spoons and asked to crack the ice. “Tastes like a stick of gum” my husband whispers. But I am decades away in a pink polka dotted parka that I have unzipped to fill with wind so it will sail me on my childhood ice skates across Long Island’s Mecox Bay.

Many things can happen to you if you are lucky enough to eat at El Bulli, Ferran Adrià’s extraordinary culinary laboratory on Spain’s Costa Brava. And you may not really understand the nature of your experience until it is long over. Certainly there is the excitement that you are about to enjoy a great meal, as well as recognition that you are part of history. El Bulli, the restaurant, will close at the end July. But there are many other emotions engendered by what is on your plate to take you by surprise. Frozen water, for instance. What starts out as a joke (the emperor, or in this case, the diner, has no clothes!) turns into a well-placed palate cleanser with Proustian effects.

By Jon Lovekin

(Editor's note: One of the pleasures in publishing Telluride Inside... and Out is getting to know new  [to us] writers. Susan and I independently ran across Jon Lovekin on Twitter. She took the next step, checked out his writing, liked what she saw and asked if he would be interested in contributing to TIO. Herewith, another article from Jon.)

Chelsea Chelsea saved my life.

It was January in Boulder, Colorado and approaching 20 below zero. We lived in an old barn converted into a house sometime in the '30s or '40s. It was on a large plot of land two blocks in from Canyon Boulevard not far from the east end of the then new Boulder Mall. My roommates were in the trades and we had a lively bunch at the house each morning around 7 am discussing the coming day's work and drinking coffee. I was rarely at my best at that hour as I was merely a student at the University and typically got home well after midnight from my geology study group.


Waiting for the Panel At a morning Coffee Talk held hosted by Mountainfilm in Telluride on May 28, a panel discussion examined "The Greg Mortenson Story." The questions on the table came down to this: Was a book a bank? Was Mortenson, a humanitarian hero, simply clueless about corporate accountability? Or did the man Nicholas Kristof described as "modest, passionate and utterly disorganized" simply succumb to the headiness of Warhol's 15 minutes? A foible but not a crime.

Background:

Mortenson ("Three Cups of Tea")  was in Telluride as a presenter for Mountainfilm 2010. I was in that Standing Room Only crowd at High Camp in Mountain Village where a genial, heartfelt Mortenson spoke to a rapt audience of supporters about his not-so-secret weapon in the War On Terrorism: books not bombs. He talked about his non-profit, the Central Asia Institute, dedicated to educating young people, especially girls, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, starting with the bricks and mortar. Mortenson encouraged the young people in the audience to give pennies if they could to help other young people half way across the world. Many raided their piggy banks. And the kids were not alone.

May 26 to June 2, 2011
Visible Planets: Morning: Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter  Evening: Saturn

Ecliptic Awakening, Experience and Catharsis

Telluride Falls I’m a big fan of “eclipse windows” – the days and weeks leading into, during and following the exact celestial alignment of the Sun and Moon at the time of solar and lunar eclipses. I’ve had some of my most devastating and ecstatic moments during these days and weeks. I’ve also watched the world experience and move through powerful events – the death of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa in the same week, G.H.W. Bush’s 1991 invasion of Iraq and the dramatic passing of pop icon Michael Jackson – that constellate the energies and emotions of the collective psyche and, ultimately, mandate transformation. The imperative process of awakening, experience and metamorphosis is cathartic. We face issues we might otherwise ignore, are forced to examine situations and conditions of people and places near and far, ingest data, witness reactions and shape-shift through the individual and collective deepening of our understanding and compassion for life here on planet Earth.

 I've spent 12 seasons teaching skiing to people with handicaps, so I really responded to this video by Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel. Ted's contribution this week of a Labrador Retriever missing a left front leg reminded me how important heart and desire...

By J James McTigue

The Baffin Babes are four rad chics with whom it would be fun to have a beer, go dancing, or ski tour 1200 kilometers in the Canadian Arctic over 80 days. Except you weren’t invited on the ski trip; they chose to do it all on their own.

Babes Swedish sisters Vera and Emma Simonson, along with Norwegian friends Inga Tollefson and Kristin F. Olsen spent 80 days traveling along the eastern coast of Baffin Island, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world.

At Mountainfilm in Telluride they will be presenting their trip, the glacial scenery, and remote Inuit villages they visited, as well as the fun they had, in a multimedia presentation at 6:45 Friday night at the Sheridan Opera House and 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Palm. (Palm showing is free to the public).

[click "Play", Dr. Rick Hodestalks about his work, especially about Prudence Mabhena]



 The announcement came at the closing event of Mountainfilm in Telluride, and there was not a dry eye in the Park. But its outcome remained something of cliffhanger until now. Now, at the 33rd annual Mountainfilm Festival, those of us in attendance, rapt fans of the brave young woman, get to learn the fate of Prudence Mabhena, left in the healing hands of Dr. Rick Hodes.

Dr. Rick Hodes has lived Mountainfilm's 2011 theme, Awareness Into Action, every day of his working life.

Rick Hodes is an American doctor who has lived and worked in Ethiopia for over 20 years. He is the Medical Director of Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a 97-year-old NGO, in charge of all the Ethiopians immigrating to Israel since late-1990. Rick has also worked with refugees in Rwanda, Zaire, Tanzania, Somalia, and Albania.