Your Ah Haa Moment: Art School Classes for All Ages

27 Jun Your Ah Haa Moment: Art School Classes for All Ages

Many Options for Fourth of July Week

Last week, while Telluride hummed along with Bluegrass, the Ah Haa School was abuzz with new art camp students, summer interns, and all things art auction, as the school preps for its major annual fundraiser, July 19. This week marked the beginning of a full schedule of summer classes for adults, including swing dancing, Painting From Within drop-in classes with Robert Weatherford, Drawing and Painting the San Juan Landscape with visiting artist Carrie Kaser and the launch of Ah Haa’s new Tuesday afternoon cooking class series at The Village Table restaurant in Mountain Village.

Every week the Ah Haa School has something new to offer, from four-day youth art immersion camps to unique and interesting classes for adults in a variety of subject matter. The coming week is no exception, with a class in jewelry soldering techniques on Sunday, poetry on Monday, and drop-in Canvas & Cocktails and clay classes on Thursday, not to mention the beginning of a month-long series of classes taught by perennial favorite kids’ instructor Brooke Ahana Bailey.

Telluride’s Cindy Farny will break in the summer jewelry studio with a class in Soldering Basics on Sunday, June 30, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Students of all levels can learn a variety of soldering techniques to advance their jewelry making skills using copper, silver and brass. The aim is not to complete a project, per se, but rather master soldering techniques for future projects.

Rosemerry, Kaycee Clark

Another Tellurider, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, teaches a class that celebrates the Sufi poet Rumi, Monday, July 1, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

“With passion pray. With passion make love. With passion eat and drink and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God?,” Jalaladin Rumi (1207-1273)

“And with passion, we’ll read and converse and write,” says Trommer. “Rumi, a Sufi poet, theologian and teacher born in Persia, has been the best-selling poet in America since the 1980s. His is a universal voice for cosmic, Divine love, not limited by religious beliefs, not embroiled in dogma. Into our modern, synthetic, technological world starved for real ecstasy, Rumi spills ecstasy.”

Students will talk about Rumi’s life, read his poems from multiple translators, and write their own poems in response to his words.

“All are welcome, regardless of poetic experience,” says Trommer. “As Rumi would say, ‘It’s rigged – everything in your favor. So there is nothing to worry about.’”

Those who are curious about painting or clay are encouraged to take advantage of Ah Haa’s Thursday evening Canvas & Cocktails classes (bring your own beverage), 6-8 p.m., or Clay Thursdays, 5-7:30 p.m. Both drop-in classes give people the flexibility of creating some art in a more casual, less-guided environment. Dabbling and experimenting is encouraged. Cost for either class is $30, which includes materials. Just show up and Ah Haa will provide the rest.

Kids take note: Brooke Ahana Bailey has arrived with a full month’s worth of fun, creative classes, including next week’s four-day Paint Like Pollack camp to her Fabulous Friday Art Attack and Color Crazed classes. A resident of Los Angeles, Bailey has been teaching at Ah Haa as a visiting artist for many years. When her classes are not in session, she is also available to teach privates in everything from painting to jewelry making.

Brooke Ahana Bailey with kids

For full course descriptions, instructor biographies and registration, go to ahhaa.org.