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Author: Susan Viebrock

This is a story with a happy ending about how more is more.

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Writer Sandra Dorr


Telluride's award-winning Wilkinson Public Library had humble beginnings.  In 1965 a bookmobile came into town once a week. Library founders Larry and Betty Wilkinson met with the town's fire department to request space in the old Quonset hut. Once the hut was ready to hold a small collection of books, the library opened two or three days a week, three or four hours a day. The primary line item in the budget was coal-fired heat paid for by donations. At that time, the library's entire collection consisted of hand-me-downs from local citizens or from other libraries discarded titles. Fast forward to the present, the award-winning Wilkinson Public Library boasts 20,000 square foot of well-used, well-loved space. In 2008, for example, its bricks and mortar housed 638 programs, a number bound to be topped by this year's rich, eclectic offerings thanks to the efforts of Program Coordinator Scott Doser. A look at this week's schedule –  FREE and open to the general public – tells the tale.

16 November, 2009 /
[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with host Seth Berg]

11-16 TFF Poster final A handshake between the Telluride Film Festival and the Wilkinson Public Library developed into a popular local's film club, Telluride Film Festival Cinematheque. Last season, Telluride Film Festival director Gary Meyer  based his programming on the theme of the French New Wave. (Not a hairstyle.) This season, the subject is film noir, flicks with chicks who put the mythological sirens to shame and hapless heroes whose lives are one bad hair day.

The next FREE program in the noir genre occurs Monday, November 16, starting at 5:30 p.m. for the pre-SHOW reception. The evening is double-billed as it would have been in the 1940s and 1950s when film noir was in its heyday. First up is Stanley Kubrick thriller "The Killing" (1956, 83 minutes), considered by buffs to be the director's most perfectly crafted film.

15 November, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Dr. David Lingle on the concert]



104 At 6 p.m., Saturday, November 14,  the Michael D. Palm Theatre welcomes guests to a beer, wine and champagne reception (cash bar). At 7 p.m., the Telluride Choral Society and artistic director, Dr. David Lingle, join colleagues from The San Juan Symphony and the Durango Choral Society for a second joint MasterWorks Concert. In keeping with the San Juan Symphony’s 2009 season theme, “Once Upon A Time”, this musical collaboration offers the audience a journey through the myths and fairy tales select composers drew upon to create well-known and well-loved works. Specifics on this MasterWorks program are Brahms' "Nänie," Op. 32," and Mahler's "Forest Legend."


Based on a poem by Friedrich Schiller, "Nänie," Op. 82, was composed in memory of Brahms's friend and 19th century German classicist painter Anselm Feuerbach. But "Nänie," comes with a warning label: Enter at your own risk.  Due to the difficulty of the chorale composition, "Nänie,"is one of Brahms's most rarely performed pieces, tackled only by extremely experienced choirs.
12 November, 2009 /


Last Thursday, November 5, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts displayed about 50 works of art created by middle and high school students from Telluride, Ridgway, Norwood, Naturita, and the Dolores area, participants in the school's 8th annual Youth Art Award. Judges selected from Ah Haa Art Advisory Committee selected the winners based on originality and strength of the work submitted. Best in show, an honor that also paid $300, went to Jonas Fahnestock for his oil painting entitled "Self Portrait."

11 November, 2009 /
[click "Play to listen to Susan's conversation with Arthur Post]

Snapshot 2009-11-13 15-35-33 The San Juan Symphony and the combined choruses of the Telluride Choral Society and the Durango Choral Society present a MasterWorks choral concert, “From The Old Country”,  Saturday, November 14, 7 p.m., following a beer, wine and champagne reception (cash bar), at the Michael D. Palm Theatre. Included in the program are the beautiful albeit professionally daunting Brahms "Nänie, Op. 82," and Mahler’s wildly dramatic "Forest Legend," an early work by the inspired composer.


The artistic director of the Telluride Choral Society, Dr. David Lingle, and his counterpart at the Durango Choral Society, Linda Mack, are charged with prepping the chorus, which involves teaching singers the notes and the German. Arthur Post, now in his eighth season as music director of the San Juan Symphony, conducts.
11 November, 2009 /

Friday, December 4, in the Program Room of Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library, The New Community Coalition presents "Systems Thinking of Green Building." The principal speaker is James Pittman of the Ecosa Institute in Prescott, Arizona. (Eugene Wowk of Integrated Home Design will be present online.)

James Pittman holds an MSc, with distinction, in Ecological Economics from the University of Edinburgh, an MA in Whole Systems Design from Antioch University, Seattle, a Certificate in Systems Renewal Consultation from the International Institute for the Study of Systems Renewal, as well as a BA integrating education and sustainability from Prescott College. His specialty is developing interpersonal and technological solutions to issues of ecological, social, and economic sustainability. As a consultant James Pittman's clients include the President's Council on Sustainable Development, the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, the Mesa del Sol Eco-industrial Development Project at Cornell University, the EcoSage Corporation's SolarQuest Program, the City of Washington D.C., and the Wisconsin Public Service Power Corporation.

11 November, 2009 /

2010_Calendar_FrontPage The Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities is one of the oldest nonprofits in the Telluride region, dating back to the town's bad old days, 1971, when hippies and miners made strange bedfellows. TCAH is and has always been an arts advocacy organization designed to support grassroots artists and initiatives, and public participation in local arts. The nonprofit hosts numerous free-to-public artist seminars, "First Thursdays" Art Walk, and runs the Stronghouse Studios to name just a few of the ways TCAH helps local artists help themselves.

Now its our turn to help TCAH. But the opportunity is a win-win: The Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities' 2010 Art Desktop Calendar, its signature fundraiser, is now available at locations around town and at Stronghouse Studios. Specifically, calendars,$12 each ($15 each for mail orders) plus tax, can be purchased at TCAH ( 283 South Fir Street, Tuesday-Friday, 12noon-4pm), or at Between the Covers bookstore, Bootdoctors in Mountain Village, and during Noel Night at Cashmere Red, and the Holiday Bazaar at the High School (December 4-6th, the first weekend in December).  Income from calendar sales provides critical support for the commission's ongoing programs.

09 November, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Baerbel speak about living in divided Germany]

11-9 Berlin Wall On Monday, November 9, starting at 6 p.m., Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Beloved long- time local/director of the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, Baerbel Hacke grew up in a divided Germany. She plans to share her experiences escaping from behind the Iron Curtain. Also on the FREE program, the film "Leipzig In the Fall," directed by Andreas Voigt and Gerd Kroske. "Leipzig in the Fall"  is a comprehensive documentation of demonstrations and other events in Leipzig from October 16 - November 7, 1989,  and includes interviews with demonstrators, members of the citizens' rights movement, officials, and bystanders.


In 1958, Baerbel's parents decided the family had to escape East Germany, because of the rise of Communism. They told their seven-year-old daughter she was going to an equestrian show for a day. Baerbel left her relatives, her friends, her toys without the chance to say goodbye. Once in West Germany, she ate her first orange. It was the taste of freedom. And not a moment too soon.
08 November, 2009 /