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Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Bob Schneider]

 

Bob-Schneider_picnik Telluride's Sheridan Arts Foundation opens the 20th annual Wild West Fest with a kick-off concert featuring alternative country artist Bob Schneider. Show time is Sunday, June 5, 8 p.m. All proceeds benefit the Wild West Fest mentorship programs.

The son of an opera singer, Schneider moved with his parents to Germany at age two. He learned to play guitar and piano as a young boy. His first live gigs were guest appearances at his parents' shindigs.

03 June, 2011 /

[click "Play" to hear Kristin Holbrook speak about Tkees]   Rubber flip-flops? Life's a beach party in Telluride, but the only sand is in and around construction sites. Tkees, a collection of dressy leather sandals may be the answer, according to...

02 June, 2011 /

Carl_marcus (1) @ ah haa A mid-life crisis is a common occurrence at age 40. But Telluride Arts (aka Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities) is experiencing anything but. In fact, Telluride Arts is entering its fourth decade with a new lease on life, thanks to the dynamic duo at the helm: Executive director Kate Jones and assistant director, Sasha Cuciniello (also of SquidShow Theatre).

If you have been paying attention, you know that new or enhanced initiatives keep rolling out the front door of the Stronghouse Studios, the home office: Art in Empty Spaces, 20(by)telluride, and now the First Thursday Art Walk, bigger and better than ever.

The First Thursday Art Walk is a walk about town to experience Telluride's vibrant cultural life. Venues stay open late until 8 p.m. Starting this week, Thursday, June 2,  5 – 8 p.m., an even dozen galleries, studios, retail outlets, even restaurants plan to showcase art and artists.

02 June, 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.) 

31 May, 2011 /
[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. 

31 May, 2011 /


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.

30 May, 2011 /
[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.

26 May, 2011 /

Brakes On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, about the time the Gulf oil spill was about to capped, Drew Ludwig decided to take a walk. A long walk. In August 2010, he traveled by foot 120 miles from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.

"I went to help. I went to work. I held lofty goals of an activist, and I wanted to use my hands."

And so he did, his hands and his unerring eye, recording images with his camera of people and places encountered along the way. Drew's motivation: break down the idea of "The Other," a complex concept lifted from the social sciences that defines the process by which individuals and groups create distance between themselves and those who do not seem to fit easily and comfortably into their cloistered worlds.

25 May, 2011 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Judith and Richard]

 

kicker: trash to treasure

MickysMonkeyWeb October 5, 2010, the Town of Telluride passed an ordinance against single-use plastic shopping bags, making Telluride the first community in the state of Colorado to pass such a ban. 

The ordinance followed the popularity of the film "Bag It," made by Telluride local Suzan Beraza. "Bag It," which screened on National Public Television in April and garnered awards  at film festivals across the country, became as much a call-to-action as a documentary, not just locally, but nationally.

"Bag It" is  just one of a number of populist responses to another film, the Sixties pop phenomenon "The Graduate," a movie that predicted a future of plastics. Artists Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang's work represents another kind of response. They make "found art."

25 May, 2011 /