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Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Jan Sitts]

 

Jan-portrait-300pix This summer, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts offers a series of immersions featuring talented artists from all over the country. The first of these in-depth workshops takes place June 9 – June 11, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Ah Haa's Stone Building, 117 North Willow.

In "Texture, Color, Feeling," students get to explore a variety of materials, textures and surfaces to create a finished image on canvas. The emphasis is on process, rather than the finished product, an abstract image, meant to be a surprise. Using white papers and textured materials to layer and imbed, plus paints and inks, the end result should have a dynamic sculptural effect.

Your instructor is Jan Sitts, a Sedona-based art instructor and professional painter for 35+ years.

03 May, 2011 /

Monday, May 2 , 5:30 p.m.,Temple Grandin is scheduled to speak in Telluride at the Palm Theatre. Yes, THE Temple Grandin.

Temple Grandin became as much of a fixture on the awards show circuit as her Tinseltown counterpart, Claire Danes. And when the lovely Danes won a Golden Globe Award, she made very sure to honor the woman who inspired the eponymous biopic. The film focused on the giant strides Grandin made in the fields of autism advocacy and animal welfare.

A high-functioning autistic,Temple Grandin did not speak until age four. Ultimately, however, she went on to earn a B.A. in psychology and masters and doctorate degrees in animal science. Today Grandin is a full professor at Colorado State University, best-selling author, inventor, designer, consultant.

01 May, 2011 /

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Rev. Pat Bailey]     kicker: Potluck luncheon features regional produce and meats Telluride's Christ Presbyterian Church is shouting "May Day." No, not a cry of distress. A cry of joy.Reverend Pat Bailey has...

29 April, 2011 /

Mother... set The day that ended with a bang with Duo Jalal's gig at Drom, began with meeting yet another Telluride friend, Diana Conovitz, and a Wednesday matinee. Bottom line: Run, don't walk to see the play, "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. (Unless strong language offends.)

Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis's newest play, his seventh, with the bleeping wonderful name is a no-holds-barred knock out: script, direction, performances, sets, lighting, the whole enchilada, terrific. Exhilarating. The story about life, love, despair, longing, a vague scent of hope and, well, a hat, is raw, in-your-face, intensely poignant and caustically funny.

 "Motherf**ker" marks the Broadway debut of comedian Chris Rock as the health-juice-drinking, yoga-posing nihilist Ralph D. in what has to be one of the finest, five-person ensembles ever assembled by a director, in this case, the talented Anna D. Shapiro. Shapiro won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Direction for "August: Osage County" and might well dust off her shelves for a second statuette for this comedy-drama.

29 April, 2011 /

Concert finale Telluride may be a toy town, but it casts a long shadow. Turn around too quickly and you will bump into Telluride no matter where in the world you are. Like yesterday. All day. The point takes on an all-caps clarity if I begin at the end.

Part-time Telluride locals Anne and Vincent Mai are co-producers of the Telluride Musicfest (with documentary filmmaker and part-time local Josh Aronson). Among the regular guests and returning for the 9th annual musical event, (June 22 – July 3) is classically trained violist Kathryn Lockwood.

In her ethnic persona, Australian born Kathryn performs with her husband, Lebanese-born Yousif Sheronick as Duo Jalal. On April 27 the couple happened to have a gig at a club in the alphabet soup of Manhattan's lower East Side.

29 April, 2011 /

Picasso at MOMA Telluride Inside... and Out spent last Friday and Saturday in New York City.

On Friday, we returned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see "Cezanne's Card Players," a fitting exhibit, so it would seem, for this high-stakes moment in history. Then again Cezanne's stoical models, all tradesman and employees of his family estate, appear totally content with their lot in life. Not so much like today.

We need to look further back in history to the 17th-century genre paintings of card players for our metaphor, images in which lusty, drooling drunks dominate. (The Met supplies example of his antecedents in the Cezanne show.) In his card players, Cezanne's emphasis is on rugged individualism and living in the moment, not on gambling and its attendants: greed and violence.

25 April, 2011 /

kicker: Boutique hotel partnership includes Telluride locals

Vogue Daily — Imanta The May issue of Conde Nast Traveler just published its 2011 hit lit of "Hot Hotels" around the world, among them the boutique resort Imanta, Punta Mita. The news hits home because Telluride locals are among the property's proud partners.

Located on Mexico's Riviera Nayarit (the coastal area north of Puerto Vallarta) and set on 250 acres of rainforest above the ocean, the cliff-clinging resort includes seven striking villas built largely from local stone, glass and cumaru, a local hardwood, (floors and sliding doors), by the green-leaning Overland Partners.

23 April, 2011 /

Wooly suit For escapist entertainment at its finest, follow in Telluride Inside... and Out's footsteps and make a beeline for New York's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the former home of industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie. (And then later to Ma Peche. See below.)

The featured show at the Cooper-Hewitt is "Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels." The most comprehensive exhibition ever organized of the masterworks of the vaunted company, the exhibit is generating lots of buzz – and very long lines. For good reason: "Set In Style" is a magnum of Champagne. The cat's meow. Kitsch-fabulous razzle-dazzlement at its best –  and brightest. (Shades recommended.) 

Among the 350 pieces on display is bling worn by Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco (my fingers are genuflecting as I write out the title), Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Marlene Dietrich, Eva Peron and Greta Garbo to name a few of the high profile ladies who lunched.

21 April, 2011 /

[click "Play" to hear Steve Gumble's conversation with Susan]

 

 

Front Stage Shot, Blues & Brews He's on the road again –  and headed our way. Turns out Steve Gumble has booked the iconic Willie Nelson, who first appeared at Telluride Bluegrass in 1982 –  as the headliner for his 18th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, September 16 – September 18, 2011. Joining Willie on the Main Stage are The Flaming Lips, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Dweezil Zappa, Mavis Staples, Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, to name of the few of the acts, which make a lot more sense in context.
 
Steve, now owner and CEO of SBG Productions Inc. opened Telluride Blues & Blues for business in 1994. Like Telluride Film Festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride, and Telluride Bluegrass, Steve's festival evolved into an event with a global reputation, helping to brand Telluride as a cultural mecca.

20 April, 2011 /

A.little.princess poster-flyer The Telluride Film Festival's “Sunday at the Palm” series presents "A Little Princess" (1995). The FREE event takes place Sunday, April 24, 4 p.m. at the Michael D. Palm Theatre. The movie is rated G and the running time is 97 minutes.

Based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett ("The Secret Garden") and directed by Alfonso Cuarón, "A Little Princess" is sure to inspire the very young and young-at-heart.

Nominated for two Academy Awards, "A Little Princess" tells the tale of Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews), a girl who uses imagination and a positive attitude to escape the demands of a difficult headmistress in the cloistered world of a new boarding school.

19 April, 2011 /