Author: Susan Viebrock

[click "Play", Drew Ludwig talks with Susan about the Iceland trip]

 

Iceland_tio Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts plans to stretch its wings and fly beyond the borders of our box canyon. An upcoming photography trek across Iceland next summer, departing July 21, is an example of another new direction.

The team leading the expedition includes Aaron Huey, a Seattle-based photographer, whose client base includes National Geographic magazines, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, The New York TImes and European rags. Heuy's current ongoing projects include the funerals of Afghan war vets, Sufism (mystic Islam), and a five-year documentary on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Huey's co-instructor is mountain guide Drew Ludwig, also a talented photographer.

[click "Play" to listen to Erika Gordon speak with Susan about "Steep"]

 

Steep poster-flyer Adrenaline junkie? Head for Telluride's Palm Theatre Sunday, January 16, 4 p.m., for a screening of the heart-pumping 2007 documentary "Steep," an event presented by The Telluride Film Festival, The Telluride Foundation and Telluride R1 School District.

The 19th-century British explorer Richard Burton famously said that the reason he tempted fate searching for the source of the Nile and penetrating darkest Arabia disguised as a Pathan was simple: "The devil drives."

Ditto for the cast  of "Steep."

 

 

[click "Play" to listen to Joe Tanner's conversation with Susan]

 

155944main_jsc2006e32109_med2 kicker: Fundraiser in support of Scholars in the School and other programs

Telluride's Pinhead Institute has its feet on the ground, but its eyes on the stars this one particular night.

Friday, January 14, 2011, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., Pinhead hosts an "Astronomical Evening" of cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and conversation with NASA Astronaut Joe Tanner.

[click "Play" to hear Diane Dandeneau's conversation with Susan]

 

Invite-GBR #12 - Eco Action Being true to your nature takes on a whole other meaning in Telluride, when The New Community Coalition welcomes Diane Dandendeau to town to help launch the Telluride region's EcoAction Initiative. The event takes place at the first Green Business Roundtable of 2011 (#12 in the series), Friday, January 14, 12 – 2:30 p.m. in the Program Room of the the Wilkinson Public Library.

Dandendeau is chair of the Sustainable Future Commission for the Town of Lyons, CO, and director of the Green Heart Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to providing education, tools and resources to help individuals, groups, congregations, businesses, and entire communities understand the global impact of their choices, connect with their deepest values, and live more sustainably.

[click "Play" to hear Patty Greer discuss her movies and interests with Susan]

 

1-11 Film Screening On Tuesday, January 11, 6 p.m., Telluride's five-star Wilkinson Public Library screens an award-winning film by director Patty Greer. "2012-We're Already In It" won the 2009 EBE Award for Best Feature Film-UFO Or Related at the International UFO Congress Convention, and the Silver Sierra Award in Yosemite. The film also sold out at the 2010 Glastonbury Symposium in England.

"2012-We're Already In It" is a spicy, rich stew, including interpretations of the Mayan Prophecies regarding the transformative events that are meant to occur December 21, 2012, the end-date of a 5,123-year-long cycle in the Mayan Long Count calendar. New Age interpretation on the date posit positive physical and/or spiritual transformation and the beginning of a new era. Or the end of the world as we know it - but not in good sense– events such as a collision with another planet or black hole. NASA compare fears about 2012 to paranoia about the Y2K bug of the 1990s.

A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing? Or not.

[click "Play", Susan speaks with producer and director, Jeff Spitz]

 

 

Navajo-boy-poster kicker: "Like a finely made rug, The Return of Navajo Boy contains multiple layers of color, construction, and meaning.... A must-see." Native Peoples Magazine

On December 6,  Dr. Doug Brugge, a guest of the Advocacy Coalition of Telluride, the Town of Telluride, the Pinhead Institute and the Telluride School District, spoke to an audience at The Palm about the environmental and health consequences of mining, milling and processing of uranium ore.

Dr Brugge, a Harvard PhD, grew up on the Navajo reservation. His wide-ranging expertise in public heath includes the subject of the of uranium mining and processing on Native Americans. In 2007, Brugge testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on uranium contamination in the Navajo Nation, whose chairman, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) became an advocate for the tribe because of one powerful documentary and its powerful new epilogue produced one year later in 2008: "The Return of Navajo Boy."

[click "Play", Beau Staley talks about garnets]

 

PDT-BB-pss-46s Teacup Pendant In January, you Goats (Capricorn, December 22 – January 19) and Water Bearers (Aquarius, January 20 – February 18) follow Cynthia Zehm's weekly column in Telluride Inside... and Out, Alacazem, to find out what life has in store. For sure, what's in store at Telluride's Dolce is the birthstone of the month: garnet.

The name "garnet" appears to have originated with the Latin "granatum malum," which means "pomegranate," the bush that produces the fruit with seeds the color of the stone. Jewelry made with garnet has been found in burial sites as early as the Bronze Age (3000 BC), when the stone was also used as an abrasive.

 

 Three years ago, the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, an arts advocacy organization which opened for business in the 1970s, had a light bulb moment: produce an Art Walk that would underline the vibrancy of Telluride's fine art scene. And, while they were at it, why not support Telluride's retail scene, which works hand in glove with our town's cultural life?  Man cannot live by paintings, etc. alone....

[click "Play" to hear Susie Billings' conversation with Susan]

 

Green pears copy New Year's Eve in Telluride and the joint was jumping, including a gala sit-down dinner for 80 at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, adult entertainment at its very best.

The annual event at Ah Haa features the work of one major artist, whose images adorn the walls of gallery-space-turned-dining hall contribute to the color and vibrancy of the evening. Last year the featured talent was pastel artist Bruce Gomez. This year, it was mixed media painter Susan X. Billings. Gomez and Billings as main attractions underline the symbiotic relationship between Ah Haa, Telluride's community art center, where Gomez and Billings are popular teachers, and the town's premier gallery, the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, which represents their work.

[click "Play", Todd Altshuler talks about Telluride Jazz and "Icons Among Us"]

Iconsamongus Telluride Inside... and Out has talked about the many and different ways the town's five-star Wilkinson Public Library is definitely not your mother's library. Conventional descriptors like "staid" and "quiet" just don't apply. Dedicated programs for small people and teens are wide-ranging and robust. And on the theory the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, program coordinator Scott Doser is constantly forging alliances with other non-profits to fill the Program Room.

One shining example of a successful joint venture is the Telluride Film Festival's ongoing Cinematheque series at the Library, which launched for the winter season on Monday, January 3, with "Films of the Great Depression." (Stay tuned for ongoing coverage.)

Coming soon to your local Library is yet another film series, this one orchestrated by Telluride Jazz Celebration's new marketing director, Todd Altschuler. The initiative kicks off Thursday, January 6, 6 p.m., with "Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense."