Get TIO in your Inbox!

Beyond Telluride

 by Tracy Shaffer

Image002 When the Denver Theatre District launched its Outdoor Art Gallery in September of 2009 it offered a means to showcase Denver’s prestigious artists, galleries and institutions, in an effort to raise the profile of our local arts community. During the first year the city was gifted by the works of Vance Kirkland, Riva Sweetrocket, Mel Strawn, Bill Amundson, and Angela Beloian along with others from Denver’s creative talent pool. Two-dimensional artwork is a bit of a rarity in public display which generally favors large-scale sculpture; mosaic and mural being the exceptions.

This year, the DTD decided to “push the limits” a bit with its recent offering, “Faces of Colorado Art”, discretely placed on the back side of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at 14th Street and Champa. The project, curated by Plus Gallery owner, Ivar Zeile, is a large-scale quilt of portraiture, representing the influential people who’ve put the “thrive” in our thriving visual arts scene. Faces of independent, gallery, and museum collected artists, sit squarely next to one another. Including the faces of art dealer, Michelle Mosko, artist and RiNo founder/director, Tracy Weil and Denver Art Museum Director, Christoph Heinrich, brings these sometimes disparate streams together as one.

18 January, 2011 /

[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.

12 January, 2011 /
[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."

07 January, 2011 /

 

(Above is a local clip from the 2009 Ice Festival.)

The first time I ever swung an axe at ice, I was surprised. It felt good…really good. It was so different from rock climbing; instead of my hand fumbling, fingers aching, trying to find something to hold onto, the axe made a nice “clink” sound, sticking perfectly into the ice and giving me purchase. I felt like a superhero as I picked my way to the top of the frozen waterfall, right axe, left axe, then moving up with my feet, digging in with the teeth of my right crampon, then the left. It was oddly meditative and beautiful, despite the exertion and the cold. Why, I wondered, isn’t everyone doing this?

06 January, 2011 /

No doubt you've heard that Winter Solstice is astronomically unique this year due to a full Moon total lunar eclipse that will be taking place in the late evening and early morning hours of Dec. 20th - 21st. Yes, it's true! All of North...

19 December, 2010 /

by Eliot Brown; photos by Mary Sama-Brown

Part 2, "Park City to Yellowstone"

(Ed. note: The first installment of the Browns' road trip was published on Telluride Inside... and Out on November 22)

Wind power At 8:30 AM, Monday we put Park City in the rear view mirror and headed out on Interstate 80 toward Evanston, WY, and then North on US 89 along the Idaho/Wyoming boarder toward Jackson Hole for Grant Village in Yellowstone National Park.  The 6 3/4 hour drive past huge windmill power farms, huge ranches, beautiful prairies and valleys with little or no traffic allowed the 911 to strut her stuff.  My wife Mary only had to close her eyes a couple of times as I enjoyed the open road, albeit, sometimes a bit aggressively.

It is only fitting that I insert a little Yellowstone history here to pay tribute to our first national park.  Near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River, an area home to the Shoshone Tribe, John Colter, in the early 1800s described what was mocked as Colter’s Hell, a place where mud boiled and steam rose from the ground. 

11 December, 2010 /

by Tracy Shaffer

Riva Opening
Tracy, Riva, "Heaven & Earth"

Cool morning, bright day. I sit down for tea with artist, Riva Sweetrocket, in her gorgeous Ballpark Neighborhood loft. She meets me at the door and takes me into her studio, a clean and spare space which reflects the clarity of her thought and vision. A 44 x 38 inch paper is affixed to a Plexiglas wall; the striking image of a crimson cushion with an oversized, gold satin bow hovering above it is in progress. There is nothing else in the room but light, a small cart holding art supplies and a larger blank sheet of paper on another wall, awaiting inspiration.

The precision of Sweetrocket’s work is extraordinary. Many times I’ve stood before her works at Denver’s Plus+ Gallery, mesmerized and wondering “How does she do that?”  It was my privilege to find out. We spoke of images, what strikes the eye and how these fascinations reach the gallery wall. “I keep a file of photographs, things I see and the colors and textures I find appealing. Most of the time I photograph them myself, but others come from memory. When I get an idea about what I want to put together, it all comes alive in Photoshop” says she. I get a sense that there is a lot of silence and rumination in this woman’s daily life, and a fair amount of chalk dust. Riva’s works are created in soft pastel on paper and have a luxuriant quality that is radiantly defiant of the medium. “Once I’m happy with the image, I begin the work on paper and that is when it starts to really come alive” she continues. 

06 December, 2010 /

Yet another installment of Telluride locals David Byars and Jenny Jacobi sub-Saharan philanthropy adventure. This week, they're going underground to explore a Ghanaian phenomenon, galamsey mining. Join them here....

05 December, 2010 /

by Tracy Shaffer

ChoLon-Map In my fifteen years in Denver, I have never known a restaurant to create the kind of noise that the new ChoLon Asian Bistro has. Open only a month, I have heard friends from every hive buzzing "You have to try ChoLon" and ”Oh my god, I have a new favorite restaurant!". One fine Indian Summer day, I threw out my own "We have to try ChoLon" when I got a call from Tellurider, Jennie Franks, asking where to meet for lunch. Located in the Sugar Cube Building at 15th and Blake, you step from the bustle of LoDo into the hip serenity of the new Saigon: stately and relaxed, peaceful in its minimalist design, and alive with conversation and energy unique to Denver eateries.

There is no pretense here in ChoLon, only warmth, steaming from the baskets of Soup Dumplings and the heart of its chef, Lon Symensma.  Though he looks like a fresh-faced grad just hatched from cooking school, the award-winning Chef Symensma has more than a decade of global seasoning in his wok. Working in world-class kitchens from New York to Shanghai, with stops in San Sebastian and the South of France, our humble host has a refined palate and created an indelible menu that has embedded itself within my dream center. 

28 November, 2010 /

by Eliot Brown, photos by Mary Sama-Brown

[ed. note: Many of us remain in Telluride, not only for all our immediate area offers, but also for the infinite variety just across the hill. Eliot & Mary sampled that variety this Fall. This is Part 1 of their journey.]

Image007 I was yearning for a road trip.  My 95 Porsche 911 C4S was needing some exercise, as she was still feeling young with only 28,000 miles.  My wife Mary and I agreed that it was time to leave the airplane home and take a vacation from our air charter business, MayaAir, and from our doggies, especially Trasea’s five thirty AM wake up call. We spent several weeks planning our journey, which over ten days would take us from Telluride to as far north as Chico, Montana and back home.

22 November, 2010 /