The Ah Haa School for the Arts would like to thank the community and those art lovers out there for another wonderful year of support and inspiration. We feel blessed to be a part of a community that places a high value on the...
The date's a given: December 31, 2010. New Year's Eve. The featured artist for the 2010 Ah Haa auction is a given too: Susan X. Billings. Very few artists are as well known, well respected and widely collected in the greater Telluride community as Susie Billings.
Few have as long a history with the town's community arts center, the Ah Haa School for the Arts, where she has served on the board and been a long time and very popular teacher. Her work has been represented for years by the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, now celebrating its 26th anniversary. Susie's latest images literally and figuratively lend color and vibrancy to Ah Haa's gala, an evening of fine art, wine, food, entertainment – SquidShow and Mike Pale Trio – and friends. The dinner party takes place from 6:30 – 10 p.m. One of Susie's new works, "Wilson Range in Blue Diptych" is to be auctioned off live mid-evening.
Come on, you know you wanna! Don’t you want to be able to make coffee mugs, ice cream bowls? They make great gifts and trust me, people LOVE them. Well, our very own Goedele Vanhille will be teaching Beginning Wheel Throwing next weekend...
by Tracy Shaffer
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.
If you live in the R-1 school district, you know the name "Rubadeau." But I am not talking about her. I am talking about him. After a nine month publishing odyssey tracked closely by Telluride Inside... and Out, author Bob Rubadeau just completed his latest mystery, Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery. And the author picked the work of another Telluride celebrity, Roger Mason, for the cover art.
On Tuesday, December 7, 6 p.m. in the Program Room of the Wilkinson Public Library the final chapters in Wit Thorpe’s trials to find the real killer will be unveiled - along with Mason's deliciously dark image.
Twenty-five years ago in Telluride, development was in full swing and funk was becoming fashion when Will and Hilary Thompson opened Telluride Gallery of Fine Art at 130 East Colorado, Main Street. Will declared his mission from the get-go "We are in business to showcase the best art out there."
No qualifiers. Not the best art "for a small town," just the best. Period. At times that has come down to showing art for art's sake, for fun, not for profit, but the Thompsons did not seem to care. They were and are in it for the long haul. The response from the greater Telluride community has been overwhelming: many returning to town from off season breaks make the Gallery their first stop in town, just to check in with gallery director Baerbel Hacke and the other familiar faces on the staff to find out what's shaking.
This post is deeply personal: The award-winnning contemporary painter Riva Sweetrocket is Telluride Inside... and Out's dearly beloved Denver neighbor. She is also an artist in the stable of the Plus+ Gallery, the Mile High City's outpost (at 2501 Larimer) for uncommonly talented artists with something to say, though they usually don't say it in common vernacular. Riva is currently the featured artist at the Denver Botanic Gardens.
A retrospective of Riva Sweetrocket's bold and beguiling pastels, "Riva Sweetrocket: Extra Ordinary," is on display at Gates Garden Court Gallery through January 23, 2011, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Telluride Inside... and Out was on the road again, this time in Denver for a weekend away to celebrate the most recent triumphs of two talented friends: Ivar Zeile of the Plus Gallery and Tracy Shaffer, actress, playwright, founder of the Thriving Artist Alliance (and TIO's popular Denver writer.) Art by two. Art squared.
Located at 2501 Larimer, Plus is Denver's edgiest art emporium and Ivar, a rainmaker among the avant garde. The night we arrived Ivar had teamed up with Win Wear to host an evening of experimental shorts dedicated to the poetic exploration of landscape. (We bagged: Too tired after the winter drive. But later heard the fun lasted into the wee hours of the morning.)
The next evening, en route to Tracy's play, "(W)hole," we stopped for dinner at the Zeiles' – pizza and wings ordered in from Marco's, the best in town – and to see the latest exhibition at Plus, "Primitives," featuring the work of California sculptor Mike Whiting.
Some things are just too good to be kept secret. Such as an undergarment decorated like a disco ball, or a brassiere covered with candy. Or the most racy, fun fundraiser of the year: Ah Haa's Bravo Show, where local men (firefighters,...
(Left to right, Salon du Musee Founder/Curator Natalie Rekstad-Lynn and Salon Event Director, Carmel Koeltzow. Photo courtesy of Black Tie Colorado.)
I met Natalie Rekstad-Lynn in 2005, she was sitting along the wall of my acting class with the rest of the students at the Denver Center Theatre Academy. She’d only made it to a few classes but did not go unnoticed. Her eyes were clear blue and clearly focused, her ballerina's body and the intensity she brought to her work lifted her above the rest. One night she stayed behind a bit to apologize for her absence, let me know she enjoyed the class and something about driving from Boulder and having a new baby. We chatted for a while in "mom speak" about babes and shifts they made to careers and hips. She offhandedly mentioned an ' annual fundraiser' she did to benefit the arts. I, in my rush and snobbery, thought she was speaking of a hobby; a little like Mommy and Me with Degas. Ha! I had no idea who I was talking to for Natalie Rekstad- Lynn plays on a role far bigger than those I was coaching.
