Culture

[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Ben Kaufmann and Adam Aijala]

 

Yonder Mountain Telluride has its festivals. Nederland has Frozen Dead Guy Days. No kidding, celebrated annually from Friday – Sunday the first full weekend of March. A centerpiece of Frozen Guys Days is a screening of  the film "Grandpa's in the Tuff Shed," a magnum opus which premiered at Mountainfilm in Telluride in 1998. A centerpiece of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival is another Nederland import:  Yonder Mountain String Band.

Yonder  – banjoist Dave Johnston, mandolinist Jeff Austin, bassist Ben Kaufmann and guitarist Adam Aijala – is back again for the 38th annual event, June 16 – June 19, 2011, kicking off the long weekend with a Nightgrass set at the Telluride Conference Center in Mountain Village and appearing again on the Main Stage on Saturday.

[click "Play", Michael Cleveland speaks with Susan, but notes the date of his performance is the 16th, not the 17th)

 

Michael There is a nice, alliterative quality to "fire" and "fiddle," two words that become one great big idea in the skilled hands of Michael Cleveland. Move over Nero. When Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper play the 38th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival Thursday, June 16, guaranteed Telluride Town Park burns.

The blind Henryville, Indiana native quickly became renowned as one of the hottest attractions in bluegrass for his blistering and unconventional fiddle style. By his early teens, Michael Cleveland had appeared on the Grand Ole Opry (as a guest ofTelluride Bluegrass regular Allison Krauss), A Prairie Home Companion, and before the United States Congress.

   Langhorne Slim returns to Telluride for an encore performance on Friday, June, 10, 8 p.m. at Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House. The concert is a benefit for the Sheridan Arts Foundation's Wild West Fest, which includes the Chip Allen Mentorship Program (C.A.M.P.), special programs...

kicker: at Telluride's Steaming Bean Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 8 pm

Don'tChat_Gossipingbordersontreason Is gossip good or bad for the soul? Does it lengthen your life or shorten it?  The Telluride Playwrights Festival explores what exactly is the nature of gossip and why do we so like to gossip? Where does gossip end and propaganda begin?

A group of local actors explore the subject, taking their clue from the Bible to Shakespeare to Star Magazine.  In addition, local writers such as Bob Rubadeau, Jeff Price, Rob Schultheis, Devin McCarthy, John Sutcliffe all have something interesting to say on the subject.
 
The Telluride Playwrights Festival brings playwrights and actors to town once a year to explore and workshop new plays by acclaimed playwrights from all over the country.  This year, the Playwrights Festival has decided to expand the spirit of the Festival, which starts mid-July, to an early beginning on  Wednesday, June 8.

May 31, 2011
 
TFF38_Poster_Kalman BERKELEY, CA – Telluride Film Festival (September 2-5, 2011), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., proudly announces famed New York artist Maira Kalman as the 38th Telluride Film Festival poster artist.
  
Maira Kalman has worked as a designer, author, illustrator and artist for more than 30 years. She has written and illustrated thirteen children’s books including Ooh-la-la-Max in Love, What Pete Ate, and most recently, 13 WORDS in collaboration with Lemony Snicket. Kalman is a regular illustrator for The New Yorker magazine, one of her most notable works being the 2001 “New Yorkistan” cover in collaboration with Rick Meyerowitz.
 

[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.

by Jim Bedford

Wiigapatow_poster MV5BMTQzMDU3NDEwN15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTI3MDU0NA@@._V1._SY317_CR0,0,214,317_ The Nugget Theatre in beautiful downtown Telluride shows movies all year long and screens two films all this coming week. Spring has sprung in Telluride.

Friday through Thursday, June 3-9, the Nugget stays literary with Sara Gruen's wonderful WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz. We also get girls-behaving-badly all week with BRIDESMAIDS, as Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph show the ladies can HANGOVER as well as the guys.

See the Nugget website for trailers and reviews, and below for movie times.

[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.) 

By Lauren Metzger

Ahhaa_june Hello Telluride. Though the weather does not reflect it, the summer season is starting! The Ah Haa School has quite the lineup this summer of dynamic local artist exhibitions, both in Daniel Tucker Gallery and our East Gallery. I am proud to announce that this June we will be featuring the photography of Carl Marcus and the oil paintings of Susan McCormick. Both will remind you of the beauty this amazing region holds and that spring is coming!

Carl Marcus has a true talent for capturing nature's awe-inspiring beauty. A constant supporter of the Ah Haa School, I was first introduced to Carl while working on my first auction several years ago. He had donated one of his "magical landscapes" and it did indeed take my breath away. When I asked him about how he is able to capture this beauty, he replied, "The images try to recreate the aspect of vast spaces in unfolding nature that literally take away ones breath; and attempt to convey them to others; not so much the detail, but the underlying immensity of the micro and macro." He added that always having his camera with him and being open to what is happening around him, are the times that those images present themselves and he is able to capture and share them with everyone. Thank you Carl, for being open! Other current works will be displayed with these magical landscapes. Which by the way will be 5 foot images. This is a show not to be missed!

By Jon Lovekin

(Editor's note: One of the pleasures in publishing Telluride Inside... and Out is getting to know new  [to us] writers. Susan and I independently ran across Jon Lovekin on Twitter. She took the next step, checked out his writing, liked what she saw and asked if he would be interested in contributing to TIO. Herewith, another article from Jon.)

Chelsea Chelsea saved my life.

It was January in Boulder, Colorado and approaching 20 below zero. We lived in an old barn converted into a house sometime in the '30s or '40s. It was on a large plot of land two blocks in from Canyon Boulevard not far from the east end of the then new Boulder Mall. My roommates were in the trades and we had a lively bunch at the house each morning around 7 am discussing the coming day's work and drinking coffee. I was rarely at my best at that hour as I was merely a student at the University and typically got home well after midnight from my geology study group.