Culture

(editor's note: Around the Viebrock house, Valentine's Day is a high holy day. So to celebrate, we are publishing works from Telluride regional poets, Enjoy!)Not Just During Sunsets or in Candlelight, Butby Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerThere was that day in the grocery store beside the kiwis...

(editor's note: Around the Viebrock house, Valentine's Day is a high holy day. So to celebrate, we are publishing works from Telluride regional poets, Enjoy!)Even Though I’m Partial to Wordsby Rosemerry Wahtola TrommerOut the window, through snow, I see the irrigation ditch linedwith gray cottonwood...

Thebookofeli_200911301232 Avatar The Nugget Theatre in Telluride is showing "Avatar" and "The Book of Eli" the week of Friday, February 12-Thursday, February 18. Note that the Telluride Film Festival is presenting "Me and Orson Welles" on February 18.

"Avatar" has garnered eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, and is rated PG-13.

Denzel Washington stars in "The Book of Eli" and it's his job to prevent A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK from falling into the wrong hands in this post-apocolyptic Western. Plenty of action, rated R.

For showtimes, see below, for trailers and reviews, see the Nugget website.

Flynn hearts Size matters when it comes to Valentine's presents. And small is better. The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art features bling made by some of the finest jewelers in the world, including the work of New York-based goldsmith Pat Flynn.

Flynn's creations are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. and Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Norway to name a few prestigious institutions.


Telluride's workplaces – The Sweet Life, Zia Sun, Telluride Ski & Golf among them – are the settings for the 33rd full-length musical production mounted by director Jen Julia's Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theater. "Job Story," performed by grades 9 – 12, opens Friday night, February 5 at the Sheridan Opera House. Two additional performances are Saturday, February 6, and Monday, February 8. There is no performance on Super Bowl Sunday. Show time is 6 p.m. nightly

In keeping with the populist zeitgeist, Jen's first thought was a musical adaptation of oral historian/radio broadcaster Studs Terkel's "Working," an exploration through monologues and vignettes of what makes work meaningful for people from all walks of life, from Lovin' Al the parking valet, to Dolores the waitress, from the fireman to the business executive. In the end, however, Jen decided the play's 1970s libretto and music were just too dusty for her hip teenage actors.

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

Necklace-mask-b-e Sponsored by the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, First Thursday Art Walk has become what to do apres ski or pre-prandial for Telluride locals and guests, who get to soak in the town's fine art and retail scene: galleries, studios, arts organizations (such as the Council) and retail stores located in and around Colorado Avenue (Main Street) stay open late until 8 p.m. Lustre Artisans Gallery is one of the participating venues.

For Art Walk, February 4 (also Friday, February 5), 4 – 7 p.m., the husband and wife team of Steve Pflipsen and Katia Pflipsen-Olivová are on hand at Lustre for an artists’ reception. The couple will be talking about their newest large-scale sculptural glass vessels.( Also at Lustre, a trunk show featuring 24K gold jewelry by Gurham, who fashions his contemporary pieces based on techniques dating back thousands of years.)

[click "Play" to hear Adele Kaars-Sypesteyn]

TELLGALLERYsypesteyn_Candle 3 First Thursday Art Walk, February 4, 5 – 8 p.m., is a big night out on the town. Locals and guests meet and greet on the street as they check out Telluride's fine art and retail scenes. Venues are open late until 8 p.m.

The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art , 130 East Colorado Avenue, features the work of artist Adele Kaars-Sypesteyn , who paints images of aged and decrepit walls, floors and other architectural features of buildings marred – or enhanced? – by time. Repetition of forms, the visual marks of lives well lived, evoke a feeling of bygone days and the weathering of lived-in spaces. The power and physical beauty of Sypesteyn's abstractions and landscapes also suggest the artist holds some interesting views about the aging process in humans.

Avatar_smallteaser James Cameron's "Avatar" recently replaced James Cameron's "Titanic" as the highest grossing movie, and Telluride can see "Avatar" this week, Friday, February 5-Thursday, February 11, at Telluride's Nugget Theatre. On Friday and Saturday, there are two showings each day.

If you know nothing about "Avatar" you must have been living in a cave. In fact Roger Ebert calls "Avatar" "...one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation." The movie is a hero's quest in the sense of Joseph Campbell, and now you can join in the conversation.

See below for showtimes, and the Nugget website for trailers and reviews.

[click "Play" to listen to MD about his art]

Md_web The Telluride local known on the streets simply as "MD" is not what his handle suggests. Michael Patrick Doherty is an artist, this month the featured virtuoso at the Ah Haa School for the Arts. "Life on Telluride" officially opens tomorrow, February 4, for the First Thursday Art Walk., 5 - 8 p.m. in Ah Haa's Daniel Tucker Gallery.