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Telluride county commissioner Elaine Fischer is about to deliver the full monty to her constituency: a show of self-portraits that bare her soul opens on Thursday, August 6, at the Stronghouse Studios, part of the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanties' First Thursday Art Walk, an all-day showcase of the best of Telluride's fine art and retail scene. Venues are open late until eight.

Elaine Fischer arrived in town in the 1980s. Fast forward nearly 30 years, Elaine is  a high profile and highly respected member of the community known mostly for her government and nonprofit work: HARC, town council, mayor, and today,  county commissioner. Two years ago, however, Elaine decided to return to her roots in fine art and start painting again – and it was a long time coming.

[double click to view in larger format]

06 August, 2009 /

Selfportrait70 Over the past week, Telluride Inside... and Out has been running a series of podcasts featuring commentary by renowned photographer Jerry Uelsmann about five of his mind-bending images. A show of his work begins today, August 6, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., with an artist reception at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art on Main Street.
Uelsmann's opening is part of the First Thursday Art Walk, an all-day showcase of Telluride's fine art and retail scene created by the Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities. Venues are open late until eight.

Jerry Uelsmann began producing his dramatic photomontages in the 1960s, black-and-white images that are not at all black and white, rather unsettling alternatives to naturalism. These surrealistic, hyper, super or anti realities – call them what you like, the labels are just variations on a theme –  amount to a psychic topography developed from things that happened at the fringes of Uelsmann's consciousness. Clues to the meaning of the work, however, could be derived from artist's symbolic vocabulary, which has remained surprisingly consistent over the years: nature and culture cross boundaries when interiors meld with exterior landscapes. Figures levitate and fly as in dreams, free of gravity. Monumental hands, a classic element in Surrealist photography of the 1920s and 1930s, appear everywhere. Other bizarre, even grotesque Surrealist motifs include disembodied human parts, humans merging with trees, rocks and water, animal, vegetable and mineral blending and intertwining, the stuff of the shadow world. Universal archetypes such as house, tree, sky and water, are all re-contextualized, forcing us to confront them like children, with wonder and for the first time.

06 August, 2009 /

The program for Telluride's Nugget Theatre for the week of August 7-13 is "The Proposal" and "Public Enemies."

Theproposal_smallposter Publicenemies_smallteaser "The Proposal" pits high-powered NYC book editor Margaret, aka "The Witch" (Sandra Bullock) against her assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds). Margaret is Canadian, and facing deportation, hatches the plan to stay in the US by marrying Andrew. It's "Boy hates Girl" until... Rated PG-13 for sexual content, nudity, language.

John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) robbed banks; Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) had the task of bringing in Dillinger. "Public Enemies" is the story. J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) named Dillinger the first "public enemy #1" and declared war on crime. During the 1930s recession people across America regarded banks and bankers as more villainous than the gangsters who robbed the banks."Public Enemies" documents rather than glamorizes the story. Rated R for gangster violence and language.


For reviews and trailers see the Nugget website. For movie times, see below.

06 August, 2009 /
[click to hear Eileen speak with author Howard Greager]


“COWBOY TALES OF A WEST END COWBOY”

Show_image_in_imgtag The Telluride Historical Museum's Fireside Chat series continues this Thursday, August 6, at the Fire Pit in Telluride's Mountain Village with "Cowboy Tales of a West End Cowboy", featuring guest speaker and author, Howard Greager.  Greager was born into a cowboy family and continued the tradition for a good portion of his life. 

Howard Greager was a cowpuncher in many western states but his home has always been on the western slope.  In his travels as a cowboy he met many a character and his stories are both funny and poignant. 

05 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

05 August, 2009 /
[click "Play" button to hear Greg Barnes on his art]

G. Barnes pleinair_Yellowstone_ For three days, Friday, August 7 – Sunday, August 9, visiting artist Greg Barnes teaches a course in plein air (in the open air) pastel techniques at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, walking students step-by-step through the process that begins with selecting a subject and ends with a finished product. The intensive also includes show and tell: Barnes plans to demonstrate the techniques he teaches and offer theories about color, composition and value, which become the grammar underlying future work.

Examples of Greg Barnes' landscapes are on display at Capella outside the main ballroom on the second floor, where an artist reception is being held on Saturday, August 8, 5:30 - 7 p.m.

05 August, 2009 /
[click "Play" button to hear Susan X. Billings on Bali trip]

L1020693 Artist Susan X. Billings of mangoworkshops.com, an umbrella for artful travel, in conjunction with Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, is offering a Bali Workshop that combines art, yoga, and Indonesian cooking, September 25 – October 2, in a tropical island setting.

Billings is the kind of protean talent who is out there to prove that all of life is art. A glimpse at one of her mixed media images tells the whole story: the work has nothing to do with '"isms" du jour or with art historians' creaky theories. It has everything to do with being an original, with a big soul and a richness of spirit.

04 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

04 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

03 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

02 August, 2009 /