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[click "Play" for Molly Wickwire Sante's comments about TAB Fashion Show]

N1320290710_30358857_6811191 Fashion is the stuff dreams are made of. AIDS is the stuff of nightmares. Fashion is fantasy; the disease: harsh reality. Fashion celebrates youthful bodies and upbeat attitudes. AIDS ravages both.

In Telluride, AIDS and fashion share equal billing on the runway at the Telluride AIDS Benefit Fashion Show, a reminder of how quickly the game can change.

The fashion show is the highlight of a week of prevention education and outreach, HIV testing and an art auction, all designed to raise awareness and funds to support six beneficiaries on the Western Slope, the Front Range, and in Africa.

15 February, 2010 /
The Town of Mountain Village, in cooperation with the Telluride Foundation, awarded eight local nonprofit organizations a combined total of $48,000 as part of the Town’s 2010 Grant Program. Each grant recipient works to provide the Mountain Village and Telluride region with services that directly support the town’s mission of providing health and human services programs. Since 2001, the town has awarded over $300,000 to a number of regional nonprofit organizations. For 2010, the Town received $170,500 in grant requests from 20 nonprofits. This year’s recipients include:

    •    Bright Futures School Readiness Initiative
    •    Midwestern Colorado Mental Health Center
    •    One to One
    •    San Miguel Resource Center
    •    Telluride Adaptive Sports Program
    •    Telluride Foundation – One Telluride
    •    University Centers of the San Miguel c/o High West Central
    •    Wright Stuff Community Foundation
15 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Ron Gilmer's conversation with Susan]

DSCN3728
Ron Gilmer with Brother Jeff

Ron Gilmer is affectionately known around town  as the Grand Vizer or Grand Potentate of the Telluride AIDS Benefit.

While he lived, Ron's partner Robert Presley inspired the Telluride community with his generosity, his talent as a fabric artist, and his wild and crazy ways. The man was universally loved. Even after his death from AIDS in August 1997, Robert continued to make a difference: the added complication of having AIDS in rural Colorado helped change the way state Medicaid handles virus patients. Robert was also the muse of the Telluride AIDS Benefit, started by a group of his friends in 1994 as a street dance to help  him offset his burgeoning AIDS-related medical expenses.

14 February, 2010 /

The Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities is pleased to announce Small Grants and Artists Fellowships are now available online. The beloved Small Grants program funds artists and non-profit arts and humanities organizations up to $1,000 - $2,000 each. Artist Fellowships fund individual visual artists up to $500 to undertake formal or informal education, or small individual projects that display artistic merit and originality.

The deadline for applications is Monday, March 8 at 5 p.m., via email. This year TCAH continues to go “Green” – all information, applications and announcements will happen online!

14 February, 2010 /

DSC_6617 Love is in the air – although the air in the Telluride region tends to be thinner than at most addresses around the globe. Our Shangri-La literally takes your breath away. It is the picture perfect setting for a Valentine’s Day Weekend.

Valentines Day Specials and Packages in the Mountain Village include "Discover Romance at Capella, Telluride": three night’s accommodations, daily breakfast for two, champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries upon arrival, and one couples' massage. Starting at $625 per night, available February 12 – February 15, 2010.

Capella properties also feature menus for lovers.
11 February, 2010 /

"It's the end of an era." That was the oft-repeated comment as locals mourned the loss of Baked in Telluride, destroyed by fire in the late night hours of February 9-10, 2010. Bob Dempsey shot photos at the height of the blaze, and...

10 February, 2010 /


When the going gets tough, the tough don diapers and wings and arm themselves with bows and arrows.

In 2009, Telluride's SquidShow Theatre Company produced no fewer than one full-length contemporary play, four full-length original plays, six professional play readings, and two historical adaptations from non-fiction work, a whopping 22 performances, reaching over 1,600 locals and tourists. SquidShow Theatre hit the ground running in 2010, packing the Sheridan Opera House with an unprecedented encore performance of “Inaccurate Reenactments,” its Telluride Historical Museum-sponsored hit.

And yet the Squids lost their funding from regional grants.

10 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Flair Robinson's conversation with Susan]

New York City Final_2_2 Upcoming at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts: Tile Basic Mosaics taught by instructor Flair Robinson, Wednesday – Friday, February 24 – 26, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage from small pieces of colored glass, stone and other materials such as ceramic tiles for decorative purposes generally inside a home or church. The technique has been around for centuries: examples abound in pre-Islamic Persia, ancient Rome, and early Jewish and Christian cultures. Mosaics dominated church art throughout the Italian Renaissance and Baroque eras (16th and 17th centuries), but the art form is still going strong today.

10 February, 2010 /

(editor's note: The information for this post was provided by TNCC's Walter Wright)

GBR-logo-color Telluride's The New Community Coalition wants to thank everyone participated in the first session of the Green Business Roundtable series on Friday, February 5, at the Wilkinson Public Library. The well-attended event was made possible with the support of the Coalition's staff, the Library and financial support from the Telluride Foundation. A special thanks goes out to Kent Ford and Tracy Daniels, the first presenters, who provided a model for green business development based on their experiences in Durango over the past seven years.

Highlights of the talk:

10 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Jeb's "serious" conversation with Susan]

Jeb About 10 years ago, Telluride local, actor, comedian/talking head Jeb Berrier  was a Naked Baby, part of a comedy troupe with friends Rob Corddry, whom he first met touring with the National Shakespeare Company – yes, the Rob Corddry –  and Brian Huskey.  Corddry and Huskey are alumnae of the Upright Citizens Brigade, a Manhattan theater company where future comedy stars are processed like beef: in goes the raw meat – actors, writers, ex-lawyers and med students – and out come tightly wrapped, high-priced performers, ready for consumption by fat cat shows: "Saturday Night Live," "30 Rock," "The Daily Show," where Corddry and Ed Helms became "correspondents" and rising stars.

09 February, 2010 /