BIG IDEA Project: The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit

What is the 21^st-century experience of the spiritual in nature? How do we understand our own personal relationship with the natural world? What lessons does the Transcendentalism movement of the mid-19^th century offer us today? The Sun Valley Center for the Arts will explore these questions and more in its new BIG IDEA project, The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit, opening Friday, Jan. 17, 2020, at its museum in Ketchum.

The mid-19^th century in the United States saw the emergence of a group of progressive thinkers who advocated for a new understanding of the relationship between the individual, the divine and the natural world. Men and women including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller, among others, came together in a shared belief in a variety of [umanitarian causes (women’s suffrage, better conditions for workers, abolition, progressive education) but also religious purpose. Transcendentalism, as their theological and philosophical ideas became known, advocated for a personal knowledge of God founded upon a rejection of materialism in favor of a spiritual experience of nature. Transcendentalism’s ideals found their most famous embodiment in Thoreau’s retreat to Walden Pond (then believed to be bottomless), where he spent a year living in relative isolation in a small, spare cabin, focusing on the spiritual rewards of a life lived in harmony with nature.

“At this technology-saturated moment, when creating time to pause, breathe, and just be in awe of the world is increasingly difficult, it seems appropriate to look again at the approach of the Transcendentalists, who advocated a retreat from the material world in favor of a divine encounter with nature,” said Kristin Poole, Artistic Director at The Center. “Re-examining their ideas may encourage us to take that pause—to stop and look and, perhaps along the way, find that a deep breath on a crisp Idaho day fills more than just our lungs.”

The visual arts exhibition associated with The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit features the work of six contemporary artists who explore themes central to the BIG IDEA:

Richard Barnes has long been interested in the role photography plays in documenting criminal evidence. The exhibition includes four photographs Barnes made of the cabin once inhabited by Ted Kaczynski (also known as the Unabomber), now kept in an FBI storage locker. Kaczynski built the cabin himself after deciding to try to live self-sufficiently in Montana, modeling the cabin on Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond. The photographs are testimony to the continued relevance of Thoreau’s rejection of materialism—and to Kaczynski’s extreme interpretation of that idea.
Lesley Dill makes sculptures and collages that create relationships between language and the human body. Working with materials including wire, fabric, muslin, newspaper and glass, Dill invites viewers to consider the meaning of the words, phrases and stanzas she incorporates into her artwork. Her works in the exhibition include fragments of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, a poet affiliated with the Transcendentalists whose work has long been a source of inspiration to Dill. The exhibition also includes a piece inspired by novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who, like Dickinson, worked at the margins of Transcendentalism, initially embracing its ideas before ultimately rejecting its utopian idealism.
Spencer Finch’s work asks viewers to think about the relationship between memory and our perception of nature, particularly our changing experience of light and color in the natural world. The exhibition includes Walden (surface/depth), which Finch created after learning about Thoreau’s 1846 survey of Walden Pond. Finch received permission to perform that survey again, this time using a rope combined with an electronic depth meter and making watercolor swatches matching the surface of the water at each of approximately 700 soundings.
William Lamson’s film In the Roaring Garden was commissioned in 2014 by the deCordova Museum in Concord, Massachusetts. Lamson created a floating camera obscura inside a 1:5 scale model of Thoreau’s cabin, recording a video of the landscape as it passed along the walls of the cabin. Images of trees, clouds and sunlight reflected on water appear, changing in relationship to the movement of the model cabin as it floated around the pond. The exhibition also includes photographs of Lamson’s Solarium, a structure modeled on Thoreau’s cabin, with each pane made from sugar cooked to different temperatures and sandwiched between panes of glass.
Jane Marsching creates interdisciplinary and collaborative artwork that explores our past, present and future relationship to the natural environment. The exhibition includes Ice Out at Walden, a series of five prints inspired by Thoreau’s observations of nature at Walden, including his annual notation of the day the lake’s winter ice cover disappeared each year between 1845 and 1853. Marsching’s prints visualize data related to the changing climate, using marks to pair Thoreau’s notes in his 1847 weather almanac with measurements collected from a contemporary Concord weather station.
Claire Sherman is known for her large-scale paintings that envelop viewers in the natural world, placing them in tangles of dense tree branches or vines, for example, or just inside the mouths of caves with views to the night sky. Her dynamic and richly painted images celebrate nature as a place imbued with a kind of animated spirituality—a place where one can get lost and escape the material world. The exhibition includes two large paintings and a selection of smaller works on paper, each conveying a view of the natural world that verges on the mystical.

The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit exhibition also includes hands-on activities for learners of all ages in The Center’s Maker Space.

To further illuminate this BIG IDEA, The Center will present a series of lectures, classes, films and theatre productions to encourage community participation and discussion:

FREE Museum Exhibition Jan. 17–March 11
Film: The World Before Your Feet Jan. 16, 4:30 and 7 p.m.
Class: A Winter Walk with Matt Green Jan. 18, 10 a.m.
Creative Jump-In: “On Being Thoreau” with Tim Price Jan. 22, 29, Feb. 5 & 12, 6–7:30 p.m.
Creative Jump-In: “Diving Deep Into Winter Blues: Healing Through Nature” With Cal Millar Jan. 23, 6–8:30 p.m.
FREE Theatre Reading: “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” by Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee Jan. 23, 7 p.m.
Teen Workshop: Landscape Photography With a Twist Jan. 25, 9 a.m.–noon
FREE Family Day: Nature Play Jan. 25, 11–4 p.m.
Performing Arts: Taimane – “Elemental” Tour, Jan. 26, 7:30 p.m.
Featured Speaker: An Evening With Cheryl Strayed Jan. 30, 6:30 p.m. (Presented in partnership with The Community Library)
FREE Theatre Reading: “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed Feb. 1, 7 p.m. and Feb. 2, 3 p.m.
Creative Jump-In: “Finding the Transcendental in Still Life Painting” With Sarah Bird Feb. 10–14, 9 a.m.–1 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour Feb. 13, 5:30 p.m.
FREE Gallery Walk Feb. 14, 5–7 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour March 5, 5:30 p.m.
Film: Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, March 5, 4:30 and 7 p.m.
Self-Care Workshop: Green Studio With Jordyn Dooley March 7, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. (Offered in partnership with Sawtooth Botanical Garden)

The visual arts exhibition for The Bottomlessness of a Pond: Transcendentalism, Nature and Spirit will be on view at The Center in Ketchum through March 11, 2020. Admission to the museum is always free, and the public is invited to visit the exhibition during The Center’s open hours, Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

2018-2019 Sun Valley Center for the Arts Annual Impact Report

As the Executive Director of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, I am proud to share our 2018-2019 Annual Impact Report with you and provide a snapshot of the smiles, inspiration and joy you bring to the Wood River Valley through your support of this organization. When I think about the meaning of the word impact, I think of the last 12 months of extraordinary arts experiences that you made possible. Our entire community benefits from your commitment to the arts. NONE of the programs included in this report would have taken place without your participation and generosity.

I walk away from every Sun Valley Center for the Arts event I attend feeling both inspired and impressed.

Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Scott Palmer, Company of Fools is doing extraordinary work and providing a growing series of enriching educational opportunities.

The museum is in overdrive, with distinctive exhibitions that are gaining national attention thanks to the efforts of Artistic Director Kristin Poole and Curator of Visual Arts Courtney Gilbert.

Both our summer and winter concert series SOLD OUT EVERY SINGLE SHOW thanks to the talents of Kristine Bretall, Director of Performing Arts, who meticulously labors to bring new and exciting artists to Idaho.

And the strength of our education and humanities team, under the leadership of Director of Education and Humanities Katelyn Foley, is apparent in their dedication to K–12 education, life-long learning opportunities for adults, and new programs designed to serve the entire community.

Our impact through arts education has grown exponentially over the last three years, and we are actively looking at new ways to meet the needs of our creative community through special programs and experiences for all.

As you consider your charitable giving at year end, please think deeply about your experiences with the Sun Valley Center for the Arts and what this organization brings to our community. Life is richer in our valley because of your support.

With gratitude,
Christine Davis-Jeffers
Executive Director
Sun Valley Center for the Arts

2018-2019 IMPACT REPORT:
(Fiscal Year: June 1, 2018-May 31, 2019)
Click on the image or here to view in Issuu.
Or click here to view a PDF.

VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION: Behind the Sagebrush Curtain: Women Modernists in Montana and Idaho

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the opening of a new visual arts exhibition, Behind the Sagebrush Curtain: Women Modernists in Montana and Idaho, which will be on view at The Center in Ketchum Nov. 15, 2019–Jan. 10, 2020. Entry to the museum is always free.

Behind the Sagebrush Curtain includes prints, drawings, paintings and ceramics by seven 20^th-century artists who were active in Montana (Gennie DeWeese, Edith Freeman, Isabelle Johnson, Helen McAuslan, Frances Senska and Jessie Wilber) and Idaho (Sara Joyce). Working in a wide range of materials and styles, these artists were unified in their desire to marry the landscapes and subject matter of the American West with ideas and techniques that reflected their engagement with international modernism. Many of these women also served as teachers and mentors throughout their careers, influencing the work of younger artists in the Intermountain West for decades.

The exhibition takes its title from a recent interview with Donna Forbes, longtime Executive Director of the Yellowstone Art Museum and a personal friend of Isabelle Johnson, whose paintings are included in the exhibition.

“Tippet Rise Art Center in Fishtail, Montana, posted the interview on their website,” said Dr. Courtney Gilbert, Curator of Visual Arts at The Center. “In it, Ms. Forbes discusses Montana’s art scene in the 1950s and 1960s, describing her colleagues as feeling cut off from the major centers of the art world. She remembered a friend commenting that in Montana, artists were stuck ‘behind the sagebrush curtain.’ But as the exhibition illustrates, artists in the West, despite their relative isolation, were actively working with modernist ideas. This exhibition focuses on women modernists whose work has been less widely exhibited than that of their male counterparts — women who were, in essence, working behind a second curtain.”

The following special events are associated with the exhibition:

FREE Evening Exhibition Tours
Thursday, Nov. 21, 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 12, 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020, 5:30 p.m. – members of Sara Joyce’s family will be present to discuss her work

FREE Gallery Walks
Friday, Nov. 29, 4–6 p.m. – Giving Walk
Friday, Dec. 27, 5–7 p.m.

Behind the Sagebrush Curtain: Women Modernists in Montana and Idaho will be on view at The Center Nov. 15, 2019–Jan. 10, 2020.

Sun Valley Center for the Arts Awarded Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is proud to announce that it has been awarded a $34,113 grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to extend the reach of The Center’s innovative Classroom Enrichment program throughout the state of Idaho by creating an Online Teacher Resource Center. The Center’s grant application for this project was one of 449 received by IMLS this year, of which 112 grant requests received funding totaling more than $19 million.

The Center designed its Classroom Enrichment Project to integrate art into core curriculum lessons (math, science, social sciences and humanities) at the secondary level. The program provides regular classroom teachers with new, powerful tools to increase student engagement, deepen understanding of the curriculum and encourage students’ self‐expression.

More than three-quarters of Idaho’s school districts are considered rural (defined as having fewer than 20 students per square mile, or a county with fewer than 25,000 people). Students in rural districts often have less access — and sometimes little to no access — to arts education. By documenting the Classroom Enrichment lessons currently being used in Blaine County schools and making them available online, The Center aims to support teachers across rural Idaho who might not otherwise have access to new approaches for learning and teaching core curriculum.

Specifically, the Center will use the funds awarded by IMLS to create videos of eight of its Classroom Enrichment project lessons and develop instructional materials to accompany each lesson. At the same time, The Center will create an Online Teacher Resource Center to serve as nexus of information on integrating the arts into secondary-level classroom instruction of core subjects.

“IMLS grants are extremely competitive and are only awarded to organizations that are making advances in the field,” said Kristin Poole, Artistic Director at The Center. “We are honored to be among the grantees and are so pleased that the Classroom Enrichment program that has been so successful in teaching core subject matter through the arts to middle and high school students will be extended to other schools and districts in state. Think about all those math and science students who will now be able to grasp complex material through hands-on art projects!”

The mission of IMLS is to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS’ primary goals are to promote literacy and lifelong learning; build the capacity of museums and libraries to improve the well-being of their communities; increase public access to ideas and information; and support the excellence of libraries and museums nationwide.

BIG IDEA PROJECT & EXHIBITION OPENING CELEBRATION: Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts invites the community to a free opening celebration for its new BIG IDEA project, Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online, on Friday, Aug. 30, 2019, at The Center’s museum in Ketchum. The celebration is free to the public and will begin at 5 p.m., with participating artists Chad Erpelding and Mark R. Smith speaking about their artwork at 6 p.m.

What does the marketplace look like in the 21^st century? Over the last 25 years, there has been a radical transformation in the way Americans buy and sell goods and services. Motivated more and more by the perception of convenience, we are increasingly choosing to shop online from the comfort of our own homes or in big-box stores where we believe “one-stop shopping” will save us time and money. As a result, small, independently owned stores are facing serious challenges, leaving vacant storefronts along our Main Streets. Even many chain stores have struggled, and giant malls, which were once hubs of social activity as well as commerce, lie empty.

These recent shifts are part of our continually evolving relationship to the idea of the marketplace—a commercial space that has taken myriad forms over human history, from open-air markets and ancient trade routes that linked far-flung parts of the globe to small shops owned by specialty retailers, enormous big-box stores, and the online sites that comprise much of today’s retail market. And how do we buy and sell not just goods, but pieces of the companies that provide those goods? Not all Americans own stocks in companies, but the strength of indices like the Dow, the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 impact everyone.

While box stores and online shopping may be big business today, there has also been a simultaneous resurgence in farmers markets, a call to shop locally, and reinvestment in the downtowns of small towns and cities across the U.S. This BIG IDEA projects sheds light on the complex intersections of these marketplaces and, perhaps more importantly, how our choices as consumers shape our society.

The Center’s visual arts exhibition for Marketplaces features five contemporary artists whose work across explores themes that are central to the BIG IDEA:

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts invited artist Conrad Bakker to participate in a residency at The Center, Hailey, and respond to the economies of the Wood River Valley. Drawn to the area’s history as a place for mining as well as mountain recreation, Bakker collected nearly 100 Idaho rocks that he then recreated as small sculptures. Each rock will be offered for sale as part of a larger installation, Untitled Project: Mountain Rock Shop, that also includes paintings and sculptures of books related to Idaho and its markets. Visitors are invited to purchase a rock that they’ll be able to collect at the conclusion of the exhibition.
Chad Erpelding marries data visualization and geometric abstraction in paintings that investigate global institutions. Marketplaces includes work from two of his projects that use color and pattern to represent trends in stock indices in both the U.S. and abroad. One explores the impact of the 2016 vote in favor of Brexit on financial markets around the world. The other looks at the value of the major U.S. stock indices, from the low point of the 2008 recession to the high point of the economic recovery. Together, Erpelding’s projects consider the way that we buy and sell pieces of corporations, the interconnectedness of global economies, and the effects of political and social events on the economic lives of individuals—both those who own stocks and those who don’t.
Brittany Powell Parich’s project Checkout includes approximately life-size MDF sculptures of every item in one checkout lane of her local Fred Meyer store on one day in the summer of 2018. Covered with bright colors and eye-catching logos, the sculptures are testament to the temptations of the grocery store checkout line, where carefully arranged displays of everything from candy and cough drops to beef jerky to Bic lighters beckon to shoppers. Powell Parich’s Checkout even includes summer 2018 issues of popular magazines like People and Better Homes & Gardens, making the project a kind of grocery store time capsule.
American painter Brendan O’Connell lived and worked in Europe through most of the 1990s. Upon his return to the U.S., he was struck by how significantly American society had changed—particularly the way people now shopped. Walmart had, in his absence, dramatically expanded its chain of stores, fundamentally altering the American relationship to retail. O’Connell wanted to paint America at that moment of transition and began visiting Walmart stores across the country, capturing the architecture, shoppers and brands he encountered along the way and creating a portrait of American consumption in the 21^st
The works in Mark R. Smith’s project The Silk Road investigate the history of commerce and trade along the historic Silk Road, which linked Asia to the Mediterranean, and on the online black market of the same name, which was a notorious site for the sale of illicit goods from 2011 to 2013. Smith’s large geometric works recall both textile patterns and computer circuitry. Some of his smaller works feature images of real items he found for sale on the Silk Road website, from antiquities to construction equipment and drug paraphernalia. Smith invites viewers to consider the ways commerce has changed over the centuries, from open-air bazaars to online marketplaces, but his project also underlines the fact that goods and services have circulated across vast geographical areas for millennia.

“Marketplaces provides fascinating opportunities to explore the changing nature of commerce around the globe — and also to consider how our exchange of goods and services has, in many ways, remained essentially the same over time,” said Courtney Gilbert, Curator of Visual Arts at The Center. “As Mark Smith’s artwork illustrates, the global economy has existed for centuries. This BIG IDEA expands the conversation with lectures, panel discussions, films, a family day and a teen workshop that add dimension to the project and give learners of all ages the chance to think about their own choices as consumers and learn about everything from niche markets to the revival of rural downtowns.”

The following special events are associated with this exhibition:

FREE Opening Celebration and Gallery Walk…… Friday, Aug. 30, 5–7 p.m.
LECTURE: Lecture: Kirk Wallace Johnson – “The Feather Thief”……Thursday, Sept. 12, 6:30 p.m.
FREE Panel Discussion: Mighty Main Street Revival……Tuesday, Sept. 17, 6 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour……Thursday, Sept. 19, 5:30 p.m.
FILM: Carmine Street Guitars……Thursday, Sept. 19, 4:30 & 7 p.m.
FREE Family Day……Saturday, Sept. 28, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
TEEN WORKSHOP: Printmaking with Marne Elmore……Saturday, Sept. 28, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
FREE Panel Discussion: From Rural to Global in Sun Valley……Tuesday, Oct. 15, 6 p.m.
FILM: Spettacolo……Thursday, Oct. 24, 4:30 & 7 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour……Thursday, Oct. 24, 5:30 p.m.
FILM: The Biggest Little Farm……Thursday, Nov. 14, 4:30 & 7 p.m.

Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online will be on view at The Center in Ketchum from Aug. 30 through Nov. 8, 2019.

Announcing ART THERAPY WORKSHOP: Stepping Out of the Frame (6-week program)

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a new museum-based art therapy program, “Stepping Out of the Frame,” designed especially for adults living with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. During the free six-week program, which will be held 1:30–3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays between July 23 and Aug 29, participants will explore The Center’s summer visual arts exhibition Mirage: Energy and Water in the Great Basin through therapeutic art experiences both inside and outside the museum. The program builds upon The Center’s mission of enriching the community through transformational arts and educational experiences.

Art therapy is an integrative practice that enriches the lives of individuals, families and communities through active art-making. Activities are facilitated by a professional art therapist and are designed to improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, and reduce and resolve internal and external conflicts. Museum-based art therapy is a collaboration between art therapy and art education in which the museum (in this case, The Center) operates as a space for participants to experience inclusivity, community, and opportunities for learning and exploration while the art therapy catalyzes healing, transformation and expression through the experiences within the museum.

The Center’s art therapy pilot program is designed for adults with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Extensive research in the art therapy field has been done with this population, specifically in museum settings. Following the lead of many larger metropolitan museums, The Center is proud to implement its own art therapy program and share the innovative practice’s many benefits with members of the Wood River Valley community.

“I became interested in the profound possibilities that museum-based art therapy has to offer as a first-year graduate student, and I have since dedicated much of my academic research and professional development to designing and promoting those benefits with a wide range of populations,” said Jordyn Dooley, Art Enrichment Coordinator at The Center, who holds a master’s degree in art therapy from Florida State University. “I have seen firsthand how the power of placing a handmade image on the wall of a museum offered the opportunity for an adolescent boy, who had never been into a museum, the chance to claim the space as his own and elevate his art to that of a professional artist. I have listened to women in their eighties with dementia discuss and appreciate abstract and controversial student artwork, demonstrating that no one is too old to broaden their scope and communicate their opinions. The museum is a space free of stigma and open to all, and we at The Center want to open the floor for discussion and the exchange of ideas to everyone.”

Pre-registration for The Center’s museum-based art therapy program is required, but there is no fee to participate. Participants should plan to commit to all weekly sessions in order to gain the maximum educational and therapeutic benefit. To reserve a space in the program and for more information, visit www.sunvalleycenter.org or call 208.726.9491.

Join us for the 38th Annual Wine Auction: July 18-20!

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is thrilled to host the 38^th Annual Sun Valley Center for the Arts Wine Auction from Thursday, July 18, through Saturday, July 20, 2019. This celebratory charity event unfolds over three glorious, activity-filled days in the heart of Sun Valley, Idaho. The Wine Auction is The Center’s largest fundraiser of the year, raising 50 percent of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ budget in support of arts education. This year’s selection of top vintners, chefs, sponsors, entertainment and auction lots will once again deliver on the auction’s reputation as one of the 10 best charity wine auctions in the country and one of the Valley’s premier summer season events.

A Celebration of Wine • A Benefit for Arts Education

Participants will delight in exclusive Vintner Dinners, an unforgettable Wine Auction Gala, a lively wine tasting and, to close out the weekend’s festivities, the Vine & Dine extravaganza, all while supporting programs that have a profound impact on the community.

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts Wine Auction is presented by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, the largest nonprofit arts organization in the state of Idaho, established in 1971. Reaching more than 24,000 people annually, The Center is an accredited museum and delivers the very best of art and ideas year-round through visual arts exhibitions; award-winning Company of Fools professional theatre; performances by some of the nation’s finest musicians; lectures by award-winning authors and scholars as part of BIG IDEA projects; and extensive arts education programs.

IMPACT

For nearly 50 years, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts has served as the cultural anchor of the Wood River Valley, bringing together members of the community through shared arts experiences. For 38 of those years, the ever-popular Wine Auction has been a primary source of support for The Center’s many arts education initiatives, which are essential to creating engaged, curious, and inspired communities and citizens.

In service of its mission, The Center provides free, high-quality arts education experiences to every student in Blaine County. These initiatives, which include educational programs in visual arts, theatre and music performance, reach more than 4,000 youth (K–12) each year and are designed to engage creativity as a tool to enhance learning, promote confidence, inspire self-expression and support core curriculum in the schools. Proceeds from the Wine Auction directly support The Center’s arts education programs and also help fund its Scholarship Program, which since 1998 has awarded $932,397 to local students and educators for advanced study in the arts and humanities.

2019 WINE AUCTION HONORARY CHAIR

This year, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts is thrilled to name Carol Swig as Honorary Chair of the 2019 Wine Auction. This honor recognizes Carol for her many years of unwavering commitment to The Center and celebrates her belief in the power of the arts to “provide transformative opportunities to people of all ages.” In addition to her enthusiastic support of The Center and its programs, Carol has sponsored programs with Trey McIntyre Project, Ballet Idaho and LED; she also founded Handmade: Your Creative Expression, an art center in Eagle, Idaho. Carol understands that “the arts expand people’s lives,” and she is the ideal person to host the event that makes The Center’s arts education programs possible.

VINTNER DINNERS

The Wine Auction celebrations begin with the Vintner Dinners. These intimate gatherings with some of the country’s top winemakers are held in beautiful private homes around the valley, delivering an extraordinary experience. Both locally and globally renowned chefs prepare these unforgettable wine-paired meals. The list of participating vintners for 2019 is as impressive as ever. Featured wineries include TOR Wines, Chappellet Winery, Ovid, William Cole Vineyards, DuMol and Revana, among other standouts. Vintner Dinners are available only as part of a Grand Cru or Premier Cru Patron Package.

An outstanding lineup of chefs will be pairing their gourmet dishes with these fine wines. Prepared by both visiting chefs, such as Sue Zemanick of Zazu in New Orleans and Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski of State Bird Provisions in San Francisco, as well as fantastic local chefs, including Scott Mason of Enoteca and Anna and Bradley Geist from The Gastrolab, the cuisine is certain to impress.

WINE AUCTION GALA

The Wine Auction Gala is renowned for its fabulous entertainment, stellar cuisine, special winery-hosted tables with designated stewards and impressive auction lots. The 2019 Live Auction includes extraordinary experiences and exclusive wine lots, while the Silent Auction will feature premium and hard-to-find wine and wine experiences.

This sellout event will be anchored by an incredible menu of multiple gourmet courses, all prepared with Idaho flair, and entertainment from country music star Jake Maurer and the Jake Maurer Band. Gala attendees will have the opportunity to support The Center by bidding on exceptional silent and live lots: travel, once-in-a-lifetime experiences, extraordinary wines and so much more.

VINE & DINE

The Wine Auction extravaganza culminates in the signature Vine & Dine event at Dollar Mountain Lodge—a lawn party with great wines, tasty food, live music and dancing. Gifted local chefs present tapas-style specialties while 14 featured wineries showcase their best varietals for guests to enjoy. For those who may be interested in an afternoon beer, local favorites Warfield Distillery & Brewery and Sawtooth Brewery will anchor the beer garden, complete with Sun Valley Mustard and pretzels.

All attendees will take home a complimentary commemorative tasting glass. This is a sure-to-sell-out event and the perfect ending to an unforgettable weekend.

SOLD OUT! VINE & DINE PLUS

The Vine & Dine Plus package offers a unique and intimate indoor tasting with participating vintners before the picnic. Only a limited number of tickets will be available for this event, so reserve now to ensure early entry and access to fantastic food and premium wines.

2019 WINE AUCTION SPONSORS

The 2019 festivities are made possible by the following sponsors:

Presenting Sponsor: Wells Fargo Private Bank
Housing Sponsors: Alpine Lodging and Sun Valley Resort
Media Sponsors: Mountain Living and SVPN
Grand Cru Sponsor: Silver Creek Ford
Champagne Sponsor: Nicolas Feuillatte
Bubbly Bus Sponsor: Domaine Ste. Michelle
Event Sponsors: Atkinsons’ Market, Bissinger’s, Corroon, Hayden Beverage, Jackson Jet Center, Sun Valley Company, Studio Eleven, White Otter Outdoor Adventures and Zenergy
Technology Sponsor: COX Communications

To reserve a spot at the 2019 Sun Valley Wine Auction and to stay up to date on breaking announcements, visit sunvalleycenter.org/wineauction or call The Center at 208.726.9491.

Vine & Dine General Entry Tickets are still available. Buy your tickets now at sunvalleycenter.org/wineauction/tickets or by calling 208.726.9491.

The Center Ketchum museum will be closed today Fri, July 12 from 10am-2:30pm

The museum will be closed briefly today, Friday, July 12 for a private event. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION: Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is please to unveil its new visual arts exhibition, Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin, on view June 13 – August 23, at The Center museum in Ketchum.

The Great Basin is a vast expanse of land covering much of the American West, with its rivers draining internally rather than to the ocean. Its boundaries circumscribe parts of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and California, and nearly all of Nevada. The Mirage exhibition uses the idea of a closed watershed system as a metaphor for thinking about this uniquely dynamic landscape as a source of regenerative power: a place of resource extraction and renewable energy, a place that has long generated creativity (including Land Art works), and a place of shifting boundaries. The Great Basin is also a place of contradictions. Much of it is desert, but it comprises multiple ecosystems and topographies; this incongruity mirrors the fact that though the region is now largely arid, it was once an inland sea. Despite the fact that it holds vast stretches of open, unoccupied land, it is a place of mystery and obscurity. Its scale allows individuals, corporations and government agencies to do things they can’t do elsewhere, from creating monumental artworks on the land to extracting natural resources or installing enormous wind farms, from testing weapons to experimenting with technology.

Artists have long been inspired by the many paradoxes of the region. Each participating artist in the Mirage exhibition presents work that considers the Great Basin from a different point of view:

Inspired in part by her great-grandmother’s work as an itinerant schoolteacher in Nevada’s mining towns, the photographs in Laura McPhee’s project “Desert Chronicle” approach the history of the Great Basin on both geologic and human scale. From images of the detritus left behind in abandoned towns to photographs of the infrastructure of contemporary gold mines and wind farms, McPhee’s work considers the human relationship to the landscape of the Great Basin as a place of reinvention, exploitation and renewal.
The artist Fazal Sheikh has collaborated with writer Terry Tempest Williams on “Exposure,” which emerged in response to the recent decision to significantly reduce two National Monuments in Utah. One of these is Grand Staircase-Escalante, currently defined by the Great Basin’s boundary on its northern edge, a natural definition it may lose in order to enable resource extraction.
Photographer Emmet Gowin has made aerial photographs throughout the western U.S. that illuminate the human impact on the landscape. One body of photographs records the scarred and cratered landscapes of the Nevada Test Site, the site of more than 900 nuclear tests over more than four decades. Other images reveal the long-term effects of mining and other human activities on the surface of the Great Basin’s landscapes.
The exhibition also includes new work by painter Cedra Wood. The Center commissioned Wood to travel throughout the Great Basin and respond to it through her work, which investigates ecological concepts of belonging and survival through hyper-realistic imagery that often incorporates fantasy. Wood found inspiration for her new works at sites that reveal the extremes in topography and environment within the Great Basin.
Painter/printmaker Frances Ashforth contributes new work about the Great Basin watershed that draws on her deep interest in the human relationship to water. Her abstracted landscape images have a lyrical beauty that reflects her conservationist impulses. The exhibition contains monotypes made at two distinct sites in the Great Basin — the Ana River/Summer Lake area of Oregon and Bear River/Antelope Island in Utah.
Other work in the exhibition considers the Great Basin as a site of creative energy — a place where artists have been inspired and able to pursue projects they couldn’t realize elsewhere. Andrea Zittel was one of the founders of High Desert Test Sites near Joshua Tree, California, a place for artistic and cultural experimentation that has hosted projects by numerous artists. For Zittel, the southwestern corner of the Great Basin that is home to High Desert Test Sites has long been a source of artistic inspiration. The exhibition includes a large-scale painting by Zittel paired with one of her “Wall Sprawl” works — wallpaper generated from aerial photographs of urban, industrial and military development in the Great Basin’s deserts.
For Land Artists working in the 1970s, the Great Basin offered the opportunity to execute large-scale projects in remote landscapes relatively untouched by development. Vast open spaces and inexpensive real estate allowed Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson to create works outside (and far from) the traditional institutional structures of the art world. The exhibition includes exhibition prints Holt’s “Sun Tunnels” and Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty.” Films the artists made during their work on those projects are also part of the exhibition.

“There’s something magical about the Great Basin — it’s a place of shimmering landscapes where it’s often difficult to be sure that what you think you see is real,” said Dr. Courtney Gilbert, Curator of Visual Arts at The Center. “Its vastness offers a kind of secrecy, and its open spaces offer up possibilities and inspire experimentation. Each of the artists in the exhibition illuminate the magic of the Great Basin in different ways, working in a range of media, from photography and film to painting, printmaking and wallpaper. Together, they reveal the Great Basin as a place of cyclical energy, creative activity and personal reinvention.”

The following special events are associated with this exhibition:

FREE Gallery Exhibition…..June 12–Aug. 23, 2019
FREE Opening Celebration…..Thursday, June 13, 5 p.m.
FREE Panel Discussion: “Is Landscape Still Relevant in 21^st-Century Art?”….Thursday, June 13, 6 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour…..Thursday, June 27, 5:30 p.m.
FREE Gallery Walk…..Friday, July 5, 5–7 p.m.
FREE Panel Discussion: “Photographing the Great Basin”…..Tuesday, July 9, 6 p.m.
FREE Gallery Walk…..Friday, Aug. 2, 5–7 p.m.
FREE Evening Exhibition Tour…..Thursday, Aug. 15, 5:30 p.m.

In addition, the Mirage exhibition includes family visitor guides for younger patrons and hands-on activities for learners of all ages in The Center’s maker space.

Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin is sponsored in part by grants from the Robert Lehman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Center applied for NEA funding through Art Works, the Arts Endowment’s principal grantmaking program. After convening panels to review 1,605 eligible grant applications, the agency awarded 972 grants, one of which will help underwrite Mirage.

Following its exhibition at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin will travel to the Boise Art Museum in 2020.

In conjunction with Mirage, Gail Severn Gallery presents an exhibition by internationally known painter Tony Foster, Tony Foster Watercolour Diaries: Great Basin and Copper Basin, June 14–July 29, 2019. The gallery, located at 400 First Avenue N. in Ketchum, will host an opening celebration on Friday, June 14, 2019, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and an artist chat with Foster on Saturday, July 6, at 10 a.m.

Mirage: Energy, Water and Creativity in the Great Basin will be on view at The Center through Aug. 23, 2019. For more information call 208.726.9491.

Student Classroom Enrichment Exhibition “Deepen the Discussion” May 30-June 1

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts invites members of the community to a special event celebrating the opening of the 2018–2019 Classroom Enrichment Exhibition, Deepen the Discussion, on Thursday, May 30, from 4 to 7 p.m. Admission is free, and refreshments will be served. The visual arts exhibition, which explores how art deepened student learning throughout the year, will be on view at The Center’s museum through Saturday, June 1.

The Deepen the Discussion exhibition showcases artwork created by students who participated in projects associated with The Center’s Classroom Enrichment program during the 2018–2019 school year. This innovative arts integration program brings professional museum educators and teaching artists into the schools to work with non-arts classroom teachers at the secondary level in developing a project and co-teaching an element of planned curriculum through a hands-on art project.

Enrichment projects are offered annually to core subject teachers and 6^th–12^th grade students across the Blaine County School District. These projects provide students with new tools for interpretation and problem-solving; encourage three-dimensional learning, critical thinking and self-expression; and deepen student engagement with academic course material. Generously sponsored by Wendy and Alan Pesky, the program reaches 400–700 secondary students in their classrooms each year, including 740 students who participated in enrichment projects during the current school year.

“This exhibition is the first time we’ve highlighted student artwork and the process involved in our Classroom Enrichment arts education program,” said Katelyn Foley, Director of Education and Humanities at The Center. “The program is now 6 years old, and it’s incredible to see how it has grown and can supply a year’s sample of the work being done. By showcasing student artwork, we hope to share with our community the power of arts integration on learning!”

Jordyn Dooley, Art Enrichment Coordinator at The Center, expanded upon Foley’s comments. “This program provides students with a new platform for creatively engaging with classroom topics and expressing their understanding in a way unique to themselves,” she said. “The exhibition elevates the students’ hard work and celebrates it with the broader community.”

The Deepen the Discussion visual arts exhibition will be on view at The Center in Ketchum on May 30 and 31 (9 a.m.–5 p.m.) and June 1 (noon–3 p.m.).