Ah Haa Youth Show

 

Show Me Who You Are

A Juried Exhibition of Works by Artists

Aged 13-18

Kudos to Ah Haa School for the Arts for reimagining their annual Youth Arts Awards show with a marvelous exhibit of very different mediums from a wide collection of local youth. The show runs from May 3rd to the 27th in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at Ah Haa's new Silver Jack Building digs in Telluride, Colorado.

Leadoff in the exhibit was Soren Scoville's very professional-looking computer and digital designed bookcover. I loved the practical bent of this piece. It was so well done it look me a while to realize it wasn't a real bookcover.

Siri Shoff had a very interesting photo with her University Steps. The unique angle combined with the blue tinge of the sky that rubs off on the building facade was a delight that catches the eye.  Shoff commented that she wanted to highlight the beauty in Mexico when she was visiting there.

Ruby McHarg's Where the Buffalo Roam uses traditional photography as her medium. But rather than  any particular object, it's light that inspires McHarg. As she says in her accompanying artist statement, the photo "captures the mysterious minutes before the sun rises" on the meadow's vernal pool and low hills. "The light is there, but we can't quite see all that goes on, so we are left mesmerized by the golden light of morning.'

Sophia McNamara's  Dark Hair is an intriguing watercolor sketch that captures a depth of feeling and emotion not usually seen in student work.  The faint reddish tint of the lips and cheek play off the same tinge in the figure's shoulder  -- a subtle but effective addition to the introspective mood of the piece.

Sylvia Erickson takes ink lines  into a complex pastiche of illusive detail and shape-shifting forms. She calls it The Infinity Zentangles. Again, like almost all the pieces in the show, she picks her own favorite medium to demonstrate vision and patience. 

The color, the sharp edges, the cartoon-like image that has such a haunting feel to it -- this piece had be staring for quite a while.  It's realistic and surreal all at the same time. Here's what  Onyx Churning has to say about  It's A ...  "What inspired me  to create this piece was honestly a character from  my favorite show, South Park, and the song "It's  A" by McCafferty. What I was trying to show  with it  was that sometimes love can burn your heart and things won't last, no matter how much you'd like them to."

These are only a sampling of the many pieces and quite diverse media used to showcase work from these young artists. I love the freedom that Ah Haa allowed the students to employ in sharing their favorite pieces. Some of the pieces were wildly creative. And used  really interesting things for their art.

I loved how Ah Haa asked each of the artists questions in addition to an artist statement to let us viewers in on the process each student used in creating their pieces. And having everything in Spanish and English was inclusive in a way not seen in gallery shows very often.

Applause all around for the student artists and to Ah Haa for giving us a glimpse of the fine work being done locally by our youth. 

Stop in and take a look for yourself this week.

Puzzling

 

Puzzling

-for Dea

According to Science News (23apr13022), researchers were surprised 

to find “something going on we weren’t expecting”in a study to 

measure the Cosmic Optical Background light, which, explained 

Dr. Zemcon “is where the fun part of science kicks in.”

92yrold Betty 

the microbiologist likes 

to dump the jigsaw puzzle 

pieces in a heap with not a 

peek at the image displayed

She invites you to join her

deep in the playground of

the not-yet-formed

where we begin to guess

digress & reassemble

Close-up photo of a Monkey Puzzle Tree from Patagonia, Chile

Talking Politics

Here is the first interview I had the privilege of doing with Will Evans of Carbondale Public Radio talking politics, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Talking Gourds, listening, reciprocity, Telluride, the Valley Floor (marvelously told in film by Ron Melmon's Forever Wild that just appeared on PBS). Listen in HERE

This Earth Peace Justice flag is a work of poet and graphic designer  Rafael Jesús González of Berkeley, California.

Dolores LaChapelle

 

Thanks to Will Evans of KDNK in Carbondale for hosting a second interview with me -- this time talking about my teacher and friend, the late Dolores LaChapelle of Silverton.  If you ever wanted to know why she is so revered in my pantheon of goddesses and gods, this interview gives you a pretty good idea. Itki's less than a half hour long, and Will does a masterful job as interviewer and radio engineer. I think this may be my favorite interview of all time. Listen HERE

The photo above was taken on a hike Dolores and I did to South Mineral Creek outside Silverton. This was the same spot where the Blair family and I and her son  David scattered Dolores' ashes amid the wild mountain waterfalls she loved so much (as does Will Evans whose motto is "water is life").

The photo  to the right of Dolores framed by the mountains she loved was taken by the writer Jonathan Thompson. 

And this cover shot of Dolores' most important book, out-of-print, but one of the greatest books in my library and one I return to time and again.

To learn more about Dolores, go to her legacy site HERE

UNIFY AMERICA

 Participating  in 

a Unify Challenge in a few hours

Talking to an ideological stranger

as Molly Ostrem begins to build

a movement of the 

Radical Middle

 

Itki got me to thinking

& reflecting on what our world

sent out into the  Mystery  on the Voyager

as well as the apocalypse happening

in the Ukraine even as I 

write these words

One Brave and Startling Truth

“...When we come to ... the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers from fists of hostility”

-Maya Angelou

I like to leave Maya’s words 

hanging in the air

uncertain, unfulfilled as they are

Because at the moment of contact with the Mystery

illuminated in all itki’s Renaissance worldview with

Michaelangelo’s tagging on the ceiling of St. Peter’s

We ninja chimpanzees gone viral 

may lay down our boards & commissions

super-sacraments & political parties

To build a culture of compassion

with someone like Joan Halifax

or the Dalai Lama as Secretary General

Little Cone

 

Sapp climbed Little Cone

from the one public route he knew

while we just tracked the ditch road

But I made a rain check

to climb Little Cone with him

that I never made good on

while he was alive. So now

itki's topped the bucket list 

he's laid down for me

in leaving us like this

Earth Day

America's Environmental Holy Day

is hard to celebrate 

with all that talking about                                                                 

sacrifices

hardships

looming catastrophes 

as climate tightens the geologic belt

as eons telescope into lifetimes

as whole blackboards of dark matter

disappear into Einstein's equations

only to reappear

in the lyrics of world music

those multimicroverses of dark energy

that morph us into the

there & now

 

moving us faster & smaller & tighter

so that centuries, millennia, periods

contract like exploding stars