New Moms Group
Noon to 1:30PM / St. Luke’s / Ketchum
This group provides newborn and breastfeeding support and an opportunity to ask questions and learn the basics of caring for infants. The presence of professionals, as well as other new parents, makes this group a comfortable and valuable experience. Bring lunch if desired. Babies are welcome. The New Moms Group will meet in St. Luke’s River Run Rooms, 100 Hospital Drive, Ketchum.
Thursday November 10
Brown Bag Health Talk
12:15-1:15PM / St. Luke’s / Ketchum
St. Luke’s Center for Community Health will present a Brown Bag Health Talk titled “Can You Prevent Violence?” Heidi Cook and Darrell Harris, coordinators for social change from The Advocates, will highlight the comprehensive, safe approach to violence prevention from the Green Dot bystander intervention program. Come learn how Blaine County students and community members are addressing these issues by using Green Dot intervention strategies and how to become part of the movement.
This talk will take place in the River Run Rooms. All Brown Bag lectures are free and no preregistration is required. Call St. Luke’s Center for Community Health for information on this or other educational programs at (208) 727-8733.
Thursday November 10
‘Idaho Stories’ – Free Exhibition Tour
5:30PM / The Center / Ketchum
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts will host an evening tour of its new visual arts exhibition, “Idaho Stories,” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10. Visitors are invited to enjoy a glass of wine in the gallery and a guided tour with The Center’s curators and gallery guides. The “Idaho Stories” gallery exhibition is part of The Center’s latest BIG IDEA project––one that explores Idaho’s fascinating ties to the history of American literature and considers Idaho as a place that has long generated all kinds of stories. The exhibition features the work of five artists––two historic, three contemporary––all responding to Idaho’s landscapes and literature.
When Seattle-based artist Scott Fife came to Hailey in 2014 to work on wash paintings and cardboard sculptures of Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway, he was struck by the curious fact that these two leading figures of American modernist literature began and ended their lives, respectively, in the same small Idaho valley. Pound’s birth in Hailey and Hemingway’s death in Ketchum frame the work that Fife produced for the exhibition.
Mary Hallock Foote was a reluctant transplant to the American West when she followed her husband, a mining engineer, to California in the 1870s. A contributor to magazines like “Scribner’s” and “The Century,” Foote was able to continue her career while embarking on a radically different life from the one she had known in the East. The exhibition features illustrations Foote made for “The Century” during her 12 years living in Boise.
Born in 1899 in Idaho’s west-central mountains, James Castle was deaf from birth and never learned to speak. He communicated instead through his artwork, creating his drawings with found paper or cardboard, soot and spit, ink and pigment. Castle used his artwork to interpret his surroundings and, taken as a whole, his work tells a very particular story of a life lived entirely in Idaho.
Boise-based artist Troy Passey creates works on paper made with a spare palette. His compositions, which often feature simple gridded structures or depict elemental landscapes, echo those of James Castle. Passey uses literature as a touchstone, incorporating fragments of text into his work. Pound and Hemingway are frequent sources of inspiration for Passey, in part because of their ties to Idaho.
Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping”––a novel that features evocative images of northern Idaho’s landscapes, inspired Amanda Hamilton’s project, “The Life of Perished Things.” Hamilton’s installation intertwines video, painting and drawing in an immersive experience that responds to intersections between the novel, events in Hamilton’s own family history and her own experience of living in Idaho for nearly a decade.
An additional evening exhibition tour for “Idaho Stories” is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 1, and the gallery exhibition will be on view at The Center in Ketchum through Friday, Jan. 6, 2017. For more information, visit sunvalleycenter.org or call (208) 726-9491.
Thursday November 10
Documentary Double Feature
7PM / Magic Lantern Cinemas / Ketchum
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts’ 2016–2017 film series continues Thursday, Nov. 10 with a documentary double feature associated with The Center’s current BIG IDEA project, “Idaho Stories.” The screening of “James Castle: Portrait of an Artist” will begin at 7 p.m., followed by the film “Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life,” at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum.
“James Castle: Portrait of an Artist” (53 mins.) tells the story of an artist who was born deaf in 1899 in rural Idaho. From a very young age, Castle mined the local landscape of his family’s homesteads and his own deeply private world to produce an astonishing body of drawings, collages and constructions that eventually gained worldwide recognition. Jeffrey Wolf’s acclaimed documentary reveals Castle’s life and creative process, as told by family members, art historians, curators, artists, collectors and members of the deaf community. This inspirational story of a true “outsider artist” is a remarkable example of the triumph of the human spirit and the imagination.
Part of A&E’s award-winning biography series, “Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life” (100 mins.) is a deep look at one of the 20th century’s great literary figures through a combination of still photography, commentaries and readings from Hemingway’s writings––both published and personal. His granddaughter, Mariel Hemingway, who has spent much of her life in the Sun Valley area, narrates the film. Directed by Stephen Crisman, this intriguing film takes viewers from Hemingway’s Midwestern childhood through his tragic suicide in Ketchum in 1961.
“In researching films that would enhance our ‘Idaho Stories’ BIG IDEA, I was thrilled to come across the documentary on James Castle,” said Kristine Bretall, The Center’s director of Performing Arts. “For most of his life, this artist, who was born in Garden Valley and attended the Gooding School for the Deaf and Blind, communicated predominantly through his artwork. While he was under the radar for a long time, by 1964 Castle was being described as the ‘most important primitive [artist] since Grandma Moses.’ This film reveals how much Castle could communicate––and how little most of us know about him.
“On the other hand, though many of us are familiar with Ernest Hemingway––one of Ketchum’s most famous former residents––Stephen Crisman’s film brings to light many aspects of Hemingway’s life and work that are relatively unknown. Revisiting someone like Hemingway gives us a chance to look more deeply at the way we see people through different eyes as we ourselves change through time.”
Tickets for the double feature are $10 for members of The Center and $12 for nonmembers. Tickets may be purchased in advance through The Center’s box office or website. For more information, visit sunvalleycenter.org, call (208) 726-9491 or visit The Center’s box office at 191 Fifth Street East in Ketchum.
Friday November 11
idaYOGA Grand Opening Party
5-7PM / 400 N. Main Street / Hailey
Along with friends and partners in the community, The Chamber of Hailey and the Wood River Valley and idaYOGA will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the community, from 5-7 p.m. Friday. Attendees will enjoy healthy snacks, appetizers and adult beverages and a fitness apparel trunk show. At the opening, idaYOGA will be offering special discounts for all of their yoga packages. This is a family-friendly, free event. Stop by at 10 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 13 for the company’s first yoga class at the studio, taught by Beth Stuart. This class will be free and open to the community.
Friday November 11-12
One-Act Play Festival
Various Times / Community School Theatre / Sun Valley
Community School’s Middle School Masque will present the 15th annual One-Act Play Festival at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11 and at 5 p.m Saturday, Nov. 12 in the Community School Theatre. This year’s evening of comedy, “A Touch of Ridiculous,” features madcap short skits where the world seems to be turned sideways. Each play is about 10 minutes long. Tickets are $5 and will be sold at the door.
The Festival is a true collaborative effort between nearly 70 Middle and Upper School students and faculty. Produced by seventh-grade teacher Joel Vilinsky, the skits are performed by Middle School thespians and directed by Middle and Upper School students. One of the plays, “Stand Wars,” is a student-written play by eighth-grader Julia Ott. Dozens more students will be behind the stage, operating lights and the sound booth, creating costumes, acting as stage crew or creating publicity through poster design.
“The One-Act Play Festival is always an entertaining night of comedy,” said Vilinsky. “Behind every skit, there is incredible dedication, energy, creativity and enthusiasm. I am proud of these students, and it is exciting to see so many involved again this year. The final plays will delight audiences.”
Saturday November 12
‘Use Your iPhone Like An Artist’
10AM to Noon / Sawtooth Botanical Garden / Ketchum
Join local photographer Diana Citret for “Use Your iPhone Like An Artist.” At this workshop, attendees will learn how to take fabulous pictures and how to edit them with their iPhone. Additionally, attendees will explore Waterlogue (pre-purchase for $3.99), a versatile editing app. Preregistration is required. Call the Sawtooth Botanical Garden at (208) 726-9358 to register. Cost to attend is $35.
Tuesday November 15
‘A Bright New Boise’ – Play Reading
6:30PM / The Liberty Theatre / Hailey
Company of Fools will present a free reading of “A Bright New Boise,” a dark comedy by Idaho native and 2014 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient Samuel D. Hunter. The play reading will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15 at The Liberty Theatre in Hailey and is one of several events associated with The Center’s BIG IDEA multidisciplinary project, “Idaho Stories.”
Winner of the 2011 Obie Award for Playwriting, Samuel D. Hunter’s “A Bright New Boise” is an unexpected story about faith, family and the importance of making human connections. In the break room of a Hobby Lobby craft store in Idaho, the seemingly innocuous Will applies for a job. No one knows that he has recently fled his rural hometown after a scandalous tragedy involving his fundamentalist church. Will doesn’t particularly want to work at Hobby Lobby, but he is a man on a mission to bond with his estranged son before the impending Rapture. By enlisting the aid of his new co-workers, a group of eccentric characters struggling to find their way, Will seeks to win the trust of his son before the end of the world.
“Samuel D. Hunter’s work is a perfect fit for the ‘Idaho Stories’ BIG IDEA project,” said COF Artistic Director John Glenn. “Hunter sets many of his plays against the Idaho landscape to explore religion in society and the search for comfort from a loneliness we all feel.”
Andrew Alburger directs a cast featuring Chris Carwithen, David Janeski, Cameron Needham, Aly Wepplo and Patsy Wygle. Admission to the reading of “A Bright New Boise” is free with a suggested $10 donation. For more information and to reserve a place at the performance, visit sunvalleycenter.org or call (208) 726-9491.