Stories

In this two-day weekend workshop just for teens, students will learn the fundamental skills and techniques of drawing with instructor Mitsuru Brandon.

 Offered by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, the teen drawing workshop takes place Saturday and Sunday, March 3 and 4, at The Center, Hailey.

The course will focus on freehand drawing using a variety of media. Students will work from observation and practice accuracy in rendering. They will explore form, space, light, texture and composition as it applies to drawing. Advanced students will experiment with linear perspective and the depiction of complicated shapes and figures.

Mitsuru Brandon grew up in Tokyo and studied art there and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she earned her BA and MFA degrees.

The All about Drawing Teen Workshop meets from 10 am to 4 pm at The Center, Hailey. The fee is only $10 for the whole weekend, but advance registration is required. Register online at www.sunvalleycenter.org or call 726.9491 ex 10.... (more)

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is accepting scholarship applications from Blaine County students and teachers who wish to further their individual studies in the arts and humanities. This year’s deadline is Friday, February 24 at 5pm.

Scholarships are an important aspect of The Center’s commitment to the Wood River Valley community and are made possible by The Center’s annual Wine Auction and generous donors.

In 2011, The Center’s scholarship program awarded more than $60,000 in scholarships to thirty eight Blaine County residents. Past students have used their awards to attend some of the country’s top music, dance and visual arts summer programs and to take private art or music lessons.   

The three kinds of scholarships awarded to students are:

Ezra Pound Award

For a high school junior to pursue visual art study during the summer prior to his or her senior year. Last year’s recipient used the award money to attend a pre-college program at the Ringling... (more)

A startling indictment on higher education describing it as a bubble.

Since 1978, the price of tuition at US colleges has increased over 900 percent, 650 points above inflation. To put that in number in perspective, housing prices, the bubble that nearly burst the US economy, then the global one, increased only fifty points above the Consumer Price Index during those years. But while college applicants’ faith in the value of higher education has only increased, employers’ has declined. According to Richard Rothstein at The Economic Policy Institute, wages for college-educated workers outside of the inflated finance industry have stagnated or diminished. Unemployment has hit recent graduates especially hard, nearly doubling in the post-2007 recession. The result is that the most indebted generation in history is without the dependable jobs it needs to escape debt.

They go on to explain where all the hyperinflation in higher education has gone.

First, where the money hasn’t gone: instruction....

In case you haven't heard, "The Tortoise and the Hare" has been given sensational reviews by its audience, children ages 1-11!  Actually, I personally witnessed all the adults in the audience of a recent performance at the Ketchum Library just as engaged in the play as the little ones.  Parents, grandparents, teachers and other grown-ups were laughing robustly at the humor in the original adaptation of the fable, and were just as taken with the message of the heartfelt songs.  The 30 minute play (perfect length for the very young) is being presented by the Children's Theater Tour, a program of St. Thomas Playhouse.  The small troupe of professional actors stars Sara Gorby as Terry the Tortoise, Dawson Howard as Harry the Hare, Kristy Kuntz as Sunshine the Narrator, and Andrew Alburger as Music Boy.  Andrew, also a member of Company of Fools, wrote the script and several songs.  As it has in previous years, the Children's Theater Tour has been presenting the fable at preschools and... (more)