2004 Past Lectures

An Evening with Geraldine Brooks

Thu, Feb 17, 7pm

Presbyterian Church of the Bigwood, Ketchum

$7 members / $10 non-members

During eleven years as a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal , Geraldine Brooks' beats included some of the world's most troubled areas, including Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. Her journeys throughout the world resulted in two acclaimed works of nonfiction, Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and Foreign Correspondence: A Penpal's Journey from Down Under to All Over. A compelling and animated speaker, Brooks' lecture will address her experience in the Middle East and discuss the social and political climate that has become the focus of the world. She will read from Nine Parts of Desire, which explores the sensual lives of women under Islam. (The title of the book comes from the declaration of a son-in-law of Muhammad, who claimed that God had created sexual desire in ten parts and given one to men, the other nine to women.)

In addition to her work for the Wall Street Journal , Brooks' writing has appeared in the New York Times and The Washington Post . Born and raised in Australia, Brooks lives with her husband, Tony Horwitz, and their son in rural Virginia. Year of Wonders was her first novel and her second, March, will hit bookstores in early 2005.

Workshops on the Middle East

Thursday, March 10 from 8am-4pm, & Friday March 11 from 8am-4pm

Free of charge - sponsored by the Sun Valley Center and the Middle East Policy Council

It is not often that in rural Idaho people get the chance to learn about the Middle East. While contemporary Western life is integrating into the Middle East, Middle Eastern culture is not entering our traditions in the same way. The Sun Valley Center for the Arts' program Confluence explores the mingling of Middle Eastern traditions and Western thought and gives the public the opportunity to spend two days of in-depth learning about the Middle East.

Audrey Shabbas with Arab World and Islamic Resources ( http://www.awaironline.org/index.html ) will present two workshops about the cultures, religions and geography of the Middle East. The workshop is hosted by the Sun Valley Center for the Arts as part of the Confluence multidisciplinary program which explores the intersection of Eastern and Western culture through performing arts, literary arts and visual arts.

Thursday, March 10, participants will learn about the geography, history, politics and religions of the Middle East. Shabbas will present the Arab World Studies Notebook , which contains lesson plans and resources for K-12 students on a variety of subjects relating to the Middle East. Current issues such as the U.S. and the Arab World, Arab Americans and Muslim Identity, the Gulf and Iraq Wars, Palestine, Jerusalem and the colonial legacy in the Middle East will be discussed.  

On Friday, March 11, workshop participants will learn about Islamic art and create an Egyptian tent wall with stencils, fabric and paint. Participants can attend either or both days.

In Celebration of The Hunt

A reading and discussion with Rick Bass

Thursday, January 13, 2005, 7pm

nexStage Theater , free of charge

Rick Bass has been widely applauded as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Terry Tempest Williams refers to him as “a force of nature.” Less known but equally significant is his reputation as an environmental activist. Working for a decade now to preserve the wildlife corridor that surrounds him in his home in northern Montana, he is does not fill the bill of the stereotypical hunter. Having devoted essays and books to his love of the hunt, it would be difficult to call him anything short of an hunting advocate. His profound love for the wild, for his dogs and for the ritual of the hunt are beautifully and sometimes humorously written.

Writing Conversations with Rick Bass

Fri, Jan 14, 5-7:30pm & Sat, Jan 15, 10am-1pm

$75 members / $125 nonmembers

Registration Deadline: January 7, 2005

Join Rick Bass for an informal two-part workshop. Two lectures will be given, the first on the art and craft of writing, the second on the relationship between activism and writing. The remainder of the workshop will consist of Q&A and an opportunity for participants to speak with Bass about their own challenges in the writing arena. Bringing work for review is optional and will be handled on a case-by-case basis as time allows. The workshop is limited in size and the atmosphere will be comfortable, congenial and inspiring for readers and writers alike.

The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth- Century America
Lecture with historian Louis S. Warren, Ph.D
Thursday, December 2, 7pm, At the Center, free of charge
University of California, Davis, Professor Louis Warren will give a lecture based on his book by the same title. Warren provides interesting historical and local environmental perspectives on the subject of hunting. Until the turn of the century, hunting was unregulated, and for many of the working-class it was a way to supplement their family's diet. When the government intervened, designating wildlife as a community resource that had to be managed, war broke out between immigrant communities and wildlife officers sent to enforce the new regulations. After nearly 100 years hunting regulations remain a contentious issue and the story Warren tells is more relevant than ever.

A Night of Documentary Film
Thursday, December 9, 7pm, At the Center, free of charge
The Center presents an evening exploring cultural rituals that have long been associated with the hunt with two films about African people and hunting's role in tribal life. The Great Dance has received international awards for its presentation of the hunting and tracking skills of the San people. A Rite of Passage presents the marking ceremony that follows a young man's first large kill. The screenings will be followed by a group discussion led by Mark Farris.

The Wood River Valley, The Tongass and Beyond Slide lecture by photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum

Thursday, October 14, 7pm, nexStage Theater, free of charge

Robert Glenn Ketchum is one of the nation's most successful artist/conservation activists. For nearly thirty-five years his books, lectures and exhibitions have brought critical public focus to little known wild lands. Perhaps most recognized for his work about the Tongass rainforest, Ketchum's Aperture book, The Tongass: Alaska's Vanishing Rain Forest helped create momentum for the passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Bill of 1990, which established 5 new wilderness areas, protecting more than one million acres of old-growth trees.

In addition to being included in the collections of the nation's most significant museums, Ketchum was named by Audubon magazine as one of the 100 people “who shaped the environmental movement in the 20th century.” Other awards include the Robert O. Easton Award for Environmental Stewardship; the Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography; and a Lifetime Achievement Award in Photography and Conservation from Aperture Foundation.

Ketchum lived in Sun Valley from 1966 to 1975 and will include in his lecture images from the area as well as photographs from the many places that have captured his attention during his extensive career.

Reading and Discussion with Maxine Hong Kingston

Sunday, October 3, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, free of charge

Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston addresses the Chinese American experience in her work – the journey to Gold Mountain, the labor on the railroads and in the mines, and her own families' account of running laundries and gambling houses in Stockton, California. Part myth, part memoir, part history, the author addresses the role of Chinese Americans in American history and the meaning of being Chinese American.

Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey and her recent memoir, The Fifth Book of Peace . She has earned numerous awards, among them the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the PEN West Award for Nonfiction, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the title of “Living Treasure of Hawai'i.”

Book Discussion Groups in anticipation of Maxine Hong Kingston's Lecture

Tuesday, September 21, 12:30 at the Center

Thursday, September 23, 12:30 at Hailey Public Library

both meetings free of charge

Discussions moderated by CSI Instructor, Jenny Emery Davidson, PhD. The discussion will focus on The Woman Warrior, but Kingston's entire oeuvre will be considered in order to draw parallels between her books and fit her work into a larger literary context. 

Polly Bemis: China's Daughter, Idaho's Legendary Pioneer

Ruthanne Lum McCunn reading from Thousand Pieces of Gold

Thursday, September 16, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, Free of charge 

Chinese American Portraits

Brown Bag Lunch and slide lecture with Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Friday, September 17, 12:30pm

Hailey Public Library, Free of charge

The biographical novel Thousand Pieces of Gold tells the true story of Lalu Nathoy, later known as Polly Bemis. Born in nineteenth-century China, Polly was sold by her family at a time of great drought, auctioned off as a slave in San Francisco, brought to a mining camp in Idaho, and eventually settled on the River of No Return with her husband Charlie Bemis.

Ruthanne Lum McCunn will read from her novel and discuss her research before and since its publication. Ruthanne Lum McCunn, born to a mother from Hong Kong and a father from Idaho, has published eight critically acclaimed books about Chinese on both sides of the Pacific. Her work has been translated into ten languages and adapted for stage and screen.

Nakashima's Life and Legacy

A lecture by Mira Nakashima with Cristina Grajales

Friday, July 16, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, free of charge

Mira Nakashima, the artist's daughter, continues her father's rich legacy by directing his workshop in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Trained as an architect and accustomed to working at her father's side, her lecture will provide insight into the choices, interests and influences of George Nakashima. The lecture will be followed by a discussion of the current marketplace for and rising popularity of Nakashima's work by Cristina Grajales, a celebrated New York Modernist furniture dealer and the former director of Gallery 1950.  

Artist Preview with Hung Liu

Slide lecture and exhibition walk through

Thursday, August 5, 7pm

Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Hung Liu was born in Changchu, China in 1948 and came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Trained as a social realist painter and skilled as a political muralist, Liu emigrated to the United States and ran headlong into abstract expressionist painting. Today her powerful paintings demonstrate an integration of both traditions. Rich gestural marks and paint trails over the foundation of a deftly recreated photographic image reflect her interest in memory and history. Liu has created a unique body of work commissioned specifically for The Vanishing exhibition based on historic photographs from Idaho's libraries' archives. Recently Liu's exhibition Strange Fruit traveled throughout the United States. Her works can be found in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; LA County Museum; National Museum of American Art, the Kemper Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

An Evening with Installation Artist Rene Yung

Thursday, August 26, 7pm

Sun Valley Center Gallery, free of charge

Rene Yung, installation artist, designer, and writer, grew up in Hong Kong before relocating to California as a teenager. Yung will discuss her diverse career and share images of her work exploring cross-cultural issues relating to the Asian experience in the Western world. Her multimedia installations have been included in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale; the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art. Yung has conducted numerous community-based art projects and has been commissioned to create public artworks in Seattle and at various sites in California. Her work is represented by Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco.

At the Epicenter of Design: Paris and George Nakashima

A slide lecture by Derek Ostergard

Thursday, July 8, 7pm

Sun Valley Center, free of charge

George Nakashima was exposed to important design trends of the 20th century when he lived in Paris in the 20s and 30s. As a young architect, Nakashima embraced the avant-garde in Paris, the epicenter of modernism, but eventually he became disenchanted with what he saw there and left for India and, later, Japan.

Despite his disenchantment, Paris left an indelible mark upon Nakashima. From the individuals engaged in the production of elitist, Art Deco designs, to their arch rivals, the functionalists, Nakashima would glean three principal design concepts that would define his later work – the primacy of the artist/designer, the supremacy of quality, and the mastery of materials and techniques. Although Nakashima would explore other philosophies, his Parisian years had an indelible impact. This lecture will present the personalities, designs and events of the era and reveal those elements that shaped Nakashima's growth as a major designer.

Derek Ostergard is the Associate Director and Founding Dean of the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts in New York City. He regularly publishes and lectures about !8 th to 20 th century design and was curator for the Nakashima exhibition Full Circle at the American Craft Museum in 1989.  

Considering Contemporary Art

A series of very informal discussions led by Kristin Poole

Thursday evenings, March 18 & 25, April 8 & 15

7pm at the Center Gallery - Free of charge

West Word - Writing from the New West
Thursday, February 19, 7pm
Reading with William Kittredge

Friday, February 20, 12pm
Brown Bag Lunch Discussion with West Word authors
Hailey Public Library

Friday, February 20, 7pm
Readings with Robert Wrigley, Annick Smith and Debra Magpie Earling

A two-part series of readings with four notable authors who locate their writing in the American West. The literature of the American West has evolved from the time-honored traditions of frontier survival, gun-slingers, heroes and heroines to complicated but less confined stories and poems that more accurately reflect the place we call home. At a time when the West is growing more quickly than any other region in the United States, writers are mining this fertile ground and giving voice to new generations of Westerners.

One of the most well known of these authors is William Kittredge. Known internationally for his compelling memoirs and essays, he has influenced generations of new writers while teaching in the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana. West Word features William Kittredge the first evening and, then, he will introduce three authors whose work reflects some of the best, most compelling and provocative literature of the American West today. Join Robert Wrigley, Annick Smith and Debra Magpie Earling for brief readings followed by a panel discussion on writing in the West led by William Kittredge. This is an opportunity to learn about the writers of the West and hear directly from them about their craft, writing the West, and the larger literary scene that is becoming a vital part of culture in the West.

William Kittredge farmed on the MC Ranch in southeastern Oregon until he was 35, and taught creative writing at the University of Montana until 1997, when he retired as a Regents Professor. His most recent books are The Nature of Generosity, Southwestern Homelands, and The Best Stories of William Kittredge. At present he's finishing a novel under contract to Knopf. Of his memoir Hole in the Sky, Annie Dillard wrote, “A grand and true story by one of our finest writers.” His honesty, eloquence and vision continue to offer both readers and writers vast sources of inspiration and food for thought. As the editor (with Annick Smith) of The Last Best Place , an anthology of Western writers and poets, he is also intimately familiar with the emerging and established voices of the West.

Annick Smith is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Montana's Blackfoot River Valley. She was co-editor with William Kittredge of the Montana anthology, The Last Best Place . She has published two volumes of essays, Homestead and In This We Are Native, as well as a study of the tallgrass prairies of Oklahoma, Big Bluestem: Journey into the Tall Grass for The Nature Conservancy. Her film credits include being executive producer of Heartland and a co-producer of A River Runs Through It.

Robert Wrigley received his M.F.A. from the University of Montana, where he studied with the late Richard Hugo and where he developed a profound and abiding love for the western wilderness. He has lived in Idaho since 1977 and teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Idaho. His recent books of poetry are In the Bank of Beautiful Sins and Reign of Snakes. About Reign of Snakes , National Poet Laureate Billy Collins wrote, “Robert Wrigley is an historian of the present. His smart, moving poems are attuned to the drama of the moment, and his honest, musical lingual lifts real experience deftly in art.” Wrigley is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, in addition to numerous other honors.

Debra Magpie Earling is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation. She teaches at the University of Montana. Her novel Perma Red won the Mountain and Plains Regional Award; the WILLA Award; a Spur Award; and the American Book Award.



Cowboys, Cameras, and the Myth of the West
Slide lecture with Byron Price
Thursday, January 29, 7pm

What is really happening in pictures of cowboys and the West? Acclaimed lecturer and historian Bryon Price will discuss the changing ways in which cowboys and ranch life have been portrayed by photographers from the mid-19 th century to the present. Over time, photographers have approached the subject of cowboys in diverse ways: as documentarians, artists, social critics and salesmen. Price will explore the intertwining of fact and fiction in images that appear to be straightforward depictions of cowboy life. The lecture will be illustrated by the work of some of the most important historic and contemporary photographers in the field including L.A. Huffman, Erwin E. Smith, Evelyn Cameron, Charles Belden, Bank Langmore and Kurt Markus. Byron Price is the Director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West and Charles Marion Russell Memorial Chair.