Silent Valley Club

Roll out the art barrels

The best kind of recycling is when something old becomes new again. In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Sun Valley Center Wine Auction, July 21-23, The Center has placed Wine Auction barrel art on display around Ketchum. Ten works of art made from wine barrels or portions of wine barrels are on view at various Ketchum businesses through July 23.

The barrel art was created by Wood River Valley artists who responded to a call for proposals from The Center.

"We know we have incredibly talented artists living here, but even so, these barrels just blew us away," said Christl Holzl, wine auction director. "The barrels have been carved, painted, decorated with neon, covered with cut pieces of tin or dyed cloth and even turned into functional furniture. They are truly amazing works of art."

Tonnellerie Quintessence Bordeaux, a cooperage, or barrel-making, company, donated the French oak barrels for the art project. The Center asked artists to submit designs that used at least one of the barrel heads and one of the hoops, and 10 artists were invited to participate. Artists Melissa Graves Brown, Ginna Parsons Lagergren and Judy Stoltzfus used much of the barrel as a painting surface. Brothers Brett and Stephen Carlson also used the whole barrel—but covered it with a collage made out of pieces cut from cookie tins. Janet Starr wrapped hand-dyed, twisted cotton around her barrel and Joseph L. Castle III added artificial grape leaves and grapes and hands holding wine glasses.

Diana Lloyd, an experienced neon tube bender, made neon art out of a barrel head and stave, while Jack W. Burgess carved four figures in a folk art style. Bob Dix deconstructed his barrel into a mixed-media piece that pays homage to the flavor that oak barrels impart to wine, while Wes Walsworth reconstructed his barrel as a unique functional bench.

The barrels can be seen around downtown Ketchum and in front of the Sun Valley Club. Locations are Lost River Outfitters, Silver Creek Outfitters, Ozzie's Shoes, Atkinsons' Market, Chateau Drug, Tully's Coffee, CIRO restaurant & market, F-Stop and the Sun Valley Wine Co. There are maps and descriptions with every barrel, and maps are also posted on The Center's website, www.sunvalleycenter.org.

Members of the public are invited to vote on which barrel is their favorite via cell text messages through July 17. Each of the 10 artists received $500, with an extra $500 going to the "people's choice" winner.

Travels with Roy and Jackie: Spring in Silent Valley

Hello loyal friends and followers, welcome back to our story. Our last chapter ended on April 30th with our arrival at the Silent Valley Club, in the mountains South of Banning, California. We arrived in Silent Valley after an enjoyable two week stay in Indio. After we got parked and settled we stayed in for the rest of the day. The temperatures are certainly a lot lower than we experienced last week in Indio, about 65 degrees and breezy, but the skies are clear. We have a nice site and are looking forward to a good month. Tuesday, May 3rd the weather promised to be nice so we left Silent Valley after lunch to do some caching in Banning. Because we have done so much caching in this area picking caches that we have not found is getting more difficult, but we still managed to get ten new finds for our stats. Two of the finds were caches that we had DNFed in the past, so that always makes us feel good. Unfortunately, we still had two other DNFs, one on a new cache and one on a cache that we couldn’t find last month and STILL couldn’t find. Poop! Wednesday, May 4th was a wonderful day in Silent Valley. We decided that, since we are going to be up here for a month, that we would, for the most part, alternate relaxation days with “doing something” days. For that reason we stayed at Silent Valley for the day. The skies were clear and blue, the surroundings green, a little breeze and 80 degrees. We spent a little time sitting outside reading and getting some rays. Jackie used her hammock for the first time in ages and enjoyed that. Later in the afternoon I went to the pool and spent some time in both the pool and hot tub. All in all it was a very nice, relaxing day. I also got a couple of little chores done. Buenos días estimados lectores, hoy es el Cinco De Mayo, así que usted sabe lo que eso significa. Más Tequila y la cerveza! Ole! That will be your Spanish lesson for the day. Our plan for the day had us leaving the Coach about noon after an early lunch headed for the movie theater in Banning. We wanted to see “Water for Elephants” and, according to what I read on the theater’s website, the first showing was at 12:30. However, when we got there we found that the place was closed and the first showing wasn’t until 3:30. Oh well, we planned to go shopping after the movie anyway, so we just went early.

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American annals of the deaf

Sierra Club bulletin

Broadcasting