Idaho Stories BIG IDEA & Exhbition

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U S POSTAGE

PAID

Sun Valley Center for the Arts P O Box 656 Sun Valley, ID 83353

BOISE ID

PERMIT NO. 679

Idaho Stories October 21, 2016 – January 6, 2017 A BIG IDEA Project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Cover: Scott Fife, Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound, 2014-16, archival cardboard, glue, screws, ink, courtesy the artist and Platform Gallery, Seattle, photo by Mark Davison

Center hours & location in Ketchum: Mon–Fri 9am–5pm, 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho Sun Valley Center for the Arts P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 208.726.9491 • sunvalleycenter.org

Mailer: Amanda Hamilton, The Middle Distance, 2012, oil on canvas, courtesy the artist Introduction Panels: Mary Hallock Foote, Looking for Camp, 1888, photographic reproduction of engraved illustration for The Century magazine, collection of Boise Public Library Amanda Hamilton, still from The Life of Perished Things, 2009-2012, courtesy the artist James Castle, Untitled (self-portrait with book), 20th century, found carton paper, ­c olored pigment, purchased with grant funds from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Boise Art Museum Permanent Collection,

110 N. Main Street, Hailey, Idaho 208.578.9122

Inside, from the top, left to right: Troy Passey, Poor Everybody—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, 2013, ink and watercolor on paper, courtesy the artist James Castle, Untitled (picture book page), 20th century, found paper, charcoal, soot wash, purchased with grant funds from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Boise Art Museum Permanent Collection © James Castle Collection and Archive LP Scott Fife, Ernest Hemingway, 2014-16, archival cardboard, glue, screws, ink, courtesy the artist and Platform Gallery, Seattle, photo by Mark Davison

Idaho Stories Oct 21, 2016–Jan 6, 2017 A BIG IDEA Project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts Ketchum, Idaho Where would one place pins on a literary map of Idaho? What are Idaho’s essential stories?

The Center’s BIG IDEA project Idaho Stories explores Idaho’s fascinating ties to the history of American literature. Through visual arts, film, theatre, lectures and classes, this project also considers Idaho as a place that has long ­generated all kinds of stories—and continues to do so today.

The visual arts exhibition’s storyline begins in 1885, the year that poet Ezra Pound was born in Hailey and author/illustrator Mary Hallock Foote

and her husband built their Stone House on the Boise River. It spans the lives of self-taught artist James Castle, who was born in Garden Valley in 1899 and died in Boise in 1977, and Ernest Hemingway, who began visiting Idaho in the 1930s and ended his life in Ketchum in 1961. It closes with the 1980 publication of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, set in a town in northern Idaho. The exhibition features the work of five artists—two historic, three contemporary—all responding to Idaho’s landscapes and literature.

Idaho Stories Oct 21, 2016–Jan 6, 2017 M U S EU M E X HIBITIO N

L ectures

In 2014, Seattle-based artist Scott Fife spent a month living in The Center’s residence in Hailey, which was also the birthplace of the controversial poet Ezra Pound. Fife came to Hailey to work on wash paintings and cardboard sculptures of 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 Fife produced for the exhibition, which also considers the ­relationship between the writers.

Artist Talk with Scott Fife

Mary Hallock Foote, raised in New York, 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, she was able to continue her career while ­embarking on a radically different life from the one she had known in the East. First in California and later in Boise, where she moved in 1884, Foote made stories and illustrations that fed an ­Eastern ­audience eager to learn about life on the frontier. Her life and work later inspired ­Wallace ­Stegner’s Angle of Repose. The ­exhibition features illustrations that Foote made for The Century during her 12 years in Boise.

The exhibition also includes a selection of works

by James Castle. Born in 1899 in Idaho’s West Central Mountains, Castle was deaf from birth and never learned to speak, communicating instead through his artwork. From an early age he made drawings using found paper or cardboard, soot and spit, ink and pigment. Living first in Garden Valley, later in the small town of Star and finally on a family farm in Boise, Castle used his artwork to interpret his surroundings.

He imbued many works with a magical, ­narrative quality, and sometimes created grids of small images laid out like the pages of a storybook.

Text often appears in Castle’s drawings, ­occasionally presented in small books bound together with string. Taken as a whole, his work tells a very particular story of a life lived entirely in Idaho.

James Castle, Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound are all central figures in Boise-based ­artist Troy Passey’s practice. Like Castle, 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 Castle.

Passey uses literature as a touchstone, incorporating fragments of text into his work. Pound and Hemingway are frequent sources for Passey, in part because of their ties to Idaho.

Amanda Hamilton’s project The Life of ­Perished Things was inspired by another Idaho story: Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. Narrated by Ruthie, one of two sisters raised by an eccentric aunt, the novel features evocative images of northern Idaho’s landscapes. 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 experience of living in Idaho for nearly a decade.

Exhibition Opening Celebration Fri, Oct 21, 5–7pm Free at The Center, Ketchum

Evening Exhibition Tours

Thu, Nov 10 and Thu, Dec 1, 5:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators and gallery guides.

Gallery Walks

Thu, Oct 20, 5:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum Scott Fife, well known for his realistic sculptures made from archival cardboard, will share stories of his process and his inspiration. From Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound camping together in sleeping bags to the Tacoma Art Museum’s beloved Leroy, a nearly 10-foot-tall sculpture of one of Fife’s dogs, each of his projects has its own fascinating story.

Jenny Emery Davidson on The Frontier Composed: The Far West Sketches of Mary Hallock Foote

Thu, Nov 3, 6:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum; register in ­advance to guarantee your seat At a time when prominent artists and writers were inscribing the West with the triumphalist vision of manifest destiny, Mary Hallock Foote created work that pushes back against that ­narrative. Her articles, stories, and drawings earned the income that made it possible for her family to build a home in the Boise canyon, but they also challenge us to think about homesteading in the West in unexpected ways.

Jenny Emery Davidson is the Executive Director of The Community Library in Ketchum and holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Utah.

From Idaho Stories to Idaho Novels with Julie Weston

Thu, Dec 1, 6:30pm Free at The Center, Ketchum; register in ­advance to guarantee your seat Local and award-winning writer Julie Weston will discuss how her Idaho stories grew into memoir and mysteries. Her books include ­Moonshadows (Five Star Publishing, 2015), Basque Moon (Five Star Publishing, 2016), and The Good Times Are All Gone Now (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009).

Two-Day Teen Workshop Coptic Bookbinding: Stab, Stitch and Sew with Chad Seelig

The Center, Hailey Sat & Sun, Oct 29 & 30, 12–4pm $10 pre-registration required In this introductory course, students will learn to design and construct their own hardcover book using the technique of Coptic ­bookbinding, a non-toxic and adhesive-free process that dates to the 2nd century AD in Egypt. Coptic bookbinding can be used to create personalized sketchbooks, journals or book arts.

Chad Seelig is an artist and educator who came to Idaho from New York City. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He ­currently lives in Twin Falls, where he writes and makes artwork out of his backyard studio.

Family Day Idaho Stories

Sat, Nov 5, 3–5pm The Center, Ketchum Free Come and make art inspired by the work of ­Idaho artist James Castle. Alter your ­perspective by limiting various senses. How does the ­process of making art change when your senses are challenged?

Family Day events at The Center provide special opportunities for multiple generations to explore art and ideas together by looking at and making art.

Fri, Nov 25, 4–6pm Fri, Dec 29, 5–7pm Start your Gallery Walk at The Center!

Special thanks to private collectors, the Boise Art Musem and the Boise Public Library for loans that made this exhibition possible.

Sun Valley Center for the Arts sunvalleycenter.org

Film Night

CO M PA NY O F FOO LS

Thu, Nov 10, 7pm Magic Lantern Cinemas, Ketchum $10 / $12 nonmember Total running time: 2 hours, 23 minutes

Play Reading: A Bright New Boise

By Samuel D. Hunter

James Castle: Portrait of an Artist

Director: Jeffrey Wolf 53 minutes A documentary on artist James Castle’s life and creative process, as told by family members, art historians, curators, artists, collectors and members of the deaf community. A true case of triumph of the spirit, Castle’s inspirational story is one of monumental achievement.

Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling with Life

Director: Stephen Crisman 90 minutes Narrated by Mariel Hemingway, this ­documentary offers a fascinating trip through Hemingway’s world, from the hospital in Milan where he first found love, to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide. Rare film clips, ­excerpts from letters and unpublished works, and comments of those who knew him shed light on his remarkable life.

Per fo r min g A rts

Tue, Nov 15, 6:30pm Liberty Theatre Free, $10 suggested donation Winner of the 2011 Obie Award for Playwriting and nominee for the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. Samuel D. Hunter is the ­recipient of a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2012 recipient of the Whiting Award for Drama.

In the bleak, corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby not only for employment, but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works at the Hobby Lobby along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of A Bright New Boise confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.

An evening with author Korby Lenker

Thu, Dec 8, 6:30pm The Center, Ketchum $10 / $12 nonmember Korby Lenker’s first book, Medium Hero, ­features 27 stories culled from his 15 years as a solo touring indie musician. The stories are as colorful as their titles—“Rat’s Dude,” “Manboy and the Mafia Table,” “Catlady”—and flourish under his descriptive, empathetic pen.

From a romantic-encounter-turned-familycrisis, to a ­humorous eulogy for his recently deceased p ­ iano teacher, to an unlikely visit with ac ­ onvicted felon in a California desert, Lenker has distilled an unusual life that began in Twin Falls, into potent vignettes that you will read more than once.

Korby Lenker in Concert

Fri, Dec 9, 2016 Sun Valley Opera House $20 / $30 nonmember $50 / $60 premium seating After growing up in Twin Falls as the son of a mortician, Korby Lenker became a singer, songwriter, author, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist.

He can often be heard on legendary Seattle indie rock station KEXP, has opened for acts ranging from Willie Nelson to Ray LaMontagne, Keith Urban and Susan Tedeschi. Lenker began work on a new album, Thousand Springs, in April 2016. He spent weeks traveling and recording outdoors at locations in southern Idaho and then spent early summer laying more tracks with some of his favorite musicians around the country. While here, Lenker will be working with students from Wood River High School.

Korby Lenker recording sound at the Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls, spring 2016.