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Moveable Feast Goes to the Locals Play Role Movies on Sunday in 2012 Page 3
Free KIDTUBEfest Kicks off Lunafest this Friday
Winter Youth Olympic Games
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Dog Sled Races are This Weekend in Stanley Page 6
M a r c h 7 , 2 0 1 2 • Vo l . 5 • N o . 1 0 • w w w.T h e We e k l y S u n . c o m
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Khalsa’s Keepsakes architecture and the need to create something beautiful add flare to these unique designs BY KAREN BOSSICK
G Jenny Abell’s Book Cover No. 41 can be seen at the Gail Severn Gallery during Friday’s Gallery Walk. COURTESY PHOTO
Gallery Walk Includes Not So Still Life BY KAREN BOSSICK
K
etchum’s galleries are throwing their doors open from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday to give people an opportunity to peruse new art, meet some of the artists behind the art and nibble on light refreshments. Here are some of this Gallery Walk’s highlights: Friesen Gallery, 320 First Ave. N., will present works by Seattle artist Ginny Ruffner in tandem with the Idaho premiere of the Sun Valley Film Festival of the Ruffner documentary, “A Not So Still Life.” The gallery will also show works by Ron Ehrlich and Pamela Wilson. Kneeland Gallery, 271 1st Ave. N., will present “Elegant Expressions,” a three-person exhibition featuring new landscapes and plein air paintings by Andrzej Skorut, Bart Walker and Douglas Aagard. Broschofsky Galleries, 360 East Ave., will show 19th century through contemporary historic Western works by Albert Bierstadt, Karl Bodmer, Thomas Moran, Brandon Cook, Russell Chatham, David Dixon and Tom Howard. Gallery DeNovo, 320 First Ave. N., will present Spanish painter Agusti Puig’s textural works in its main floor gallery and the faces of Rein de Lege and Yehouda Chaki’s lively landscapes in its upstairs galleries. Gilman Contemporary, 661 Sun Valley Road, is presenting Jane Maxwell’s collage paintings exploring the perception of the ideal female form as presented in the media. Maxwell will be in attendance during Gallery Walk and at a special reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Gail Severn, 400 1st Ave. N., is presenting Jenny Honnert Abell’s “EX LIBRIS: Enigma of Birds and Trees,” Robert McCauley’s “Stop Making Sense” paintings rooted in the tradition of 19th-century American Romanticism, and a “Surface and Beyond” encaustic exhibition by Kris Cox and Rana Rochat. The gallery is also featuring a tapestry exhibition titled “The Elo-
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urmukh Khalsa concerns herself with functionality in her day job as an architectural designer at Power Engineers. That’s what you do when you work on designs for buildings supporting transmission stations, wind farms and food processing factories. But come night, when she goes home, she throws the need for rules and regulations to the wind. The end result: oneof-a-kind Mosaic Design necklaces and earrings that have become coveted prizes at the Ketchum Arts Festival and Toneri Hink Gallery in Ketchum where her work will be featured from 5 to 8 p.m. during Friday’s Gallery Walk. “My jewelry has an architectural quality to it in that I try to make a strong frame, which I test on myself before I ever sign off,” said Khalsa, who received a Master of Architecture at the University of Oregon. “And I pay attention to the silhouette of things because of my architectural bent. But, for the most part, jewelry has so few requirements you can let your imagination run wild.” Khalsa has been obsessed with making jewelry since she found a box of beads belonging to her aunt in the attic when she was six. To a young girl, she recalls, it was like finding a treasure chest. She continued making jewelry when her parents—devout Sikhs living in New Mexico— sent she and her sisters to a boarding school in India to learn about the Sikh religion. Even though the school offered little in the way of art education, Khalsa continued to make jewelry by pairing copper wires that she pulled out of broken headphones with gemstones and beads she found in Indian markets. “I feel like the need to create has been
with me my entire life, from the ornate mud pies that I decorated with twigs and flowers to my first attempt at crocheting. Creation has always seemed a bit like magic to me. The first time I cast an object in brass I felt like a Greek god able to shape metal with my bare hands. And I’m a geek about stones and minerals,” she said. While studying archaeology at the University of New Mexico, Khalsa took classes in small metal construction casting where she realized that the options were endless, even for someone not trained in jewelry. “I can do wire jewelry without a studio or any tools, really, save for a pair of pliers,” she said. She put that newfound knowledge to the test when she worked in Anchorage, Alaska. “It was dark and I didn’t know very many people so I went crazy with my jewelry. I went from work to the gym to jewelry making.” Nowadays, Khalsa works her craft at the coffee table in the living room of the log cabin she and her husband Jason McElhaney share in Woodside. She finds inspiration everywhere— in the gradient color of nature that she finds lacking in contemporary manmade forms, the obsidian and agates she collects in the desert, even in the flora of Dr. Seuss and classic Middle Eastern motifs. But her jewelry is perhaps most influenced by the ancient styles of India as she wraps her frilly wire around gemstones, rustic stones, chrysoprase, kyanite, Peruvian opal, tourmaline and mother of pearl. “You can see the Indian influence,” said Lynn Toneri. “She’s really gaining a following, especially among those who appreciate intricate handmade jewelry. She’s well received because her jewelry is so unusual.” “I’m just obsessed with making beautitws ful things,” said Khalsa.
. .I pay attention to the silhouette of things because of my architectural bent. But for the most part, jewelry has so few requirements you can let your imagination run wild.” “
Gurmukh Khalsa (top) created these one-of-akind mosaic design necklaces and earrings. COURTESY PhotoS: DEV KHALSA
SunValley ArtistSeries
misha & cipa dichter
A Benefit Concert for Suicide Prevention
Sponsored by St. Luke’s Wood River Medical Center & St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation