sun Hailey
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s t a n l e y • F a i r f i e l d • S h o sh o n e • P i c a b o
More Free Music around the Valley this week
the weekly
Page 4
Teacher Max Stimac Rolls Up His Sleeve Page 7
Wagons Ho! Full Schedule of Wagon Days Events PageS 14 & 15
A u g u s t 3 1 , 2 0 1 1 • V o l . 4 • N o . 3 5 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Gilman Contemporary hosts an evening with Big Game Photographer Nick Brandt from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. tonight read about it on PaGe 8
Designers Light it Up! PHOTOS & STORY By KAREN BOSSICK
Left: Michael Kimmel tests a light at the Sun Valley Pavilion. Below: Lisa Weinshrott sits at the light board. he violinists had scarcely finished drawing their bows across their strings in the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s final performance before Michael Kimmel and his wife Lisa Weinshrott went into action. They shuffled some 150 lights around until nearly 3 in the morning. Then they returned early the next morning to test each light and cover them with blue, orange, red and purple-colored filters to provide lots of flash and “eye candy� for the Huey Lewis and the News concert that evening. Kimmel and Weinshrott set the mood for the Pavilion with their lights. You notice it when the lights are flashing all over the place at a rock concert. You don’t notice it so much at tamer events like the Sun Valley Writers Conference. But, without their touch, you might not be able to see the artists on stage. “People would blend in. The audience wouldn’t know where to look,� said Weinshrott. Kimmel and Weinshrott are, they believe, one of few husbandwife teams in professional lighting in America. Their mailing address ends in a New Jersey zip code. But they spend more time in Sun Valley than anywhere else, arriving in May and remaining through the Sept. 9 Lee Ann Womack concert. The other months of the year you can find them anywhere from the Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas cruise ship where Weinshrott helped program stage lighting for the Aqua Theater dive show to Michigan where they provided the lighting for a high school production of “The Phantom of the Opera� that Kimmel said was as grandiose as any high caliber professional theatre. The two met while working a summer theater in Pennsylvania in 2001 but didn’t marry until 2009 because they couldn’t find the time. Even then they worked until midnight the eve of their wedding day, caught a plane at 7 a.m. and married on a cruise ship before holding a reception later at Weinshrott’s childhood making the audience feel like they’re somewhere else when we’re home in Wisconsin. lighting weddings,� she said. “I love taking an empty tent or Working as a team (their website is www.sharpedgelighting. ballroom and creating it into a theme that a bride is envisioncom) often means getting one paycheck for a job that they both ing.� do. But it also means they can double book performances. Kimmel was a computer science major who got a bachelor in Weinshrott said the process starts with deciding how they lighting after working the lights for a dance show at the Univerwant the audience to feel as they sit in their seats. The Amerisity of California-Santa Barbara. can Festival Chorus concert featuring Maureen McGovern, for “I loved that it was something new all the time. And it was instance, featured a soft introduction to “This Land is your Land,� followed by a big change of light with the crescendo of the exciting to be a part of something that drew applause from hundreds of people in the audience,� he said. music. “I love working in Sun Valley. I love the view from my ‘ofWeinshrott will listen to Womack’s songs as she plots her fice,’ � he added, gesturing towards the mountains outside the lighting cues. When she can’t see a play or show ahead of time, pavilion. “And when we’re not working, we’re mountain biking, she does what she calls “intelligent improvisation.� skating—doing all the things Sun Valley has to offer.� “People would be surprised how much times goes into it,� said Kimmel and Weinshrott have gotten Weinshrott. “It can take as little as three awards for their work. But, generally, days or as many as six months by the they have to bask in the applause from time you plan and prepare for the show.� the wings. Weinshrott studied microbiology at the “The enjoyment for us is the audience University of Wisconsin but figured she reaction,� Kimmel said. “We know that could get more jobs in her hobby—light–Michael Kimmel we had a part in the success of the show.� ing—than she could in science. www.sharpedgelighting.com “I like the creative environment. I like tws
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COURTESY ART: NINA FOX
Swaner Poster By KAREN BOSSICK
O
n the morning of the Big Hitch Parade, Nina Fox armed herself with her favorite camera—a Canon 1D Mark IV digital camera—and headed to the Sun Valley Horseman’s Center to take a few photographs of people primping their horses. But her eye landed not on a vintage wagon or a horse. Nina Fox Instead, it landed on Ivan Swaner, a native Wood River Valley resident who has become an icon in the valley with his turned-up handlebar mustache and weathered cowboy hat. A couple clicks of the camera and 12 months later Swaner graces the 2011 commemorate Wagon Days poster. Fox, who lives in Hulen Meadows, said she wasn’t sure if a picture of a person was fair game, given the fact that the poster usually sports the Big Hitch ore wagons and parade animals. “But him being a local historian who’s so committed to Wagon Days, I thought, ‘Whoa!’ � she said. “He has such a distinguished look. He epitomizes Wagon Days.� Fox took a photography class in her teens and found it to be magical. “I just could not believe you could go to school and learn how to click a camera and capture these images, then develop them in a dark room so you could relive the moment.,� said the Pacific Palisades native. Fox laid down her camera while she and her husband raised two daughters in Hawaii. But she picked it up again nine years ago when the family moved to Sun Valley, where Fox had spent every summer growing up with her grandparents. She began zeroing in on her daughters Delaney and Sierra as they took up track, soccer and alpine racing. “It’s an incredible journey to be behind the lens. Because of my long lens, I get to see things people don’t see with naked eye. Looking through that little hole I get up close and personal with subject matter witnessing tears of joy, eyes of victory,� she said. As the girls began moving away, Fox turned her camera on the
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“The enjoyment for us is the audience reaction.�
The Washington Ave.
&
1st Ave.
At
Forest Service Park Ketchum, Idaho
The oldest Antique show in the Valley Sept 2, 3, 4 2011
Fri & Sat
info;
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