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A Little Fuzz Therapy during the Trailing of the Sheep
Idaho Steelhead and Salmon Benefit Saturday Page 3
Helen Chen Brings Asian Flair to Ketchum Page 7 read the roundup on PaGe 14
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O c t o b e r 1 2 , 2 0 1 1 • V o l . 4 • N o . 4 1 • w w w.T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Jazz with Kniffen PHOTO & STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
MORE JAZZ ON PAGE 4
Gymnopedies No. 258
Martha andrea
Bellevue Open Studios Art Tour
M
usic doesn’t happen at Wood River High School without Nathan Kniffen in the mix. Fans say the Wood River High School senior is the first student to participate in every band the high
BY KAREN BOSSICK
I
t’s modeled after a Gallery Walk. But this weekend’s Bellevue Open Studios gives art fans a chance to meet artists in their studios. They’ll get to see a range of artist habitats from Janet Houts’ kitchen where she makes award-winning quilts to Mark Sheehan’s forge where he uses fire to weld steel into sculpture. “It’s a different way for people to look at art instead of going into a gallery,” said Brooke Bonner, owner of Bellevue’s Green Antelope Gallery. This year’s tour—the second—will feature 13 artists who will open their homes and studios from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Green Antelope Gallery at 116 S. 2nd St. will kick the tour off on Friday with an opening reception that features a piece from each participating artist. Brandis Sarich will be on site, demonstrating the process she uses in her colorful animal portraits and taking commissions for pet portraits. The Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley will receive 10 percent of any sales during the tour. Visitors can pick up a brochure and map to plot out their tour at the gallery. Or they can begin the tour at any point since it’s self-guided. Participants can walk to a few of the sites from the gallery. But they’ll need a bicycle or car to get to studios in the Bellevue Triangle and in Fox Hollow Gulch off Broadford Road. Participating artists are: Mixed media artist Martha Andrea who uses Intaglio printing, painting and collage, 126 Equus Loop Melissa Graves Brown who paints colorful acrylic landscapes, 4041 Woodside Blvd. No. 1 Nolina Burge, who does landscape paintings in oil on canvas, panel and aluminum, 110 Chestnut Lane Clifford Frates, who does painting, sculpture and multi-media, 110 Chestnut Lane Janet Houts, who creates quilts and textile arts, 419 Elm St. Steven R. Houts, who does mixed media and handmade paper pieces, 419 Elm St. Russ Lamb, who does bronze and mixed media sculpture and painting, 190 Labrador Lane Betsy Pearson, who does acrylic, oil, watercolor and pastel landscapes,
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Kniffen owns four guitars, a couple of drums and a golden retriever named “Elvis,” along with a multi-track recording system on which he will record a song, or songs, for his senior project.
school has going—a long list that includes concert choir, BTones men’s group, Dixie band, jazz band, concert band, Colla Voce’s band, pep band and the Wood River Drumline, which Kniffen captains. He was front and center last night when the Wood River High Dixie Band, judged the top band at last spring’s Heritage Festival in Anaheim, Calif., performed at the Sun Valley Jazz Community concert. And he and his seven fellow musicians will be back on stage at 6:30 tonight in the Sun Valley Lodge Sun Room—the first time the band has performed as part of the Sun Valley Jazz Festival. “It’s a big honor. Performing before audiences like that gives your passion some worth. That’s why I practice all the time—I want to share my music, my talents, with people,” said Kniffen, who practices in a bedroom plastered with posters of Metallica, Iron Maiden and Jimi Hendrix. Kniffen couldn’t escape music growing up. His father, Kevin—a former guitar player—owns thousands of CDs and his mother Susan plays organ by ear and sang solos with church choirs before giving it up to raise her son. But Nathan eschewed music for baseball and other activities despite besting his fellow students at Hemingway Elementary School on a musical aptitude test in second grade. The riffs on his dad’s Led Zeppelin album changed that. “That was the push he needed,” Susan Kniffen said. “He took guitar lessons in middle school and there was no going back.” Kniffen and his dad attend all the major concerts in the Sun Valley area and travel outside the area to see musicians like Elton John and Leon Russell. The younger Kniffen likes it all—from Pink Floyd and CCR to Miles
Davis, John Coltrane and B.B. King. “Music’s the universal language. You don’t have to speak a musician’s language to know whether the song he’s singing is happy or sad. And I really respect the talent and artistic creativity behind it,” said Kniffen. “I just think it’s astonishing the work ethic and the attention to detail. Jimi Hendrix, for instance, had no musical training but played guitar constantly—he even got a dishonorable discharge for playing too much. But this obscure boy came out of nowhere and rocked the face of popular culture.” As jazz goes, Kniffen finds contemporary jazz more interesting to listen to because it’s more complex than Dixieland jazz, which generally follows a set pattern. But he enjoys playing Dixie more. “We only have eight in the Dixie band so we can show off more.” Kniffen has taught kids how to form their own rock bands at Mitzi Mecham’s School of Rock. He’s done private instruction on the side, studies with the Sun Valley Summer School of Music and plays in the church band each Sunday at the Presbyterian Church of the Big Wood. But he’s had to turn down the many offers he gets to play with adult bands in the Valley. At 17, Kniffen is not old enough to play in bars. And there’s not much time left after school classes and band practices, which begin at 7 each morning and often run into the early evening hours. Kniffen would love to attend Berklee School of Music where he has taken summer classes. But he’s eyeing Harvard and Yale, which offer the math and science classes he needs for an engineering degree. His dream is to design cars or planes and be a “well-respected musician” at day’s end. The more bands, the better. “I’m analytical—kind of a geek. And they’ve shown there’s a strong correlation between music and math. I’d encourage all students to take music—it helps with all aspects of life.” tws
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