HAILEY
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KETCHUM
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SUN VALLEY
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BELLEVUE
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CAREY
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S TA N L E Y • FA I R F I E L D • S H O S H O N E • P I C A B O
HARPER TURNS 109 PAGE 3
Chic’s New Location! READ ABOUT IT ON PAGE 14
RIDE SUN VALLEY BIKE FEST PAGE 7
BOTANICAL GARDEN OPENS PAVILION PAGE 8 J u n e 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 • V o l . 7 • N o . 2 8 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Choco, Tova Set Service Standard
Dogs Double As Art Hounds
Margery Friedlander says Choco and Tova have added a new dimension to her life.
in a lottery that allowed her to stymie the disease’s progression. Today, it progresses so slowly that only she is able to notice a decline. But she is taking no chances, enlisting Tova and 8-year-old s Margery Friedlander ascends the steps outside the Choco to keep her on her feet. Sun Valley Inn, the white standard poodle at her side Friedlander got Choco as a companion. But when Choco was 6 touches her nose to each step. months old, she realized the dog might give her a leg up when it came Her shiny brown nose isn’t twitching over some to navigating through life with multiple sclerosis. alluring chicken yakitori that someone spilled. Tova is telling “She had a nice temperament,” Friedlander said, nodding toward her companion where the steps are so Friedlander can access her 75-pound, cocoa-colored standard poodle. “I didn’t feel like I each without stumbling. needed a service dog then, but I thought it might be helpful down the The 2-year-old with the big brown eyes and quizzical stares road.” is one of two mobility service dogs that assist Friedlander as To help teach Choco the ropes, Friedlander contacted Fran Jewell, she makes her way to her art studio, book club, chiropractor, a Hailey dog trainer, who had already taught the dog to “Sit. Stay. library lectures and Healing Touch sessions that Friedlander Come.” offers patients at the hospital. .Jewell had trained a number of service dogs, “It amazes me how Margery can go into including one that touches a deaf Seattle woman, a movie or meeting and the dog will lie at “It amazes me how Mar- alerting her to go to the phone when it rings. She her feet without moving,” said husband taught the dog to touch the woman on the gery can go into a movie or also Woody Friedlander. “They enjoy working. shoulder when an ambulance siren dictates that They would rather be working than be left meeting and the dog will lie she needs to pull over on a roadway and to alert alone.” her when she’s left the water running. Friedlander, a retired psychotherapist, at her feet without moving,” She taught a dog for a wheelchair user to take was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at out of the wash machine, to take applisaid husband Woody Fried- laundry 50 when her knees began tingling while ances out of cupboards, to open closet doors and attending a conference in Chicago in lander. “They enjoy working. to close the dishwasher door. 1987. The first five years she was bothered They would rather be workonly by tingling. Then, while traveling in Jewell and Friedlander spent 300 hours teaching than be left alone.” Madrid, she realized she couldn’t read a ing Choco to move at Friedlander’s pace, to pull map. She rectified that with treatment and was lucky enough to win medication STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
Margery Friedlander’s works are inspired by the landscapes she sees as she drives down the road. STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
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xpect to see Choco or Tova accompanying Margery Friedlander when she exhibits her monotypes and etchings at the Ketchum Arts Festival July 11-13. They’ll also be with her at the Sun Valley Center Arts and Crafts Festival Aug 8-10. This is the third straight year jurors have selected Friedlander as one of 125 artists from 700 applicants. “It’s hard work for the dogs because they’re lying down all day unless I or someone takes them for a walk. They’re beat when they get home,” said Friedlander. Friedlander started exploring art later in life. After graduating from the University of Toronto, she became a “Betty Bright” in the home service department of a company similar to Intermountain Gas. She later researched weightloss strategies—strategies similar to those that Weight Watchers later adopted. In 1975 she became a psychotherapist at the Foundation for Religion and Mental Health while her husband Woody Friedlander worked as a chemical engineer for Union Carbide before hanging out his consulting shingle. Fourteen years ago, after retiring to Sun Valley, Friedlander took a watercolor class from Hailey illustrator Kim Howard, even going so far as to take a watercolor/journaling trip in France. She turned to the millennia-old medium of printmaking three years later after she became intrigued by
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Learning the ropes
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