A Father's Thoughts

St George DOCUTAH Festival

Dixie State University is presenting DOCUTAH, the Southern Utah International Documentary Film Festival next month for the fourth year. Multiple venues in southern Utah and Mesquite will screen the 50 films selected by the judges from the 330 submissions. The festival will run for five days starting on September 3.

As a member of one of the groups of screeners I saw some wonderful submissions. Our group screened 30 films including shorts and full-length movies.

We enjoyed learning about the history of the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium. It first opened on the Ann Arbor campus 100 years ago. “A Space for Music: A Seat for Everyone” emphasizes the quality of its acoustics. The Hill Auditorium has seen performances by many world famous musical artists over the years. Recently renovations cost $33.5 million. Construction cost $200,000 in 1913. I have added Ann Arbor to my bucket list.

Another film that received high grades from our group, “Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmlands” tells the stories of how combat veterans heal from the traumas of war by committing themselves to new careers in organic farming and ranching that benefit their communities. The film effectively reveals the strengths of character of these combat vets who are rebuilding their lives by identifying a societal need and taking positive constructive daily actions to meet that challenge.

Two locally produced films made the cut. “Mike’s Migration” is a Dixie State University student project that focuses on a family living and working together in Alaska. “Heart of the Andes” is a short documentary about the work of our own local humanitarian organization, Heartwalk Foundation (heartwalkfoundation.org), founded by Tim Eicher, a university professor, and his wife Penelope, a mental health therapist. Heart Walk has been working for more than 10 years with the native Q’ero people in the Peruvian Andes to help them develop new skills in agriculture, fishing, education, and micro-businesses.

The diversity of this year’s offerings clearly displays the potential of documentary films to educate, inspire, and open the minds of the audience. One theme I see repeated while reviewing the films is the importance and value of focusing on developing our own strengths in the service of others. The ability to see the world through the eyes of another broadens our own life experience.

Emblematic of that life value is the feature film “Get Together Girls” that tells the story of an Italian woman who moved to Kenya to help six former street girls become fashion designers. This film will be screened in the outdoor theater in the Ivins community of Kayenta on Thursday, September 5 in the evening.

The DOCUTAH Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/DOCUTAH) includes trailers for many of the films. The DOCUTAH web site is docutah.com.

The festival and associated events offer a feast for the mind. Day passes are available for $5.00 and a general all event pass is only $20.00.

Enjoying art can be expression in itself

This is my Spectrum column for Sept. 4, 2012

This month my wife, Cherie, and I celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of Gallery 873 in the Coyote Gulch Art Village in Kayenta/Ivins. The gallery is her brainchild and project but we are both inspired by the words of Roy Adzak; “Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us.”

Cherie finds the more than eighty artists that we represent; organizes and arranges their work in our gallery guided be her innate artist’s sensibility. One artist we represent is Edward Hlavka, a nationally known bronze sculptor, who created “The Mustangs” in the roundabout on Snow Canyon Parkway. While we generally represent artists from the Southwest we also have artwork from other regions of the country.

We have scheduled a reception for Saturday, September 22 from 5:30 to 9:00 PM so the public can meet two of our featured artists, April Bower and Lynette Thompson, while enjoying live music and light refreshments.

April, an established artist, has been with us since we opened and has been working with copper and silver jewelry for more than 18 years. Also, using chemical patinas, she makes “Patina Paintings” on thin copper sheets supported by wood backings or “boxes”.

Lynette is an emerging acrylic artist. Her favorite material is gesso that she blends with sand, metal, copper, twigs, and other materials creating organic, multi-layered, richly textured images of shaman, horses, quail, and many other natural inhabitants found in the desert southwest.

Trying to find the words to express the importance of my own late life immersion in the world of art in all of its dimensions is challenging. But acting as an intermediary between artists and the public can be exciting and life affirming. Being in an artistic environment with others of the same mind is energizing be it at Tuacahn, the Shakespeare Festival, or in Gallery 873. Just the opportunity to interact with those who are open to exploring the mysteries of the creative process inevitably broadens our perspective of the complexity of our world.

Just now, as I write, a young woman is approaching the gallery and a smile broadens on her face when she sees the outdoor art in front of our building. Entering, her growing enthusiasm is obvious even before I hear  “It’s so beautiful” as she spontaneously responds to a Giclée of a horse embellished with copper feathers and leather by artist Lynn Bean. She leaves with a few cards containing smaller images of the work that caught her attention.

Customers sometimes express feelings of disappointment about the lack of creativity in their own lives. I remind them that artists need those of us whose role it is to appreciate and be inspired by their work and that we are each artists in some sense.

As Houston Llew, one of our artists, reminds us: “In art you can find your own spirit. This very simple act is art in itself”.  That opportunity is open to all.