Cheyenne Camera Club opens photo exhibit

The Cheyenne Camera Club holds an exhibition of the winners of its annual photo contest through June 27 at the Cheyenne Artist Guild, 1701 Morrie Ave., on the west side of Holliday Park (look for the sign). The exhibition is open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, noon-4:30 p.m. FMI: Tom at 307-634-7895.

WAC roster artists Andy Nelson and Chuck Larsen at Grand Encampment Gathering

Candy Moulton's article about the Grand Encampment Cowboy Gathering appeared in today's edition of The Fence Post. To read the entire story, go to http://www.thefencepost.com/article/20090608/NEWS/906089997/1032&ParentProfile=1001

Here's how it begins:

You will get a dose of Texas music, a Stampede from Utah, and some of the very best cowboy poetry Wyoming has to offer at the Seventh Annual Grand Encampment Cowboy Gathering July 17-19, in Encampment, Wyo.

An evening concert on Saturday, July 18, features Jean Prescott, Award winning Texas singer/songwriter, Stampede, a cowboy musical group from Utah, and cowboy poets Andy Nelson of Pinedale, Wyo., and Chuck Larsen of Saratoga, Wyo. You are guaranteed to laugh with Andy and Chuck take to the stage. The concert begins at 7 p.m. at the Encampment School. Tickets are $15 and are available in advance or at the door.

Cowboy Gathering memberships are also available with prices beginning at $25.

Bring Andy and/or Chuck to your community by applying for a WAC Arts Across Wyoming grant. Go to http://wyoarts.state.wy.us.

Jackson Hole Writers Contest sponsors writing contest for attendees

This comes from the Jackson Hole Writers Conference:

Cloudveil, leader in inspired mountain apparel, is sponsoring an online reader-judged writing contest for Jackson Hole Writers Conference attendees.

Deadline is June 24. Prize is Cloudveil gear for first, second and third place finishers. Announcements will be made at the June 25-28 conference.

Theme: Inspiration -- what moves you from essence to exultation, from source to summit, from muse to masterpiece.

Your story and/or poem need not be about nature or the outdoors. JHMC wants your unique or universal, absurd or utterly profound, honest or fantastic creations.

You may submit one entry per category -- story and poetry -- to laurenmwhaley@gmail.com Stories 500 words or less, poetry 40 lines or less. Entries will be posted on The Mountain Culture blog to be judged by the blog's new and faithful readers.

Find full details at: The Mountain Culture or on the conference blog.

Murie Center hosts natural soundscape workshop

The Murie Center in Moose invites you to a four-day natural soundscape workshop, from 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 24, to noon Sunday, June 28, in Jackson Hole.

Led by bio-acousticians Bernie Krause, Martyn Stewart, and Kevin Colver, the focus will be the soundscape from many perspectives. These include the biophony — the non-human critter voices in given habitats, geophony — the non-biological sources of sound and what they reveal, and anthrophony — the noise that humans interject into the world and its direct affect on critter life and human experience. Attendees will explore the benefits of the voice of the natural world as it relates to human health and culture, including creative sound arts.

The workshop includes both field and classroom activities and is spread over a larger number of days and nights so that participants have several opportunities to record sounds. As part of the program, The Murie Center will provide accommodations in comfortable (but rustic) cabins and food service on site.

FMI: kkrause@wildsanctuary.com or call Kat at 707/996-6677.

Ride the UW bus to Westword Music Showcase

From a UW press release:

Space is available for both University of Wyoming students and non-UW students for a June 13 bus trip to Denver for the Westword Music Showcase.

The bus leaves at noon from the east Wyoming Union parking lot and will return to campus around midnight. Cost is $10 for UW students and $15 for non-students. Tickets for the music showcase are available from the Wyoming Union information desk. Tickets include the bus ride and admittance to the music event.

For more information, contact the UW Campus Activities Center at (307) 766-6340 or e-mail cac@uwyo.edu.

More than 50 bands will perform at the music showcase on different stages set up around Lincoln Street in Denver. The showcase's Web site is http://musicshowcase.westword.com/index.php.

Kooser a national literary treasure

My sketch of Kooser, and notes from the workshop

Had the chance to sit in on Ted Kooser's final session at the Wyoming Writer's annual conference this past weekend in Casper. I regretted missing the opening readings and Saturday sessions, but I took notes and even tried to sketch him as he stood at the podium...my sketches seem to turn out caricature-like, although that isn't the view I'm going for.

A copy of his poem "Etude" was handed out, but he began with a reading of an essay he'd written about a house he had once lived in with his wife and children, and where he'd read in the paper that a 15-year-old boy had recently (in relation to when he'd written the essay) been murdered there and two other people wounded in a robbery attempt over cocaine. He was building a scale model of his wife's childhood home, and while he wallpapered the walls and painted, his imagination would fit into the rooms. He imagined himself living there, though he never had, and how the death of the boy had made his heart drop at the thought of he and his family living in that house and feeling safe while there.

The example was about metaphor and how one thing becomes something else, and something else, but has to become, to come back to, that thing again. Kooser specialty is metaphor. We lowly poets tend to say things like "The clouds in the sky were the color of gun metal gray as they pelted the ground with hail." A prosaic example, but Kooser helped diagram what metaphor can and should do. He had some great stories throughout -- like meeting the national horse-shoe-throwing champion. He asked him how he got so good and he said, "I threw 100 shoes a day." Kooser's poetry students were assinged to read 100 poems before they attempted to write one.

Think of metaphor as an imaginary equation, where one side must equal the other. Here's the poem so you can have the example that he gave to us:

Etude

I have been watching a Great Blue Heron

fish in the cattails, easing ahead

with the stealth of a lover composing a letter,

the hungry words looping and blue

as they coil and uncoil, as they kiss and sting.

Let's say that he holds down an everyday job

in an office. His blue suit blends in.

Long days swim beneath the glass top

of his desk, each one alike. On the lip

of each morning, a bubble trembles.

No one has seen him there, writing a letter

to a woman he loves. His pencil is poised

in the air like the beak of a bird.

He would spear the whole world if he could,

toss it and swallow it live.

Pretty spectacular stuff for the seeming simplicity of the image, yet Kooser led us on a journey of how he crafts his metaphors. Tenor and vehicle are the two sides of the equation -- tenor is the real thing, the blue heron; vehicle is the imaginative thing, in this case, the lover composing a letter. Remember, he said, "comparisons are most effective when they are the most disparate or widely divergent." Kooser stays in the imaginative realm with the lover who "holds down an every day job, in a blue suit that blends in." The blue refers back to the blue heron, a blending in to their environments, the heron tall and thin like the cattails he is walking in, the man blending in the shades of suits. The heron moves slowly, so as not to disturb the water and scaring the fish. The man wants to write a love letter at his job, and "No one has seen him there, writing a letter/to a woman he loves." His, and the heron's, inconspicuousness are their own reward. "The long days swim beneath the glass top," the days are like the heron looking for fish, waiting for the opportunity to spear one. The man's "pencil is poised in the air like the beak of a bird," and the stealth of the man "would spear the whole world if he could, toss it and swallow it live." The man would take in the whole world if he could by writing the love letter, that kisses and stings.

Kooser points out that only those things that have something in common to the tenor and the vehicle make sense and hold the poem together. These things can be related on each side of the equation. When metaphor is thought of in this way, then one can begin to fine tune a metaphor.

He read another poem about an aluminum boat floating on a pond. The imaginative part of the poem involved a fat man who becomes like the boat, precariously tethered to life because he hasn't taken care of himself, but also because we are all lightly tethered to life; the temporal nature of man.

Kooser mentioned a Swedish author, Tomas Transtromer, whom he especially admires for his metaphoric talent, such as "turning out the light, it was a tablet dissolving in a glass of darkenss." Kooser is a student of simplicity and clarity. He is devotee of E.B White, and he favors gramatically correct writing and punctuation. He thinks writing should be clear and transparent. He doesn't like the small "i" and thinks sentences should begin with a capital. He said, "the minute the reader's attention is called to the surface of the page is when the writing becomes weak." He also said that nothing kills a poem faster than a lot of exposition--this extra information should become the title.

He also feels that many of the performance poets depend on their performance of their work. When these poets die, their poetry will die with them. Most of these poems don't hold up without the performance. He also cited Dylan Thomas, who had a wonderful and melodic voice in the reading of his poems. When he died, people stopped reading him. My thought: it is interesting that performance poetry is not just a phenomenon of the younger generation, but has some bit of a cultural history link.

--Linda Coatney

Wyoming Writers, Inc., members vote for new board structure

Wyoming Writers, Inc., wrapped up its general membership meeting at about 9:30 a.m., a bit behind schedule but there were a lot of items to cover. Members voted to institute a new board structure that will give WWInc more flexibility when it comes to planning the conference, recruiting new members, and basically ensuring that the org will live on. Instead of direct elections of officers, a motion was approved to elect a board for a one-year term that will then elect the officers. The board also will revise the bylaws, recruit conference and contest chairs, study the possibility of hiring a part-time administrator, write grants, etc. There are many tasks faced by an all-volunteer 35-year-old organization. But in the past five years, officers have decamped to other states and resigned due to health problems. This is the sign of an aging organization, a circumstance facing all volunteer-run entities. We need to recruit new (and younger) members and discover ways to be relevant to them.

Lots to do in the next year.

By the way, I am up for a spot on the board. But because we had more candidates that positions (a rarity), we voted on paper ballots and they have to be counted I'll post the names later.

WWInc membership also voted to increase dues to $35 annually and to hold the next asnnual conference in Cody.

Now it's time to get back to the writing workshops...

New books at Wyoming Writers conference

Perusing the Ralph's Books tables at the Ramada this morning and saw new books by three Wyoming writers -- probably more where that came from. Here are the titles:

"Winter in the Bunkhouse" by Helena Linn, from 7 Cross Lazy L Productions

"Two Dot Ranch: A Biography of Place" by Nancy Heyl Ruskowsky, from Pronghorn Press

"Riding the Edge of an Era: Growing up Cowboy on the Outlaw Trail" by Diana Allen Kouris, from High Plains Press.

Also plenty of other great books offered by Tami at Ralph's Books. Authors include John D. Nesbitt, Robert Roripaugh, Amanda Cabot and Michael Shay (me). Also saw three rare copies of the anthology "Deep West: A Literary Tour of Wyoming." I sweated blood over that 2003 anthology from Pronghorn Press. Joining me in the editing angst were Wyoming Poet Laureate David Romtvedt and former Center folr the book Director Linn Rounds.

Dispatches from Wyoming Writers conference

Not live-blogging from Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Casper -- but pretty darn close.

Open mic reading at the Ramada Riverside wrapped up about an hour ago. Poems by Pat Frolander of Sundance and Bob Townsend of Atlantic City (Wyo., not N.J.). Atlantic City up by South Pass boasts a full-time population of 26 and Bob says that 7 of them are in a writers' group. Not bad, percentage-wise. Bob and his wife Barbara run a B&B and now have a bar called the Two-Bit Cowboy Saloon, Someone at our table asked him if the "Two-Bit" part of the title referred to "Cowboy" or "Saloon." "Cowboy," Bob said, without hesitation. He holds a monthly Second Saturday Scotch Sipping at 6 at the saloon. It's very popular.

Barb read a nice essay comparing cooking her first homemade tomato sauce to good writing. Rose Hill performed a call-and-response piece with WWInc. Prez Jeanne Rogers. The subject was Inuit culture. They were followed by a segment of a memoir by Nancy Smith recalling her Japanese-Hawaiian husband's experiences on Dec. 7, 1941, in Honolulu. She really had the pidgin dialogue down right.

Before the open mic, the conference panelists read from their work or talked about their publishing jobs. Ted Kooser led off with his usual stirring poems about everyday lives of people in Nebraska. Ordinary folks in extraordinary poems. One was about his trip to his 90-year-old Aunt Pearl's house to let her know that her childhood playmate, Kooser's mother, had just passed away. Pearl admitted to Ted that she was seeing people walking around her house conducting an inventory of her worldly goods. Nothing Poltergeist-like. Just people she didn't know walking around and inspecting the place. Ted says there's a term for it -- loony body syndrome. He added: "I wish I didn't know that." Poets like to make up their own terms for unusual occurrences.

Meredith Kaffel talked about her job at the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency in NYC. She was the youngest person on the panel, which makes me wonder who's reading the manuscripts I send off to NYC (as if I didn't know). But Meredith has gone from Sheedy's assistant to her partner in four years. She obviously loves her work and brings passion to it. Publishing is changing dramatically, even though the major NYC houses seem to think it's still 1959 instead of 2009. She called it an "evolving" industry. And like the evolution of a species, it's taking forever to birth its newest incarnation.

One way the industry is changing among the new generations is that they treat the Internet as their friend and not as a hissing rattler dropped into their lap. Agents look for clients on the web and even read some of the online mags. "Don't think we don't take online publications as seriously as we do the print publications -- because we do," Meredith said. I get this feeling that the whippersnappers in the publishing world look upon their elders in the same way that my teen daughter looks at me when I ask a stupid technology question. While we see ourselves as hip and groovy to have blogs and chatter on Facebook, they see us old codgers with quill pens and stale brains.

But I digress. Meredith had lots of helpful tips about working with agents. She will conducting one-on-one agent meetings tomorrow and Sunday morning. I'm set to make a pitch about my next book of short stories. She said she likes short stories, but admitted the market for collections was a little soft. Still, you have to be in the game.

The other three faculty members also made presentations. Amanda Cabot read the beginning of her new Christian romance novel, "Paper Roses," and said she's conducting a workshop about "great beginnings" on Saturday.

Not too late to sign up for the conference. Registration in the Ramada Riverside lobby begins at 8 a.m. and sessions start at 9. See you there.

"Our galleries are gasping for breath"

Tammy Christel wrote an interesting post today on her Jackson Hole Arts Blog about the state of the arts in Jackson as the community enters the tourist season. She includes the "Arts Mean Business" article written by Bruce Richardson and posted on the WAC blog on March 19 and later on the op-ed pages of the Casper Star-Tribune. Bruce is the WAC board chair and recently traveled to Jackson to speak to its arts community. Read Bruce's column at http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2009/03/arts-mean-business-and-economic.html.

Here is a portion of Tammy's June 5 post:

Our galleries are gasping for breath. I’ve posted an idea about window art being utilized to fill and brighten empty storefronts; sent a letter to the editor at the Jackson Hole News & Guide that has yet to appear. Which is o.k., because we’ve got some mega-issues going on with our revised Comprehensive Plan.

We need some stop gap action, though; simple, non-political gestures to shore us all up while the economy writhes and we search for a livable future for Jackson. Our Center for the Arts needs a loan, galleries have closed, artists are scrambling. Artists are leaving, too. Comprehensive Plans include internal solutions, solutions that don’t have to do with sketching out a building, but that include using our hearts, minds and space in the most giving ways.

Author of "The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness & Africa" at Teton Co. Library June 11

From a Teton County Public Library press release:

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, Josh Swiller faced bloodthirsty mobs, debilitating illness, blackmailing preachers, deadly traffic accidents, scheming and corrupt government officials...all while profoundly deaf. He also found lessons, great friendship and a taste for bush wine.

Find out the recipe for bush wine and how he survived when Teton County Public Library presents an evening talk by Swiller, author of “The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa” from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 11, in the Ordway Auditorium. Following the talk, there will be a book sale and signing. The program is free and open to the public with generous support from donations, large and small, to the Teton County Library Foundation.

A New York-based writer, teacher and author, Swiller describes his deafness this way:

I was born with a severe hearing loss and became profoundly deaf by the time I was five. With the help of hearing aids, dedicated (if thoroughly unusual) parents, three wild brothers, and an audiologist who did not believe in limits, I learned to speak and lip-read quite well. Too well, almost, because I was able to pass through the world of hearing people to such a degree that many people didn't know I was deaf and I consequently could never quite figure out what I was. Deaf? Hearing? None of the above?

In his memoir, he chronicles his struggle to reconcile his deafness, amid the harsh environment of a remote African village. The book is based on the two years he spent in the Peace Corps in Mununga, Zambia, which he describes as “a fantastical place. Sixty kilometers past the last paved road, phone line and electric cable, it was part timeless village, part refugee camp.”To read more about Swiller and his work, visit http://www.joshswiller.com/. For information about the evening talk, contact the Adult Humanities Coordinator Oona Doherty at 733-2164 ext. 135 or odoherty@tclib.org.

Amanda Cabot's workshops at Wyoming Writers, Inc. conference

News came earlier this week that crime blogger and editor Steve Huff hads to cancel his trip to the Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference June 5-7 in Casper. However, due to quick work by WWInc. officers, romance writer Amanda Cabot was recruited and has stepped in as a faculty member. Get registration forms by clicking on the above link.

Here's more info from Jeanne that appeared on the WWInc. listserv:

Amanda Cabot, the newest addition to our 2009 conference faculty, has several great workshops to offer conference-goers. We are grateful to Amanda for stepping in on such short notice, and sharing her expertise and experience.

Workshop Session I: Getting to "The End": Techniques for Finishing the Book of Your Dreams: You have a brilliant premise, and wrote an opening guaranteed to hook an editor--if only you could finish the book. Cabot, who juggled a sixty-hour a week job and built a house long-distance while writing two books a year, will give you concrete techniques for finishing that book. You'll learn how to: 1) Determine why writing, both in general and in terms of your current project, is important to you. 2) Create a "culture of writing" that keeps that project first on the radar screen. 3) Make, rather than try to find, time to write. 4) Overcome middle-of-the-book blues. 5) Write even when the muse has vanished.

Workshop Session II: Great Beginnings or How to Hook an Editor: A light-hearted look at great and not-so-great beginnings. Learn and understand the common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Workshop Session III: What's the Point of Point of View?: Cabot will remove the mystery that frequently surrounds point of view, help you understand the uses of each type of POV, and show you how to choose the right one for your work.

Workshop Session IV: Surviving Rejection and Other Detours on the Writer's Path to Success: Most writer's will experience rejection at least once in their careers. Multi-published and multi-rejected author Cabot with a workshop designed to help you understand and cope with rejection. (Hint: chocolate plays a key role.)

Hope to see you in Casper this weekend!

Public Grand Re-opening set for BBHC Whitney Gallery on Sunday, June 21

The Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody celebrates its 50th anniversary with a series of events the weekend of June 19-21.

The Public Grand Re-opening will be held on Sunday, June 21, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Separate invitation-only previews for patrons and "special friends" will be held on Friday and Saturday.

To get more details about the Whitney renovation and reinstallation, go to its blog at http://whitneyreinstall.wordpress.com/. Above is a photo from the reinstallation work.

Here's some background on the efforts that led up to the 50th anniversary happenings at the BBHC:

To commemorate this significant milestone, events, publications, gallery renovations and the addition of a new artist’s studio are in the works. While visitors can certainly appreciate the beautiful paintings and sculpture currently within the gallery, the artwork does not speak for itself. A new installation and interpretation helps put the artwork into context – making it come alive. The installation is going to encourage visitors to make connections across cultures and time to see the old masterworks in a new light.

The new themes and flow of the gallery are being developed with much thought and consideration to the visitor – presenting an innovative way of interpreting western American art that gives context, encourages discovery, and presents the artwork in a beautiful, quiet, and contemplative space.

The Whitney Gallery reopens to the public on June 21, and when it does we believe it is going to be worth the wait -- trusting that our visitors are going to fully appreciate and enjoy the Whitney’s treasured artworks all the more.

The Whitney Gallery of Western Art is where you find masterworks by revered artists such as George Catlin, Alfred Jacob Miller, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Alexander Phimister Proctor, W.R. Leigh, Joseph Henry Sharp, N.C. Wyeth and many others.

The studios of Frederic Remington and W.H.D. Koerner, as well as the original studio cabin of J.H. Sharp, give visitors an uncommon opportunity to see the artists' work environment and discover their process of creation.

PHOTO: In April, Whitney Gallery staff reinstalled a 1996 oil painting by Allan Mardon, "The Battle of Greasy Grass." This museum purchase is oil on linen and wooden frame with painted tin figures, 76"x136". To view details of the painting, go to this BBHC site: http://tinyurl.com/op9wwz

Laughing Bird kicks off Arizona conference

Tupelo Kenyon, one-half of the husband-wife WAC roster artist duo Laughing Bird from Story, Wyo., sends word that he and Janey will be kick-off entertainment for the annual Summer Light Conference in Sedona, Arizona, on June 12-14. The Laughing Bird concert will be on Friday afternoon.

The main speakers for this event are authors Lee Carroll and Greg Braden, Dr. Todd Ovokaitys and Peggy Phoenix Dubro. "Inspiring instrumental music" will also be provided by Robert Coxon.

This is the second year that Laughing Bird has performed for the conference.

FMI: http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=I6z8t&m=1f.moea0Iadf8i&b=Ro5VpnA1PD3Qq2IupReOOg

You can bring Laughing Bird to your Wyoming community through a WAC Arts Across Wyoming grant. For more info and applications, go to http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/Grants/EApps.asp

Ted Kooser delivers keynote at Wyoming Writers, Inc., annual conference

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser of Nebraska is the keynote speaker at the 35th annual Wyoming Writers, Inc., conference in Casper this weekend. Kooser will deliver his talk during the WWInc. banquet on Saturday, June 6, 6 p.m., at the Ramada Plaza Riverside. You must be a conference registrant or guest to attend the banquet.

For a taste of Kooser, check out the podcasts for "A Literary Evening with John Prine and Ted Kooser" recorded on March 9, 2005 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. These are in MP3. Listen to Part 1 and then Part 2 .

There are several public events at the WWInc. conference. Feel free to visit the conference bookstore in the hotel's Birch Room at any time. You also are welcomed to the members' book-signing at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday and the open mic reading that follows from 8:30-10 p.m.

FMI: http://www.wyowriters.org/

"Measure of a Heart" author speaks at Sheridan Public Library on June 10

Mary Ellen Geist (pictured above), author of "Measure of a Heart: A Father's Alzheimer's, A Daughter's Return," will speak at the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library on Wednesday, June 10, 6 p.m. This free event is sponsored by the Ucross Foundation, where Geist is now a writer-in-residence. Books will be on salke by Sheridan Stationery Books & Gallery.

Here's more info from a Ucross press release:

More than 5 million Americans are believed to have Alzheimer's disease, with 350,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Millions of caretakers around the country are seeking guidance and inspiration in helping stricken parents and loved ones. Mary Ellen Geist, an award-winning journalist, has written about her experience caring for her father in a moving memoir, "Measure of the Heart," which includes a foreword by acclaimed neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. (Her father, Woody Geist, was recently featured in the HBO special, The Alzheimer's Project.)

The book has been hailed as "a compelling, respectful—and somehow reassuring—book for every caregiving family that must look Alzheimer's, or any serious illness, in the face," by
Susan Strecker Richard, Editor-in-Chief, Caring Today.

The book grew out of a 2005 New York Times Thanksgiving piece by Geist that became one of the most read and emailed stories of the month. Geist had left her high-powered radio job in New York City to return home to Michigan to care for her father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. In her book, published by Springboard/Grand Central Publishing, she draws on her own personal story as well as extensive interviews with doctors and others who have cared for an aging parent, to inspire and provide advice for everyone experiencing similar situations. She offers insights into coping with the daily tasks of caregiving, how the personality of the patient affects decisions, the progression of the disease, how to encourage interaction with the loved one you are caring for and much more.

Mary Ellen Geist was raised in a family of musicians, writers, and nature-lovers in a century-old farmhouse in orchard country outside of Detroit, Michigan. Her father, Woody, the CEO of an industrial distribution company, was also a jazz singer who performed for more than four decades with a 12-man a capella group called The Grunyons. Mary Ellen Geist's first job in broadcast journalism was as a reporter and anchor at WPZ Radio in Petoskey, Michigan. She later moved to Los Angeles to work for MGM/UA. She eventually became what's called "morning streets" reporter at KFWB Radio in Los Angeles. She spent twelve years at KGO Radio in San Francisco and later moved to WCBS Radio in New York to be afternoon anchor. She has been honored with numerous awards, including national and regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for best newscast and investigative reporting, and Reporter of the Year. She divides her time between the family cabin on Walloon Lake and her parents' year-round home near Detroit.

For further information, please contact the Ucross Foundation at (307) 737-2291, or sdynak@ucross.org.

Apply now for choral music performance grants

The Wyoming Arts Council announces the American Masterpiece Choral Music Performance Grant Program that may provide up to $1,000 to support and encourage the performance of choral music from American Master composers.

Wyoming non-profit organizations and tax exempt educational institutions may apply for up to one-half of the costs to perform American Master choral music from the Choral Music Library within Laramie County School District No. 1. Library information and requirements may be obtained by calling 771-2105 or by accessing the internet at www.laramie1.info/music.

Grants may be used to support any cost related to performing the music borrowed from the Library, including but not limited to artist fees and travel, space rental, and transportation for the choir. Groups are encouraged to consider doing performances in unusual venues or for audiences who are underserved, such as at senior centers or pre-schools or in smaller communities that lack access to the arts. Grant funds received must be matched with cash and/or in-kind donations by the applicant. Choral groups which have received season support through the Grants to Organizations program may apply for an additional performance not part of that grant, but may use music borrowed from the library for any concert.

Applications will be accepted immediately for Choral Performance projects that will take place through November 1, 2010.

Applications must be submitted at least 14 days before the project start date. Drafts must be submitted at least five workdays prior to that. To apply for this grant online visit http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/Grants/Master.asp

Applicants are urged to call prior to applying because of a limited number of grants available. For assistance with the Choral Performance Grant Program call Randy Oestman at 307-777-7109; FAX (307) 777-5499; TDD (307) 777-5964.

More from YouTube

Here's something fun to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHmSdpjEIk

Time mag explores the "Culture Crunch"

Time magazine features an article in its June 8 issue entitled "Culture Crunch: The Recession and the Arts." It explores how the "Great Recession" has impacted the arts nationally.

Here's a segment of the article.

....Endowments have shrunk everywhere, and sizable budget cuts have been the rule at museums in Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Diego. In February the 35-year-old Las Vegas Art Museum simply gave up and shut its doors for good.

In the world of performing arts, the news has been just as bleak. All around the country, orchestras, opera houses, theater troupes and dance companies are cutting salaries, jobs and programs. A few have simply collapsed. The Hartford-based Connecticut Opera closed this year after 67 seasons. So did the 58-year-old Baltimore Opera Company. "Most organizations have been hurt," says Robert Lynch, president of the advocacy group Americans for the Arts. "But arts organizations aren't driven by profit. They're driven by mission. And they'll do anything to survive."

The problem is that these groups have been hit in all three of their main revenue streams. For many of them, audiences are down sharply, because in a recession a theater ticket or concert seat can seem like an indulgence. Meanwhile, with corporate profits tanking and charitable endowments badly deflated, donations and underwriting have also been drying up. And as state and local governments contend with huge deficits, arts spending has been a major casualty. In Michigan, where the struggling Detroit Institute of Arts recently laid off 20% of its staff, the 2010 budget proposed by Governor Jennifer Granholm would cut arts funding to exactly nothing.

Read the entire article at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901465,00.html

"Bite-Sized Poem" by Paisley Rekdal

Guy Lebeda of the Utah Arts Council sends this "Bite-Sized Poem of the Month" by Paisley Rekdal. Paisley directs the creative writing program at the University of Utah in SLC. When she was teaching at the University of Wyoming, she won a 2002 Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowship.

Here is this month's "Bite-Sized Poem" from Utah:


Swallows
by Paisley Rekdal

So ignorant of the world I think it’s pleasure first

that makes them dip hallucinatory arcs
across this foggy, close-cropped field
and not the insects wet legs kick up:

here, and almost here, these

sharp darts that stop me in my tracks: poised, senseless
to their direction skimming
just below, the lingering white

only they see through and negotiates where I

am less than a stone to them, less than a flea
in the dun bellies flashing under a slick blue back–

Wings clip the brief air between us,

scythe the sweet middle where sea mist

seeps its yellow curls, the step ahead and behind me blurred
to the same cold capacities:

somewhere a twist of fence, a scar

of ragged earth a truck tore open
to work itself free.

Dark shank of hair
gleaming in the wet, skin frozen to the bone,

a pair of deer feeding at the wild
last hedge of raspberries.

To see Paisley perform this poem, follow this link:
http://www.nowplayingutah.com/profile/detail/596