This week, Sun Valley Museum of Art is pleased to present Idaho Rivers / Idaho Artists, a juried exhibition, to the public September 12-28, 2024. The exhibition is the result of SVMoA's open call to Idaho artists for work engaging with Idaho rivers. Katie Lee-Koven, Executive Director and Chief Curator for the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum at Utah State University, juried the show, selecting artwork by thirty-three Idaho artists from over 150 submissions. The artwork comprises a range of media and styles, reflecting Idahoans’ diverse experiences of riverscapes as sites of leisure and labor, contemplation and community. The artists included in the exhibition hail from diverse regions and cities across Idaho, spanning from Boise to Burley and Mackay to Moscow.

Running more than 100,000 miles, Idaho’s rivers shape our landscapes, lives, and culture. For this week's SVMoA Voices, we asked five of the artists featured in the exhibition five questions with the rivers of Idaho as their muse. Here is what they had to say.

AARON CORDELL JOHNSON

How do Idaho rivers shape your landscape?

Living on the Idaho Palouse our rivers are small and often seasonal. As a plein air painter, the rivers either full or dry provide visual variety to the landscape and endless inspiration. 

What is your favorite spot on the river? Which river?

My favorite spot on the South Fork of the Palouse River is a small pull out on Sand Road South West of Moscow at sunset. 

What is your favorite sound on or off the river?

I love the sounds of life, birds, animals, wind, or the endless rapid.

How do the rivers of Idaho support and inspire your artistic practice? 

Living in North Idaho I am continually inspired by my surroundings. As I search for what it means to experience a 'place' often rivers have and continue to influence the landscape and my experience of those surroundings.  Rivers are givers of life, and their continual flow inspires me to continue in my efforts. The Snake and Salmon River to my south, the Clark Fork to my North and the wildness of the Lochsa and Selway rivers like their waters provide everflowing inspiration. 

If you were a river, who would be your best friend?

Hmmm... If I were a river, I would hope that mankind would be my best friend. 

BEX WILKINSON

How do Idaho rivers shape your landscape?

Idaho rivers give me a respite from the craziness of the world. They are places I go to paint and regroup in the calmness of the tone of the water. Howard Preserve, Draper and a small spot on the Big Wood River off Broadford Road are some of my favorite spots, but I definitely frequent Redfish Lake and Galena Lodge for plein-air painting as well. Plus my dogs love it! 

What is your favorite spot on the river? Which river?

My very favorite spot is the bend in the river off Broadford Road. It is on the way to my studio and I frequently go there to paint. It is always changing. It is never the same. Sometimes people are fishing there, or playing in the water. It is a happy place for all...

What is your favorite sound on or off the river?

Almost every morning I walk my dogs at Draper Preserve in Hailey. The rush of the river as you cross the Bow Bridge is literally like heaven. It is calm and helps me start my day in a sort of meditative space. I frequently will go there at the end of the day to have river "book ends" to the start and finish of the day. 

How do the rivers of Idaho support and inspire your artistic practice? 

Oh gosh, I paint at the rivers at least once a week. I call the pieces I do "Lil' Ditties" and I usually give these away as gifts. They are small- no larger than 10 inches, and sometimes just a few inches high. People love to receive them as gifts. Who doesn't like a little reminder of the beauty of life? I currently have 4 at the hospital - a healing place, and 7 up at Triangle C Lodge owned by Redfish Lake. It is a far cry from the other work that I do, so I need to do it consistently to keep up my technique and also to calm my brain.

If you were a river, who would be your best friend?

The moose that my dogs chase in the fall down the river! YIKES! They are so large and majestic. (That's when the shock collar comes out!) But I know it is Fall when the moose return to the river. Sometimes they wander down the river in the spring as well... in any case, it's the clock of nature saying we are entering a new season. 

DEVIN FARRAND

How do Idaho rivers shape your landscape?

Living in the high desert of the Pioneer Mountains, rivers connect the high peaks with the valleys below. They shape and erode the landscape bringing snowmelt, trees, fish and other wildlife to the region. 

What is your favorite spot on the river? Which river?

I have a favorite spot on the river about 8 minutes from my house and studio. It's on the East Fork of the Big Lost River, there is a section that dips down far away from the road and against a talus slope. In late September around 7pm when I look upstream, I see whitewater cascading over rocks and around a beaver lodge, while downstream, the sunlight dances on the rippling surface, transforming the water into shimmering gold.

What is your favorite sound on or off the river?

The sound of a fish rising

How do the rivers of Idaho support and inspire your artistic practice?

The rivers of Idaho deeply influence my artistic practice, I find a sense of stability and grounded-ness in the constant pushing of the current. Fly fishing in rivers like the Big Lost helps me reset and refocus, providing both mental clarity and creative inspiration through its sheer beauty. I’m often directly inspired by its beauty and use imagery taken from the landscape around me in my work. 

If you were a river, who would be your best friend?

Warm days and cool nights

JOSH UDESEN

How do Idaho rivers shape your landscape?

If I am not on a river, I am thinking about rivers. Rivers shape much of what I consider joy in my life because the vast majority of things I love to do are connected to rivers. The anticipation of what they provide, the experience of being on or near them and the memories rivers build are, in many ways, what defines me. 

What is your favorite spot on the river? Which river?

My favorite spot on the river is just a few feet from the boat launch. Any river, anywhere, the moment I push off from shore there is an awareness I am headed down river and there is always a smile on my face. Be it a day float or a week on the river, the anticipation, the joy, the flow, the erasing of time, the building of memories and all the reasons I love rivers are about to begin. 

What is your favorite sound on or off the river?

The best sounds are balanced between quiet peace and a little bit of chaos. I love the murmur of the current when you are about to fall asleep next to a river but I also love the anticipation caused by the increasing roar of a rapid as you approach it from above. 

How do the rivers of Idaho support and inspire your artistic practice?

The vast majority of my art is inspired by rivers, and most are derived from experiences on Idaho rivers. Be it the fish that swim in them, the mountains and canyons they cut, or the water they are made of, it is hard to find a piece of art I create that is not, in some ways, inspired by rivers. Ask anyone who knows me, any time I drive across a bridge that spans a river, I am likely to slow down, crane my neck, and look upstream and downstream because I cannot help myself, I am always curious what the river is doing.

If you were a river, who would be your best friend?

The salmon and steelhead, of course. Nothing better than seeing a good friend after a long absence. Every year I would know, without a doubt, they will be back and there is both anticipation and reverence for such a bond. 

KIKA MACFARLANE

How do Idaho rivers shape your landscape?

Idaho rivers are a huge part of my life, I live very close to the Bigwood and visit it everyday to swim, fish, or just seek a moment of solitude. I’m also lucky enough to have taken a trip down the Salmon River every year for the last seven years, and this year led an art trip on the Main stem of the Salmon.

What is your favorite spot on the river?

My favorite spot on the Salmon River is Groundhog camp - the light lingers on the opposite hill for a long time, lighting up the trees with a soft orange glow. The river makes a sharp turn there, and the beach and eddy right at camp feel like a hidden paradise, tucked away.

What is your favorite sound on or off the river?

My favorite sound is the canyon wren singing, it echoes through the riverbed and feels like the soundtrack of the river to me.

How do the rivers of Idaho support and inspire your artistic practice?

The Salmon River and Bigwood rejuvenate me, inspire me, and remind me of the wildest parts of myself. Simply being near their moving water grounds me, but I always find something new I want to illustrate or capture in my work when I spend time on the river.

If you were a river, who would be your best friend?

My best friend would be the river otters! They play with me, protect me, and provide joy to my life. 

Idaho Rivers / Idaho Artists, a juried exhibition. September 13 - September 28, 2024

Born in Mexico, raised in California, and currently based in New York City and New Jersey, Maria de Los Angeles explores migration, belonging, and identity through her art.

This August, in partnership with SVMoA, Maria is hosting teen, family and community workshops at SVMoA’s Hailey Classroom and the Hunger Coalition in preparation for a group exhibition at SVMoA summer 2025. She will also be speaking at The Museum about her work.

We sat down with Maria to discuss her art and artistic collaboration with our community.

Can you tell us a little bit about the project you are working on that you will be showing in the Summer of 2025 at SVMoA.

I will exhibit a few paintings, watercolors, and a brand-new identity garment made with components created by community members during the upcoming workshops at SVMoA in August. The dress is in progress, and I started it during our last visit to Sun Valley this past winter.

The dress that I am making is part of what I call identity garments, they are mixed media and three-dimensional. They include painting, printmaking, collage with hand painted elements as well as embroidery. They are wearable and the one I am currently working on is quite large, almost seven feet. Most of the components include upcycled fabrics and fragments I have found. This is the first time people will be adding to the garment and the project.

Most of my work has some aspect of community involvement. However, this is the first time people are making something embedded into my work.

You will be hosting three different community and teen workshops; can you tell us what you are planning for the workshops?

The dress workshops will result in the creation of patches to be added to my final sculpture. The Identity Upcycled Hoodie workshop, in collaboration with Ryan Bonilla, will allow participants to customize a clothing item and take it home with them. I invite the Sun Valley Museum's community to visit the website to see which they want to attend. 

How do fabric arts and clothing figure into your work? How did you get into clothing as sculpture?

I'm inspired by traditions that incorporate the garment and clothing as a way of projecting identity. I grew up seeing my mom create embroideries and other textile pieces, which was influential to me. My first step into textiles was collage which quickly grew into 3D forms and logically into wearables.

After completing my graduate school studies at Yale in painting and printmaking, I began experimenting with what I call identity garments which were more performative and playful, and enabled me to expand the two-dimensional work of painting and printmaking into three dimensions.

You are traveling here to Idaho with your partner Ryan Bonilla and you will be co-presenting a few workshops together, specifically the Upcycled Hoodies Workshop for Teens. How do you collaborate and work together?

Ryan Bonilla and I travel all over the USA, exhibiting together and collaborating with various institutions. We each make our own work and exhibit together sometimes. Ryan is primarily a photographer, and I'm a painter.

He collaborates with me by capturing incredible images of me wearing my sculptures. Ryan also captures the places and people we see during our trips. We are very excited about both our upcoming exhibitions at the Sun Valley Museum of Art next year. 

Is there anything else you would like to share before your community workshops?

I heard there are a lot of quilters in the area. I would like to let the quilters know they are invited!

Curator Courtney Gilbert sat down with longtime SVMoA supporters, former board members, and arts patrons Pete & Becky Smith to talk about their early involvement with the Museum, their love of art, and their work with organizations across the valley. As our team gears up for our annual fundraiser, the Sun Valley Museum of Art Wine Auction, now in its 43rd year, we celebrate the early days of the organization, the first wine auction, as well as how the Museum came to be at its current location at 5th and Washington with our dear supporters Pete and Becky Smith.

CG: How did you first get involved with the Sun Valley Center for the Arts (SVCA - now Sun Valley Museum of Art)?

Becky: I first connected with the Center in the summer of 1974. I took [our children] down to the Sun Valley Center for the Arts for classes in macrame and all the crafty things that were taught then—throwing pots. Very 1970s! The Center was still at its original location then, where the Community School is now.

CG: What year did you move here full-time?

Becky: My parents first brought me here in 1951 or 52. We bought a house in Sun Valley around 1986 and moved here full-time in 1987.

CG: And when were you each on the board?

Becky: We both were on the board at the same time, together. Michael Engl knew about our activities in Los Angeles. At that time, we were on the Collectors Committee at the National Gallery of Art. We were on the Director’s Roundtable at LACMA, and Rusty Powell (then Director of LACMA), when he went from LACMA to the National Gallery, he took that idea with him. The Director’s Roundtable was a group of younger collectors.

Pete: We joined the board here in 1988 or 1989, when SVCA had just moved to the Walnut Avenue Mall and had sold the original property to the Community School.   

I can’t remember if Michael asked us personally, but I think he was president of the board then. He had built a large endowment for the Center, which came into play shortly after we joined the board. The gallery and the office were in the Walnut Avenue Mall. The owner of the Walnut Avenue Mall raised the rent on all the tenants. Mike Feltman, the CPA, was treasurer of the board. Joan Stewart Anawalt was on the board then, and she asked me to co-chair the board with her and divide our duties. It was a terrific partnership.  

Pete: There was a high level of respect among the three of us. And at that point, Michael Feltman let me know that Bob Smith had sold Smith Optics to John Malin. John built a building for Smith in the Industrial Area, and vacated the building on 5th St. It was empty. Mike Feltman suggested we buy the old Smith building. So, he and I went and looked at it, without any architects or anything, and we thought it could be a gallery space if we removed all the cubicles, which were non-structural. I called Wes Nash—he and I had built a home and worked on some other projects. Wes came to the building and gave us an idea of what it would cost to open the center space, put in lighting, create a meeting room, build offices on the perimeter, and add a classroom with sinks. He checked the substructure. And told us that it would cost something like $40,000. Mike Feltman suggested we use some of the endowment money, so we went to Michael Engl and asked what he thought about drawing down on the endowment to buy the building, and then pay a monthly rent back into the endowment. Bob Smith agreed to let us buy it for less than he was asking. So there went the endowment put into the building. And we had no money for a remodel. But we pulled together a group of donors, mainly friends of Glenn and Bill Janss, and named the building the Janss Building. Glenn thought this was a terrific idea. Wes Nash made his donation by giving us a low price on the remodel. Jim and Jean Welsh were finishing a remodel and had a lighting expert coming. Jim asked him to help us design the lighting for the new space. He told us where to put the lighting tracks along the ceiling.

Becky Smith at a dinner celebrating the new home for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts at 191 Fifth Street, E. in 1994.

CG: And we have stuck with basically the same lighting layout even with our remodel.

Pete: Yes. And so, we went out to friends, mostly of Bill Janss, and raised close to $100,000. And we were then on a footing to continue the Sun Valley Center. And you have to give credit to Michael Engl, because he created the endowment, and we were able to use it and pay it back. Michael was instrumental in making this all happen. Staff, generally speaking at the time, wanted a larger space. But Mike Feltman, Joan and I sat down with the staff and explained that we’d start with this space and later, go grand. And here we are 30 years later! It’s served its purpose. But I can’t say we thought it would be in use 30 years later. But what you’ve just finished doing to the building with the remodel—the galleries look really great.

Pete Smith at a dinner celebrating the new home for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts at 191 Fifth Street, E. in 1994.

CG: Anything else you’d like to share about your time with the Center?

Becky: We got very involved with the Wine Auction. It started at Jack Thornton’s house.

Pete: And then it moved to the Gun Club.

Becky: It was a lot of fun. And when Jim Cimino first put his paddle up, that changed everything. We started having bidding wars.

CG: You two have an amazing collection of art. What are some of your favorite things you’ve collected?

Pete: We bought a lot of things from John Berggruen, who was a good friend.

Becky: Our Frank Stella Protractor piece, of course, we love.

Pete: We’ve had encounters with Frank Stella over the years.

CG: Didn’t you set up a tennis game for him here on a visit to Sun Valley once?

Becky: Oh yes. I did.

Pete: We knew Marcia Weisman, Norton Simon’s sister, who taught classes in Pasadena on collecting. She and her husband had an extraordinary collection. Her classes consisted of traveling to artist studios in Venice Beach and other places, and to galleries that represented these artists.

Becky: We took her classes. This is mid- to late 70s.

CG: Who were some of the artists you visited with?

Becky: Billy Al Bengston was our first purchase. We knew him. And we loved Kenny Price.

Pete: Dwayne Valentine. His son Nelson. Chuck Arnoldi. Ed Ruscha. Sam Francis.

Becky: A lot of the fun of collecting in those days was that you knew the artists. I was never thinking about growth in value. We never bought anything because we thought it would make money later. We bought art because we fell in love with it.

Becky: John Coplans gave classes at the Pasadena Art Museum. The exposure was great. I met Frank Stella when he was signing the Star of Persia prints. We had work by Vija Celmins and Judy Chicago.

Pete: We went to Sam Francis’s studio once and everything was on the floor. He painted on the floor. Jim Corcoran was a good friend. Sam Francis gave Jim Corcoran and us access to his studio when he wasn’t there one time. We went in with Jim and chose a painting we wanted to buy. Nick Wilder, the gallery owner, had also been in the studio and wanted the same painting before us. Sam told Nick that we wanted it, and Nick told Jim, “If it’s Becky and Pete, I want them to have the painting. But would you pick another one out for me?”

Becky: I was already collecting when I met Pete, and when he and I first started dating, he fell in love with art. And Pete’s eye was just dead on. So, we carried on together. It’s been a great adventure.

Pete: There was a time when we had Peter Alexander, Ed Ruscha, and Chuck Arnoldi up here. They wanted to go skiing, and they all thought they knew what they were doing. Jim Corcoran was involved in getting them here. So, we got their skis at the bottom and got up to the top, and Peter Alexander said, “What do I do now?” Literally! We had to ship him down somehow. He didn’t know a thing about it. He assumed if we knew how, he could do it.

CG: I know you two have done a lot of work for so many organizations in the valley. What are some other boards you’ve served on?

Becky: Both of us have been on the Community School board at different times. I was on the St. Luke’s Hospital Foundation board, and Pete is now the president. And is doing a sensational job. And he was on the SVSEF board.

Pete: I was also on the Nature Conservancy board. Glenn Janss was, too. Bill Janss helped put together the local chapter of the Nature Conservancy when he sold the Stalker Creek Ranch to them. We had our meetings in the living room of Hemingway House.

CG: I’d love to hear about your work to get public radio to the valley.

Becky: That was Ken and Judy Dayton.

Pete: Gretchen Guard was here, and her mission was to bring another radio station to the valley. We only had KECH at the time. Chuck Gates was running KECH, which was located where Vintage restaurant is now. He was the DJ. Gretchen had run into problems getting it done. Somehow Bill Janss heard, and Ken Dayton was here and was on the board of Minnesota Public Broadcasting at the time. Ken brought Bill Kling, founder and president of Minnesota Public Radio out here. Bill said we could put a 10’ diameter dish somewhere and then we can have the equipment in a closet near the dish. The Community School went along with hosting the dish. Page Jenner was involved; he was in communications and knew how to get it hooked up.

Bill Janss hosted a dinner. There were 10 couples there, including us. Ken Dayton got up and said the project would cost $20,000. He’d put in $10,000, and he told us we were all to put in $1000. Page Jenner was instrumental in getting it set up. We had limited coverage, but it was a start.

When AT&T came in and wanted to put a cell tower on Dollar Mountain, Wally Huffman knew we needed better reception. He cleared it with the Holdings and asked AT&T to provide the hookups for a stronger signal when they installed the tower. We were able to remove the dish at the Community School, and that was the first step in better reception. Subsequently, we relocated to Seattle Ridge or the top of Baldy. But it was Ken and Judy Dayton who got the project started.

Becky: And the Dayton Collection is now in an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. They were wonderful people.

CG: This has been so wonderful! I wanted to talk to you about your history racing cars, too, but we’ll have to save that for another time.

Pete: That was another life!

Becky: That would be so fun. We’ll do that next time.

CG: Thank you both!  
 

SVMoA’s current exhibition, Bodies of Work: Art & Healing, explores ways that artists have used their practices to navigate the experience of illness. This is the final week of the exhibition, which will close on Saturday, March 23.

Because of the exhibition’s focus on healing, for this week’s SVMoA Voices, SVMoA and Bodies of Work curator Courtney Gilbert sat down with Erin Buell, Community Outreach Coordinator at St. Luke’s Center for Community Health, to talk about the work she and her colleagues do to come up with creative solutions for people in our community facing healthcare challenges.

Tell me a little bit about the Center for Community Health (CCH).

The CCH is a department of St. Luke’s Wood River, and it was established about 30 years ago — it was kind of a pioneer in the field of community health at the time. I’ve been here for nearly 20 years, and it is constantly evolving and improving. We work to connect the dots of a person’s health so that one is able to understand their diagnosis and have support to follow instructions regarding their health and medications once they leave the clinic or the hospital. This way, individuals in our community are better able to get — and stay — healthy.

We are a non-clinical department, and our services are free. Sometimes, we help people facing financial challenges, and sometimes, we help with mental or physical health situations. Health can mean many things, and there are many things that we can do to try to help.

A lot of what we do takes time, so we try to hold our clients’ hands through the process. For example, applications and paperwork can be overwhelming, particularly for people facing a medical or other crisis, but that form or application may be important to receive assistance. So, we meet people where they are and help them get through the process.

We also provide community education, such as English and Spanish-language childbirth and parenting classes. Over the years, more organizations have come to our community, so we work hard to understand the work and the programs and classes that other local nonprofits and agencies are doing so that we can support and refer to them.  

Six times a year, we organize an interagency meeting that’s open to any organization. Currently, more than 70 organizations are invited to participate. To mention a few who often attend are the Hunger Coalition, The Advocates, local libraries, Mountain Rides, the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare, the Salvation Army, Hospice, the Senior Connection, YMCA, Blaine County Housing Authority, Blaine County Charitable Fund, and the social workers in the school district. Everyone shares a bit about what they’re doing, what they’re seeing in the community, and what they have coming up on their calendars. It’s kind of amazing how many resources there are in the valley.

St. Luke's Center for Community Health Team

How many people work in the CCH?

Right now, we have three outreach coordinators, including myself, an administrative staff member, and our manager. Two of my colleagues are Spanish-speaking, which is really beneficial.

How do clients find you?

We used to be in offices that were separate from the clinic. I think that because they didn’t see us, it was easy for clinical staff to forget we were a resource. Now that our offices are in the St. Luke’s Clinic, doctors often send patients directly to us. And we get referrals from other community organizations, such as those who attend the interagency meetings.

What is a typical day like for you?

We usually have about 60 contacts a day between the three outreach coordinators. Those can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes or longer. We’ve been busy and are getting busier. Demand is growing. A typical encounter starts by evaluating where people are in terms of the social determinants of health, food, clothing, housing, and access to care. Once we determine what services a client needs, we’ll start making a plan. Sometimes, we connect patients to funding sources — some with applications, some without. We try to problem solve and make the process as easy and sustainable as possible for people. For example, we might be able to cover the cost of someone’s prescriptions, but if it’s a medication they’ll need for a long time, we help find a long-term solution.

Our goal is to help people access health and stay as healthy as possible. I’m really proud of our team. There’s so much compassion. We try to break down barriers to access from the beginning and create a safe space. For people in crisis, the world can feel like a snow globe. There are lots of snowflakes flying around and making it hard to see — it’s messy. We help people grab onto one flake of snow to get started while letting everything else settle for a while.

Do you have any thoughts about the relationship between health and creativity?

I believe the arts are very much intertwined with our health, particularly our mental health and sense of well-being. They are completely connected.

Me, too! Thanks so much for sharing your time with me.

This week, we sat down with artist Heather Watkins, whose work is in our current exhibition, Bodies of Work: Art & Healing, to discuss her art and artistic practice as a reflection of her personal journey. An artist working in many media, including drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and artist’s books, Heather makes work that is an expression of time, flow, circulation, stasis, and gravity.   

On Saturday, March 9, at SVMoA, Heather Watkins will join fellow artist Katherine Shaughnessy and author Sarah Sentilles in a conversation about their artistic processes and the ways that making art has helped them navigate their personal experiences with illness.

Can you tell us about your background and upbringing?

I was raised in Northern California in a small town in the Sierra Foothills, east of the Bay Area, not too far from Yosemite. It’s known as Gold Country, where prospectors came west to seek fortune (and claim land that wasn’t theirs) in the late 1800s. There was a strong literary presence as well, with figures like Mark Twain and Bret Harte and Jack London. Twain famously wrote his first short story set in the region about the idiosyncratic frog jumping in "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” I think the bigger and more lasting impact on me growing up in this area was developing a close relationship to nature. Hours and hours playing in the woods and creeks, surrounded by oak, pine, manzanita, the reddish-orange earth, pocked with granite and quartz.

I had the opportunity to spend time in other places through my adolescence, where I came to know different landscapes. I went to high school in New England and spent summers in the Pacific Northwest. At Pitzer College (in Claremont, California) I earned a bachelor’s degrees in English and World Literature and Classical Studies (with an emphasis on Art & Archaeology). I moved to Portland after college, and found a community in the arts, working and studying at the beloved (now unfortunately closed) Oregon College of Art & Craft. I returned to New England to study at the Rhode Island School of Design, where I received an MFA in 2000, and eventually made my way back to Portland, where I live and work now.

It’s interesting that your work fills an entire gallery in our current exhibition Bodies of Work: Art & Healing. It completely surrounds the viewer:  

I had a week-long residency with SVMoA in August of 2023. Curator Courtney Gilbert and I spent time considering the Museum spaces, talking about various possibilities, and how my work would feel in the space. It became clear to both of us that a series titled Recordings would be central, and I liked the idea of giving them a room of their own within the Museum.  

I first exhibited most of these works at PDX CONTEMPORARY ART in 2018 in an exhibition called “Waiting Room.” Although they can certainly be described as textiles or embroideries, I think of them as drawings. I don’t think of myself as a textile or fiber artist—needlepoint is not a craft that I am trained in. These thread-drawings began as a way to materialize and maybe account for a period of time when I couldn’t be in the studio much, when I was spending more time as a patient than anything else. Lots of waiting. This body of work involves a close/intimate engagement with the tools and materials: linen cloth, embroidery hoop, needle, thread, scissors. It’s a slow meditative process of translating the feeling of time—particularly the experience of waiting—into something one can sense. I think they benefit from a space that is quiet, where you can be alone with them.  

Gallery Group image of Recordings & SVMOA

Needlepoint is craft typically associated with women. How did you come to needlepoint as your medium?

Both of my grandmothers did needlecraft. Making things with fiber and fabric was just part of what they did with their hands, with their time. And it’s also how they cared for the people they loved.  

My father’s mother was a knitter. She would knit mittens and hats for all the grandchildren, and when we were small, she made sweaters with zippers with little bells on them. She lived in Minnesota, and during our visits, she taught me how to knit.  

My maternal grandmother lived across the street from us when I was growing up and she was a really gifted seamstress. She sewed for the entire family. She would create sets of pajamas for all the grandkids for Christmas—each family got their own print and fabric, and we’d take pictures of us all lined up in our matching outfits. She did needlepoint and embroidery as well. I remember a quilt project we started together. We cut a stack of little gingham squares, and she handed me a needle and thread and said to just stitch whatever design I wanted on them. All of her sewing supplies went to my parents’ house when she died, and I still look through them when I’m there.  

I think part of why I started working with thread as a drawing material is rooted in these early experiences watching the women in my family make something by hand, all that care and all that time.

So, thread is just another medium for expression. Can you talk about your relationship to your materials, how you choose or find the materials you use?   

A: My work in other media—ink, paper, cotton cording, wire—is very gestural and process-oriented. I think a lot about what a material does naturally, what its gestural language is, and what it might help me see or say. There’s a lot of experimentation as I develop an almost collaborative relationship with those materials, a give and take. My work with thread has become a more mediative, grounding, and deliberate part of my practice. The Waiting Room Recordings were like a sketchbook, little abstracted notations that refer to various influences and obsessions. They were made with sewing thread (not embroidery floss), some from my grandmother’s supplies. The thin size of the thread almost matches the gauge of the weave of the linen—they feel like weavings. I left the indentations of the embroidery hoop visible as a reminder of the process, evidence of one of the tools used to make the work.  

Heather Watkins Studio

In the larger works (Soundings), I use a silk thread that is flat, a bit like a skinny ribbon. It feels almost like working with a nibbed pen. The first part of the Soundings series is part of the Vanport Collection at Portland State University and was commissioned by for a specific site: the waiting room in the School of Counseling and Psychology—I love that connection to the earlier series that inspired the commission. For this exhibition at the Sun Valley Museum of Art, I created another suite of Soundings, which relate to the first five formally, a little like an echo of each of them.  

Image of Soundings

How has your medical journey impacted your artistic process?

My health journey began in 2008 when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was a total surprise. I had a delayed doctor’s appointment, and the nurse offered to do an eye exam to fill the time. I always had excellent eyesight, but I couldn’t read the bottom line of the eye chart. I figured it was just aging, but followed up with an optometrist, who sent me on to an ophthalmologist to get a full workup and within three weeks I was having brain surgery; a sudden, life-changing turn of events.  

Before I learned I had a brain tumor, I had begun making these drawings by pouring black ink on black paper, then bending, tilting, holding, turning the paper—mapping my body’s movement. It was a way to explore flow and circulation—playing with being in and out of control of the line. When I returned to the studio after my surgeries and treatments, I was struck by how many of these drawings looked like some of the diagnostic images the doctors had shown me of what was going on inside my body. The strange, uncanny sense that I was drawn to make these things that later looked so prescient was wild. It’s why I love working in such an open-ended way, to make space for unforeseen, unexpected, surprising things to happen.  

Image of Surfacing 16

Can you discuss your project with Sarah Sentilles?  

When Sarah Sentilles was living in Portland, she would occasionally come to my studio to work on writing or editing while I was working on my artwork. During this time, I was halfway through making what would become the Waiting Room exhibition, although I didn’t have the title for that work at that time. We were talking about the question of naming works, and I remember Sarah saying that if she were writing an essay about it, she would call it “Body of Work.” So that idea took hold, and now, many years later, it’s happening. Sarah has written a beautiful, deeply moving essay in response to my Waiting Room project.  

We started the process with an email exchange, a kind of call and response—very experimental in terms of form and length, exchanging personal stories, creative influences, things we were reading and thinking about, associations and connections related to themes of waiting, thread and cloth, fronts and backs of things, seeking and finding meaning. Sarah’s writing is both intimate and personal and at the same time addresses what’s going on formally and conceptually in my work. I am thrilled and honored to have this opportunity. The essay will be published in an artist’s book I am creating, alongside images of my Waiting Room Recordings, as well as images of the Versos, or backs of the Recordings. It has been an absolute joy to collaborate with Sarah on this project, and I am truly grateful to Sarah, Courtney, and SVMoA for supporting this project.  

Copies of Sarah Sentilles and Heather Watkins's collaborative project will be available soon at SVMoA.

Public Programs Director Kristine Bretall sat down with Jen Schneider, the creator and curator of MashUp! Little Lectures for an Odd World and the Associate Dean of the Boise State College of Innovation + Design to discuss how MashUp came to be and how she is looking forward to the collaboration with the Sun Valley Museum of Art and the Wood River Valley community.  Read the interview below, and don’t miss MashUp! #1: Digital Arborglyphs & Sound and Mind at the Museum on Thu, Feb 15. Mark your calendars for the MashUp! #2: Death Masks & Sign Geeks Thu, Mar 21, and MashUp! #3: Bird-Proof Building & Habit Rehab, Thu, Apr 18.

Photo: “Presenter Elizabeth Kidd talks about the value of boy band superfans.”

Tell me how you describe MashUp to someone who doesn’t know about them.

Our tagline is "Little Lectures for an Odd World," and I think that describes it pretty well. We bring together two people from the Boise State University campus or the community who are experts on their odd little corners of the universe, and the topics they talk about ostensibly have nothing to do with each other. We encourage them each to give a 20-minute lecture or demonstration in a lively, engaging way, and then we turn things over to the audience for Q&A. But the Q&A is unique because you can only ask a question that connects the two topics in some way. It leads to a lot of creativity, engagement, and depth that is truly joyful.

 Where did this idea come from?

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver has run a similar series they call Mixed Taste for years, and it has grown so much that they now host events in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. It's a major cultural event. I believe they borrowed the idea from others before them, stretching back to the Bauhaus Movement and even early 20th-century artist salons. But I first experienced it when I lived in Denver and have been wanting to bring the idea to Idaho ever since I moved back in 2014.

How did you initiate the project at Boise State University’s College of Innovation and Design?

Luckily, the College of Innovation and Design serves as an incubator for new and experimental ideas at Boise State. We mostly focus on building curriculum and programs that don't exist on campus yet, but the opportunity to pilot MashUp surfaced when we were thinking about ways to connect people in the humanities with new technologies coming on the scene, like generative artificial intelligence. It's been a great way to "mash up" those different kinds of topics in creative ways.

Photo: “Presenter Chris Kotansky talks about how to make the perfect non-alcoholic cocktail.”

Coming to Ketchum, what are you excited to have this project bring to the Wood River Valley?

This is such an incredible opportunity for us. We've been wanting to partner with an arts organization (all those creative vibes!), so the collaboration with the Sun Valley Museum of Art is ideal. And we have been looking for years to strengthen the connection between Boise State and the Wood River Valley. There are deep historical, cultural, and intellectual threads that connect the two valleys. What a terrific chance to bring those to life through this series of events.

What do you think the “special sauce” is that makes MashUp fun and unique?

I think it's the mix of passion that the presenters bring to their topics combined with the creativity that the audience brings to the Q&A. There were moments during the first season when I found myself having emotional reactions witnessing people talk about something they love, and audiences taking that passion and finding rich, human connections between topics. I love that the events are casual and lighthearted, too. It doesn't feel serious like going to a "lecture" sometimes can. It's just a reminder that our humanity can be so beautiful, and we're all in this together.

The artwork for promoting MashUp in Boise and the Wood River Valley is created with AI, can you talk about why you’ve chosen to do that?

Well, I should say that we used AI tools to come up with the initial image concepts—we didn't just use them without further manipulating them ourselves to fit the events. Our theme for Season 1 of MashUp was "Our Digital Future," so it was a natural fit. But in the College of Innovation and Design, we're very interested in understanding and engaging with the tools of technology in a deep way, and also approaching them critically, teaching our students to engage with them in a serious and critical way. AI has all sorts of implications for creativity, intellectual property, labor relations, environmental damage, and so on. But we believe you can't be a good critic of technology if you don't understand it. We try to be thoughtful with how we use it, transparent about using it, and always "keep humans in the loop" with whatever we produce.

As part of SVMoA's exhibition Bodies of Work, Wood River Valley local Holly Holmquist will share her journey through chronic illness via her film and multimedia project, "PATIENT," in a screening and artist talk on Feb 1.

For this week’s SVMoA Voices, Public Programs Director Kristine Bretall sat down with Holmquist to discuss her story, the art that evolved from it, and her artistic process.  

Upcoming programs related to Bodies of Work include an evening of art, wellbeing, and yoga with SVMoA Contemporaries on Thu, Jan 25. And on Mon, Feb 12, the founder of the Art & Global Health Center at UCLA, Professor David Gere, will lead a fascinating and provocative lecture on how the arts can save lives.

Image from PATIENT, photo: Holly Holmquist

What led you to create the project PATIENT?

Six years ago, I came down with an acute illness that developed into a chronic one. I went from being an athletic, full-time art director/designer to someone with a radically altered life.

All the while, I was taking photos in the way I always have, as this is how I move through the world. If there's a grain silo through the fog, a good license plate on the car in front of me, or beautiful light coming through the window, my instinct is to capture it.

I quickly learned what it is to have an illness that doesn't have a department, the endless process of trying to get help with something complex in a hyper-specialized system. I also came to understand that my story was not unique.

As someone who works with photography, I find solace in imagery of the shared experience and look for evidence of it in the world. And I wasn't seeing it anywhere. Understandably — it’s a complicated story. Four years into my illness, I recognized that the record I had created of my experience enabled me to tell the story. "Patient," the piece I’m showing in February is the first view of an ongoing multi-media project.

1970s in Idaho with mom Julie Holmquist and sister Allison, Holly in back

Tell us about your personal background and your connection to the valley.

I was born in Southern California in 1971, and my family moved to Ketchum in 1972. Our first house was out in Warm Springs, and we were later in Hulen Meadows. I’ve lived in Idaho and California throughout my life and have deep roots in both places.
 
I began college at UCLA and then transferred to Berkeley, where I majored in Social Science. My interdisciplinary major allowed me to take classes in art, design, photography, and letterpress. I later earned a second degree in design from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. While at CCA, I started an internship at the brand identity firm Elixir Design. I was fortunate to find a great fit and have spent my career with the same firm.

Editing photos at Elixir / photo: John Dolan

What kind of work do you do at Elixir?

My main role has been art director, with a focus on photography. I help brands express who they are visually. For the entirety of my design career, photography has been my means of capturing ideas and telling stories.

One of the first projects I had the opportunity to work on was the formation and realization of women’s athletic apparel company Athleta. Elixir’s founder, Jennifer Jerde, and her then partner, Scott Kerslake, conceived of the brand and nurtured it through its first seven years. At the time, there was virtually no representation of female athletes, much less women's athletic apparel. It just didn’t exist. Women in groups, teams — athletes of any kind — were not in our daily visual landscape. I had rowed in college and was thrilled to work on the initial direction for what would become a new kind of representation of women.

Rowing for UCLA at the San Diego Crew Classic, 1991

From 2005-2008, I art directed The Sundance Catalog. We did six location shoots a year, often with 14-hour workdays. Working with a close-knit, super-talented team over those years to capture a place — not just the look of it — was a challenge I loved. Picking up details like the local signage and scenes at the Grumpy’s and Pioneer of our given location was one of my favorite parts of the shoots.

On location with Sundance photo crew / photo: John Dolan

When you look at a design, what is the most important element of it to you?

I get excited about anything that has a unique point of view. There is so much repetition now, easily seen in the types of images proliferated on social media. When you can’t find examples of something on your mind, there is a story waiting to be told. It takes guts to do what is true to you and your organization, to break from the trend of the day. Authenticity is refreshing.

Holly in 2012

While chronic illness and the difficulty of finding a diagnosis is not new, it seems there is increased awareness and understanding of the complexity of auto-immune disorders, long COVID, and illnesses that currently have no ready diagnosis nor cure. And, how these things may all be occurring in the same person simultaneously …. The timing of sharing your piece and your experience is so layered with COVID, do you think it’s giving some people more insight into chronic illness?

I’m grateful that more attention is being given to chronic illness over the last few years. Science journalist Ed Yong has written extensively on Long Covid. In a recent piece in the NYT, information designer Giorgia Lupi illustrated her experience living with Long Covid.

In my project, I’m using photography to communicate what it has felt like to be up against an illness that the medical system isn’t set up to treat. Images induce feelings. I want this story to be felt.

New Year's Day 2015, before this all started (On Dollar with sister Allison and nephew Oliver)

Has this project helped you in any way?

Yes, it has been an enormous help. The act of capturing this experience has felt like a return to the person I was before getting sick, and the ability to share the work with others is an antidote to the isolation that comes with illness. There is a palliative quality and a tangible benefit to making the invisible visible.

Holly Snowshoeing

Click here to learn more about Holly Holmquist and her project "Patient" which will be screened along with a discussion on Thu, Feb 1 at Ochi Gallery in Ketchum.

The 2024 SVMoA Scholarships season kicks off on January 12, when applications for six different scholarships open. Every year, the Sun Valley Museum of Art awards tens of thousands of dollars to local students and educators in Blaine County to further their education in the arts and humanities. Since its inception, SVMoA has awarded over $1 million in scholarships, made possible by funds raised at SVMoA's Annual Wine Auction and generous contributions from donors.

This month, we spotlight Lella Aicher, 2023 SVMoA scholarship recipient and first-year student at Point Loma Nazarene University. Join us for a sneak peek into Lella’s life as a college student as she shares how the arts have played a transformative role in her life and continue to influence her future.

Curator Courtney Gilbert sat down with Lella to talk about her connections to the Museum, how she’s using her scholarship, and what she has planned (the arts are part of that plan!).

You’ve been involved in the Museum in many ways over the years! Can you share a little bit about the role of the Museum in your life as you grew up here in the valley?  

I first got involved with the Museum when I met Danica [Danica Robrahn, former SVMoA Museum Educator and current Art Teacher at Hemingway STEAM School]. I knew her through school tours and SVMoA’s work in the schools. She invited me to start taking SVMoA’s weekend workshops for kids and teens. I took so many! Some of my favorites were a printmaking workshop using stencils, a class on the basics of photography and cinematography, and two yarn-bombing workshops. I also attended the Museum’s weeklong summer art camps. 

What did you like best about art camp? 

I loved that you could let out your inner self. Campers have the flexibility to do whatever they want creatively within the guidelines of a specific project. The projects gave you structure, but you had lots of creative freedom.   

You’ve also worked for the Museum as an Assistant in our Smart Art Afterschool program and as an Assistant at summer camp. What did you enjoy about those experiences?  

I love watching the kids at work, expressing their creativity. I could live vicariously through them as I watched them make art without a filter, not feeling like their ideas had to be limited by society’s expectations. As you grow up, I feel like you start to limit yourself creatively based on what you think society expects of you, and often to one medium. It was so great to see kids open to all kinds of artistic mediums and ideas. Working with them was a full-circle moment for me — a reminder not to limit my own creative practice.   

What SVMoA scholarships have you been awarded? How are you putting them to use?  

I won two scholarships this year: the Hardy Kaslo Arts & Humanities Scholarship and the High School Arts & Humanities Scholarship. I’m currently using them to support my studies toward my B.A. at Point Loma Nazarene University, where I’m majoring in psychology with a minor in visual arts.   

Do you have any ideas about how you’d like to use your degree?  

I’ve been doing a lot of research on art therapy. I would love to start a nonprofit to make therapy and mental health treatment more accessible to all and to incorporate art therapy into that. In my psychology classes, I’ve already learned a lot about the brain and how art stimulates the brain in a healthy way. I’m interested in how art can help people heal and address things happening in their lives.  

I love that! Our next exhibition is all about the relationship between art and healing! What kind of art have you been making recently?  

I haven’t taken any studio art classes at college yet, but I’ve been taking introductory Art History classes. So, I’ve been doing small projects in my dorm room, working with watercolors and reworking and altering clothes. I’m making plans for larger projects I can do at home in Idaho. When I take notes in classes, I make lots of drawings and then turn those into study guides that are also art pieces.   

How have you enjoyed your Art History classes?  

I’ve loved them. The best part has been visiting the San Diego Museum of Art to see some of the art we’re studying in person. It’s amazing!  

What are you looking forward to in the next year?  

I’m excited to integrate more visual arts into my classes. I’m thinking about making visual arts my major and psychology my minor, so I’m looking forward to figuring that out and what my role will be here in college.  

Do you have a current favorite artist?  

Yes! Jon Allen, a sculptor in San Diego, installed a beautiful wood and light sculpture in a coffee shop here called Gordion Knot (2020). I love its meaning, which is the importance of finding unity and a place of comfort.    

Jon Allen, Gordion Knot

That seems like a perfect place to end! Thank you so much for chatting with me!  

Thank you!

2023 was a transformative year for the Sun Valley Museum of Art. We reopened our renovated space in June with an exceptional exhibition, Hidden Gems: Sun Valley Collects. What a treat to have so many important and outstanding works of art on view from local collectors for the entire community to see!  

In July, we had a fantastic street party. Over 800 people visited the museum and enjoyed live music and a pop-up performance by the dance company BODYTRAFFIC. It was a wonderful celebration of art and community.   

However, the true highlight of the year for me has been getting to know our community of engaged and curious donors, friends, students, and champions. Each of you has contributed to the advancement of our organization, and for that, I am most grateful. 

To close out the year, I have asked our Sun Valley Museum of Art programming team to share their highlights of this past year and exciting things to look forward to in 2024. 

Wishing you a joyful holiday season and a New Year filled with inspiration and creativity.

Jennifer Wells Green, Executive Director

Kristine Bretall, Director of Public Programs

What I love about gathering groups of people in shared arts events is the joy, connection, and sense of community that is created when we all take in the same moments as one organism! 

Looking back on 2023, a few highlights for me included Josh Ritter—an incredible singer-songwriter and author from Idaho—and México en el Corazón, the community performance we brought here to Sun Valley. I was lucky enough to see Josh Ritter twice this year. His performances bring an unparalleled level of enthusiasm—definitely put one on your bucket list!  While you’re at it, put the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on your bucket list, too. 

More locally, the Museum’s performance of México en el Corazón at the Sun Valley Pavilion shined as a moment of celebration of Mexican culture and people here in the Wood River Valley. I feel so lucky that we had the opportunity to host a stop of this truly extraordinary tour of over 50 dancers and musicians from Mexico, with an audience who sang along to every song in Spanish. The support of so many community businesses and non-profits made this event possible and free for all attendees. It was a moment for all of us at SVMoA to feel gratitude and pride for our entire community.  

Installation photo: Sharing Honors and Burdens Renwick Invitational 2023, photo credit Albert Ting

Courtney Gilbert, Director of Visual Arts

I have a long list of exhibitions I’m looking forward to seeing in 2024! While some of those shows are at internationally known museums, I thought I’d take this opportunity to recommend three exhibitions at museums that might not be on a lot of people’s radar.

First up is a show that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting last fall at the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. Sharing Honors and Burden: Renwick Invitational opened last May and is on view until March 31, 2024. The tenth installment in the Renwick Invitational series, it is the first to feature all Indigenous artists, each making work that incorporates ancestral traditions into innovative works of contemporary art. Among the participating artists is Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), who uses geometric glyphs and symbols drawn from urban imagery and Indigenous design to explore our human relationship to the environment. Joe participated in an exhibition here about a decade ago that marked the first time he experimented with casting glyphs in glass. It was exciting to see the newest version of that work, an enormous curtain of shimmering glass glyphs, hanging from the ceiling in Renwick’s galleries.

Frank Walter: To Capture a Soul opens at the Drawing Center in New York on June 20 and runs through September 15, 2024. I try to visit the Drawing Center every time I visit the city. It’s a wonderful institution that redefines the way I understand what drawing is. I was introduced to Frank Walter’s beautiful drawings and painting in the first exhibition of his work, which took place a few years after his death in 2009. Born in Antigua in 1926, Walter was the descendant of both enslaved Africans and plantation owners. He had a fascinating life, with time spent managing a sugar plantation, extensive travels through Europe and the UK, and work as studio photographer. He dedicated his final years to making artwork in isolation, producing thousands of paintings and drawings, sculptures and photographs. The show at the Drawing Center will include landscapes and portraits, diagrams and botanical imagery, works inspired by his travels and by his life in the Caribbean.

PST ART (previously Pacific Standard Time), the major art event of Southern California, returns in September 2024 to investigate the theme Art & Science Collide. This year’s iteration features more than 818 artists participating in 50 exhibitions across the region. One I’m especially looking forward to is We Place Life at the Center at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College. We Place Life at the Center is a solo exhibition of work by the Los Angeles-based Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo, who produced a film and sculpture for SVMoA’s 2022 exhibition Dams: Reservoirs, Reclamation, Renewal. The show at VPAM will continue Caycedo’s investigation into the preservation of Indigenous systems of knowledge around water and land stewardship, food, and energy. It includes Salute of the Fish, the sculpture Caycedo made for Dams, alongside other sculptures, paintings, drawings, video works, and more. And if you want to catch Caycedo’s work now, her solo exhibition Spiral for Shared Dreams is on view at MoMA in NYC until May 19, 2024.

Sophie Sawyers, Director of Learning and Engagement

I thought I would take this opportunity to share my favorite ways to use art as a creative outlet inspired by the artists who came to SVMoA this year.

Inspired by our exhibition, The Color of Sound, grab some watercolors and/or crayons and oil pastels and something that plays music. Choose a song—it can be anything, though I recommend listening to something previously unfamiliar—close your eyes, listen to the music, and paint/draw what you see. What do the sounds look like?

Esther Pearl Watson, who had works on view during our Fall 2023 exhibition Sightings, sometimes uses cardboard as her canvas. Using leftover cardboard boxes, cut a piece to be your canvas. Paint a landscape and accentuate details using glitter, like Esther Pearl Watson does in her own work. Check out Watson's takeover on SVMoA's Instagram page to learn more about her artistic process.

A wonderful way to relax during the busy holiday season is "Five-Finger Breathing," an exercise of mindful breathing that can be transformed into an art exercise. Musician Maiah Wynne, who visited Sun Valley in December, kicked off SVMoA's upcoming exhibition Bodies of Work: Art & Healing and her SVMoA Art Therapy Workshop with "Five-Finger Drawing." For this breathing and drawing exercise, place your non-dominant hand on a piece of paper. With a pencil in your other hand, trace your hand as you breathe in and breathe out. Want to keep going? Turn your hand slightly and trace it again. Turn it into a hand spiral or a design of your choice. Alternatively, draw a flower while consciously breathing in and out. 

This week, we spoke with Maiah Wynne in advance of her busy weeklong visit to the Wood River Valley to work with students in Blaine County schools, lead a community workshop, and perform a concert at the Argyros this Thu, Dec 7 (tickets are still available!). Our discussion covered her music, art as a tool for healing, and all the instruments she plays. Her visit is part of SVMoA's upcoming exhibition Bodies of Work: Art & Healing (Jan 12-Mar 23, 2024).

Maiah Wynne is a self-described singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist; however, she is much more than that. A precocious self-taught musician, she has been writing and singing songs since her elementary school days. A musical prodigy as a teen, her talent and perseverance have earned her a spot on NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, as well as slots at the Upstream Music Fest, Timber Music Festival, Northwest Folklife, and an invitation to perform at the Sundance Music Festival. She has been a guest singer with the Portland Cello Project and, most recently, is now bandmate to rock legends Andy Curran of Coney Hatch and Andy Lifeson, guitarist of Rush, in the musical project Envy of None.

You are described as a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. What instruments do you play?

I like to say that I play a little bit of everything! My main instruments are guitar, piano, ukulele, banjo, cigar box, dulcimer, mandolin, drums, and harp guitar. I also play some other fun instruments like the saz and bouzouki. Often, I play drums with my feet while I play other instruments like the guitar on stage.

So many instruments! Where did you first learn how to play music?  I know that learning to play music and sing songs is a process, one that is formed in many ways, starting with family, school music classes, private lessons, and the self-taught of the internet. What was your process of learning music?

I think I first became passionate about music when I was just a small kid sitting at the piano at 3 years old. I loved watching my dad play the piano and was inspired to learn from the start. I took piano lessons early on for a few years, then taught myself everything else from guitar to bouzouki! I used YouTube videos to learn new instruments, and I practiced writing and improvising. I was also a part of my school's choir for many years, which helped with my understanding of harmony and helped me develop my voice. I liked writing songs from an early age. I also loved watching my grandpa play the mandolin and banjo growing up. I was obsessed with music and learning how to create it. I loved the process of writing music, and I spent hours playing the piano, improvising, writing songs, and teaching myself new instruments after school each day.

You are interested in Art Therapy and using art as a tool for healing. That fits so well with the upcoming SVMoA exhibition Bodies of Work: Art and Healing, which is all about the healing power of art and art as a force to bring communities together to heal. How did you learn about art therapy or come to it as a discipline?

Music has always been a form of therapy for me. Even before I learned the science behind why music and art help, I could feel it in my body and nervous system. I feel very lucky to have found music at an early age because it helped me through the most difficult periods of my life. I feel music has the power to heal and transform people. It can help us connect with our community, and it can help us tap into our deepest emotions. Music is a powerful tool, and it also happens to be one of the most natural and instinctual things we can do if we allow ourselves to let go. I feel very passionate about bringing music to communities and helping encourage people to find their own connections with music because I know firsthand how much of a difference it can make.

You are trained and work with an art therapy non-profit organization. Can you tell us a little about that and how you got involved?

A few years ago, I partnered with an organization called First Aid Arts. I became aware of their work after singing at an annual fundraiser in Seattle. I was so moved by what I had learned that I decided to take their training course. I learned about how trauma affects the brain and how art-based tools can help people heal from trauma. Their program is inspiring and transformative, and they've brought music and art-based practices to communities all over the world who have suffered from trauma in various forms, from war or human trafficking to violence and displacement. I was deeply inspired by their work and was honored to partner with them in my own work as a musician. I've since taken what I've learned and implemented it into the workshops that I've led across the country, sharing tools and easy practices to help regulate the nervous system and starting conversations about mental health and the arts.

As a teenage runaway, you can sympathize with what kids are dealing with emotionally and empathize with what they're going through. How can kids use music to heal or connect or even as a channel for their emotions? Sometimes it’s hard for kids to put their feelings and emotions into words. How do you use music to heal?

Music can help regulate the nervous system through writing, singing, dancing, or listening. The music I make and how I create is unique to me, as it is for everyone else. That's part of what makes the process so beautiful. I can take a single prompt, and a dozen people will create something different. We all have our unique challenges, battles, perspectives, and creative spirits. Using music to process looks different for everybody.

The biggest hurdle for most people is simply giving themselves permission to try.  I like to encourage introspection and self-reflection along the way.

Can you talk about your project Envy of None? How is it to play with rock legend Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson? How did you meet him? How did you form a band? Was it chance or organized? Do you have anything coming up with him?

Envy of None has been such a fun project to be a part of. I won a song contest about 5 years ago, and through that I was connected with Andy Curran, a Canadian rock musician. I won a mentorship session with Andy, and we hit it off and decided to work on some music together. Andy and his musical partner Alf brought Alex on board. We ended up creating an entire album and releasing it last year, and it charted in the US, UK, and Canada. It was all very exciting, and it was really fun to step out of my normal genre. We have a second album in the works right now. I love my Canadian brothers! They've been a joy to work with.

Can you give us a preview of the workshop that you will be leading this week at the Sun Valley Museum of Art? What attendees can expect from the workshop?

The workshop will cover songwriting, mental health, and music, and a bit about my journey as a musician. I adapt my workshops to the group, either writing a song together or in smaller groups. I'll also be answering questions.

I'm excited to meet everyone and to get the chance to work with the wonderful Sun Valley community!

Learn more about Maiah Wynne at maiahwynne.com.