Page 23 - September 2017

ARTSBRIEFS: SEPTEMBER2017
SEDONA WINEFEST
The 9th Annual Sedona Winefest will be held on Saturday and Sunday, September 23 and 24, from 11AM to 5PM at the Historic Posse Grounds Park in West Sedona featuring Arizona’s finest wines. Surrounded by green grass and spectacular views of Sedona’s red rocks, the event will be held in an all-weather circus- sized tent for all to enjoy.
The Winefest is designed to
introduce attendees to a variety
of fine wines from 20 Arizona
wineries from across the state,
including many from the Verde
Valley. The event also includes lo-
cal cuisine, art, music, a variety of
vendors, and free wine education
seminars. In addition to tasting opportunities, wine will be for sale by the glass, bottle and case. Parking is free.
General admission tickets are available online at SedonaWinefest.com at the early bird price of $35 and sold at the door for $40. A ticket for both days is available online for $50. General admission includes an etched commemorative glass and six tasting tickets. Additional wine tasting tickets will be available onsite. Online sales end at 5PM on Friday, September 22.
Sedona Winefest has become a two-day signature event and is a fall tradition in Sedona, celebrating the burgeoning Arizona wine industry, and has grown to host over 2,500 guests in 2016. “The wine industry in Arizona has not only matured to produce award-winning wines, but has experienced robust growth in recent years, to the delight and benefit of many,” said Sandy Moriarty, president of Sedona Fair, Inc., the non-profit organization producing the event.
The Winefest’s location, Posse Grounds Park, was originally used in early days as a stag- ing ground for the Sheriff’s Posse as well as a site for rodeos. Today it is the largest park in Sedona and is home to softball and soccer fields, a bike skills park, tennis/pickleball courts, a basketball practice area, a skateboard park, the Hub activity and performing arts center, picnic ramadas and the recently opened Barbara Antonsen Amphitheater.
The Winefest features a selection of delicious and inviting foods to complement the wines. Throughout the tasting area, there are also displays of goods and services from ven- dors ranging from glass art made from wine bottles to jewelry and wine barrel furniture. There will also be an opportunity to win a wide variety of prizes in an hourly raffle. The Wine- fest is designed for both experienced and aspiring wine connoisseurs, with wine education seminars offered at no additional cost.
On Sunday, several pre-war “motor-cars” will be on exhibit, including a 1914 Bugatti. These rare collectibles are on display by their owners. An additional “Sunday Only” feature for 2017 is a “paint-out” by local artists who will paint outdoors from noon to 2PM. Their final art will be for sale upon completion of the best of show judging. This plein air type painting has been organized by the Sedona Arts Center, which will have its own event on October 14-21, the Plein Air Festival. Learn more at SedonaArtsCenter.com.
Attendees are invited to come spend the whole weekend in Sedona. Choose from a wide selection of accommodations, from exclusive resorts to rustic bed and breakfasts tucked away all over the Verde Valley. Visit Sedona’s Chamber of Commerce website, VisitSedona.com for information on lodging in and around Sedona. Sedona Winefest is made possible by the City of Sedona, Sedona Chamber of Commerce, Verve Events & Tents, and local media. For more in- formation on the Sedona Winefest including updated information, visit SedonaWinefest.com.
LITERARY SOUTHWEST WELCOMES MULTI-GENRE WRITER
Celebrated fiction writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and editor Ana Castillo visits the Lit- erary Southwest on Friday, September 15 at 7PM in the Yavapai College Library’s Susan N. Webb Community Room (Bldg. 19, Room 147) on the Prescott campus. An open conversa- tion, audience Q & A session, and a book signing follow the reading. Literary Southwest programs are presented admission free and are open to all.
Ana Castillo is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Chicana literature. Her most recent book, Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me, confronts what it means to be a single, brown, feminist parent in a world of mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality. She is the author of So Far From God and Sapogonia, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year, as well as The Guardians, Peel My Love like an Onion, and many other books of fic- tion, poetry, and essays. Her recent novel, Give It to Me, won a 2014 LAMBDA Literary Award; her seminal collection, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma was re-released as a 20th anniversary edition in November 2014; and the award-winning Watercolor Women, Opaque Men was re-released in a new edition in the fall of 2016.
Ms. Castillo is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of La Tolteca, a literary zine, and currently holds a faculty post at the Bread Loaf program with Middlebury College, Vermont. Previous teaching posts have included the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Visiting Scholar post at MIT, the Poet- in-Residence at Westminster College, Utah, and the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University, Illinois. Other awards include a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, and the Lifetime Achievement Award for a Latina 50 Plus. Raised in a working class neighborhood in Chi- cago, she lives in New Mexico.
The Hassayampa Institute presents The Literary Southwest is made possible by Yavapai College and the Yavapai College Foundation, with additional support provided by Per- egrine Book Company. For complete author and series information, visit: www.yc.edu/ Literarysw or contact Series Director Jim Natal through Yavapai College at 928-776-2295.
HOPE + TRAUMA
Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land explores the impact of uranium mining on Navajo lands and people. The art exhibition will feature work by more than two dozen artists, including Navajo and Native artists. The show will be open to the public August 15 – October 28, 2017.
On September 23 from 6-9PM, the Coconino Center for the Arts opens for a special public reception during the Flagstaff Festival of Science. Everyone is welcome to come and view the exhibition, talk with participating artists, and hear from the exhibition creators about the show. There will be live music, yummy food, and a cash bar. Following the recep- tion at 8PM, The Accidentals will be featured in concert in the auditorium with special guest, Jake Allen.
Through the participating artists, Hope and Trauma shares stories and perspectives from Navajo people of their experiences due to radiation-related impacts to their bodies, their land, their water, their animals, and the natural materials and objects they use in their every- day lives. Artwork will be based on a series of interactions, shared stories, and educational programs that took place in Cameron, Arizona, and in Flagstaff, in October 2016. Artists attended a four-day intensive education program which immersed them in the landscape where uranium mining and contamination has occurred on the Navajo Nation. They learned from Navajo community members, scientists, health care professionals, mental health pro- fessionals, and other experts about the impacts of uranium mining.
From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands. At the time, Navajo miners and residents were not informed of the health impacts of working in the mines, or of the impact on their lands. Many Navajo people have died of kidney failure and cancer from conditions linked to uranium contamination. Research from the CDC shows uranium in babies born now.
More than one thousand abandoned uranium mines are located on the Navajo reserva- tion in Northeastern Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Hundreds are located within fifty miles of Flagstaff near and in Cameron, Arizona. The federal government recently agreed to com- mit over $1 billion to clean up 94 abandoned mines on the Navajo Nation.
Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land is a partnership between the Cameron Chapter House of the Navajo Nation, the Flagstaff Arts Council, University of New Mexico Commu- nity Environmental Health Program, and Northern Arizona University. This blockbuster exhibition is funded in part through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Project partners followed the established model for art exhibitions that began with Fires of Change. That exhibition also featured a week-long training for participating artists that covered forest and fire ecology, giving artists education insight into the increase in size and frequency of wildfires in the American southwest, with a focus on Northern Arizona. This process ensures that participating artists are educated and informed about the complex issue of uranium mining before they created artwork for the exhibition.
Hope and Trauma will feature several educational events to be scheduled during the run of the exhibition. Check FlagArtsCouncil.org for a detailed schedule of events.
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