Individual tickets for shows in the Sedona Film Festival went on sale today, Monday February 15, 2010.  Over 125 films will be featured this week with special guest speakers like Michael Moore in addition to Festival favorites like the   screenwriting workshops and Sedona Green Event.  

Show tickets are selling out quickly, so make sure to check the Sedona Film Festival screening schedule and purchase them immediately.  General admission tickets are $12. If the show you would like to attend is already sold out or says “RUSH” in the schedule block, it’s worth going to theater and seeing if you can purchase a ticket last minute.

Top 10 List of recommended Sedona Film Festival movies:

1) Burma VJ – documentary by Anders Østergaard

2) Garbage Dreams – documentary by Mai Iskander

3) Which Way Home – documentary by Rebecca Cammisa

4) Sergio – feature by Greg Barker

5) Kavi – Live Action Short by Gregg Helvey

6) A Shine of Rainbows - Feature Drama by Vic Sarin

7) The Greatest – Narrative Feature by Shana Feste

8) Polliwood – by Barry Levinson (director of Rain Man)

9) Saving Grace B. Jones – Feature Drama by Connie Stevens

10) Blood Into Wine – documentary by Ryan Page & Christopher Pomerenke

* Since this is and Arizona Travel blog, we highly recommend “Blood Into Wine” for many reasons, one of them being that this is about the Page Springs Winery here in Arizona. The vineyard is ran by winemakers Eric Glomlski and Maynard James Keenan (Tool). The vineyard is gorgeous and worth a wine-tasting visit. Imagine watching the Blood Into Wine then stopping over at the Page Springs Vineyard to experience what you just saw in the theater! 3D films? Sheesh…that’s for fakers. Head over to the vineyard itself located about 25 minutes from the movie theater…really. You won’t regret it. Page Spring’s petite sirrahs are going to put Arizona wineries on the wine vacation destination map.  Here is a video of Eric Glomski giving a wine tour; a little taste if you will. If you’re thinking about staying in town for multiple nights, you can find Sedona hotels and bed & breakfasts, some with special film festival rates on Sedona.net.

Sedona Film Festival Information

Where: Harkins 8

2081 W. Highway 89A
Sedona, AZ  86336
928-282-2221

(Hwy 89A & Sunset Dr.)

From Phoenix
Start: Phoenix, Arizona
End: Sedona, Arizona
Total Distance: 113.4 Miles
Estimated Total Time: 2 hours 

Directions / Miles
Start: Depart Phoenix, Arizona
1: Take I-17 North / Flagstaff 98.4 Miles
2: At exit 298, Exit Ramp 0.2 Miles
3: Turn LEFT (West) onto SR-179 [FR-618 Rd] 0.1 Miles
4: Keep STRAIGHT onto SR-179 14.2 Miles
5: Turn Left (West) onto SR-89A [N HWY-89A] 2 Miles
End: Arrive Harkins Theatres, Sedona, Arizona 

When: February 21-28, 2010

Ticket Price: $12 per showing

Official Website: http://sedonafilm.org/

Noted plein air artist, Joshua Been, was honored this past Friday, October 24^th by L’Auberge de Sedona at the “Evening with the Artists” Gala. The hotel selected Been’s “A Creekside Breakfast” for the L’Auberge Award, which will be added to the hotel’s extensive collection of original plein air art displayed throughout the property in a permanent collection. The picturesque retreat nestled in Sedona’s Oak Creek hosted the 4^th Annual Sedona Plein Air Festival’s “Quick Draw” and “Evening with the Artists” Gala.

Breathtaking views of red rocks and idyllic sounds of the creek inspired over 30 invited artists to paint the landscapes of L’Auberge de Sedona during the annual “Quick Draw,” a three-hour session en plein air. With the paint nearly dry, artists and patrons attended the “Evening with the Artists” Gala in the resort’s Monet Ballroom while enjoying both the stunning red rock setting and the artistry of the hotel’s culinary team.

General Manager of L’Auberge de Sedona, Joe Mottershead, welcomed the talented artists and art enthusiasts: “L’Auberge de Sedona is a natural partner for the Sedona Arts Center and there couldn’t be a more perfect setting than our resort to inspire artists who paint in the plein air style. We will be proud to add Joshua Been’s work to our plein air collection which is displayed throughout the resort.”

In addition to the Sedona Art Center’s 4^th Annual Plein Air Festival’s Sponsors Award – the L’Auberge Award — Joshua Been has enjoyed accolades such as the “Artists Choice” award from Estes Park Plein Air Festival 2008, Honorable Mention at Frank Bette Plein Air Festival 2008, and “Best in Show” at Art of Rockies Open Awards Show in 2006. Moreover, Joshua Been was named the “Artist to Watch” by Southwest Art Magazine in June 2008.

L’Auberge de Sedona is pleased to display Joshua Been’s “A Creekside Breakfast” in the hotel lobby’s permanent collection.

Where better for an outdoor painting festival than Sedona?

The area’s signature red-rock formations and sweeping vistas seem tailor-made for the style of painting known as plein air.

This type of art came about in the late 1800s, when artists began taking materials out of the studio and into the field, says Jennifer Reddington, spokeswoman for the Sedona Arts Center, which is sponsoring the festival.

“It’s an attempt to capture the whole moment on canvas – the light, color and constantly shifting shadows,” she says. “So the artists work fast (and) in a loose style. It’s a different experience, both for the artist and the collector.”

Twenty-eight artists representing seven Western states have spent the week capturing those moments, working everywhere from downtown Sedona to remote trailheads. Although most of the paintings are landscapes, some depict urban scenes. But all were painted outdoors, and quickly.

The festival, which started Monday, wraps up this weekend with several events. On Saturday, the public can watch the artists at work when they gather for a couple of hours during the Sedona Paint Out in uptown Sedona.

“It’s really interesting to watch the artists as they work almost instinctively to capture the immediacy and spontaneity of the moment,” Reddington says. “They will experience the weather, good or bad, to try to capture those fleeting shadows and light.”

The process is evident in the results.

“(Plein air) pulls you into the moment in a way that studio paintings can’t,” Reddington says.

You can mingle with the artists Saturday evening at the Patrons Gala, which features fine wine, live music and top-notch catering. The festival wraps up with a public exhibition and art sale Sunday, when the artists display and sell the results of their week’s work.

Source: John Stanley, The Arizona Republic, Oct. 27, 2006

Tuscon Museum of Art exhibit shows its splendor in many forms

By Doug Kreutz / Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.15.2006

The name says it all: Our world-famous Canyon is Grand.

Artists have noticed.

Over the past century, they’ve captured the geologic, chromatic, superstructural splendor of the Grand Canyon in media from paint and photographic film to artsy arrangements of rocks and dirt.

A rich sampling of their work is on display at the Tucson Museum of Art in an exhibition called “The Grand Canyon: From Dream to Icon.”

“It’s about seeing the Canyon in a new way — and reconnecting with it in an old, familiar way,” says Julie Sasse, the museum’s chief curator.

The exhibition showcases 60 works by 55 artists. Among them are famous painters such as Thomas Moran and Ross Stefan and photographers including legendary Ansel Adams and Tucsonan Jack Dykinga. Works by conceptual artists such as Beth Ames Swartz and collaborators Rebecca Davis and Roger Asay add a measure of experimentation and whimsy.

“The whole intent of this exhibition was to show that the Grand Canyon isn’t a static place,” says Sasse. “It’s just as compelling to a conceptual artist as it is to a traditional pictorialist.

“Seeing this work is to find out about the many different ways people connect with the Canyon.”See examples of Grand Canyon photos and art on www.thecanyon.com.

Join the summer celebration of art, music and more in downtown Scottsdale at the M&I Bank Summer Spectacular ArtWalk, on Thursday, July 6 from 6-9pm. As the sun goes down, the streets of Scottsdale’s arts district on Main Street and Marshall Way come alive for this popular annual event.

Scottsdale’s famed art galleries welcome all with a fantastic party, complete with live entertainment, free food and drink samples, artists demonstrations, and gallery show openings. It’s all free to the public.

This annual event is presented by M&I Bank and hosted by the Scottsdale Gallery Association (SGA) in conjunction with Scottsdale Downtown. M&I Bank will repeat its hugely popular “Cold Cash Ice Sculpture Contest,” where ArtWalkers are invited to guess the total value of hundreds of coins encased in a beautiful ice sculpture, which drip-drip-drips toward an answer (and somebody’s prize!) in the warm summer evening air.

ArtWalkers will enjoy many show openings and artist receptions at dozens of galleries along the ArtWalk route. Complete gallery schedules can be found on the Scottsdale Gallery Association’s website at www.scottsdalegalleries.com/schedules.html

In addition to the latest art works, this year’s M&I Bank Summer Spectacular ArtWalk has lined up some exciting live music and entertainment. Headlining this year’s lineup is the award-wining, high energy band, Mojo Farmers, with a hybrid of rock styles that has a little bit of something for everyone. Additionally, the mellow sounds of Kairos Jazz, Gradymusic, Sarah Vanell, Mark Barry, Matt Yaki and Tim Lyddon will delight ArtWalkers, as will “Soliloquies,” a unique collaboration featuring some of the Valley’s best up & coming singer-songwriters: Josh Foster, Jumbo Jr., and Mary Hoffman.

For those who need sustenance along the way, M&I Bank will be keeping the crowd cool with free bottles of cold water at their booth. There will also be food and drink sample stations from Naked Juice, China Mist Iced Teas, Fleming’s Restaurant, Malee’s on Main, Roy’s Restaurant, and other surprises!

It all takes place from 6-9 p.m. on Thursday, July 6. Admission is free of charge and there’s plenty of free parking nearby, plus the trolleys are running! For more information, call the Scottsdale Arts District hotline at 480-990-3939 or visit www.scottsdalegalleries.com

by Kathleen Gorden for www.evliving.com

Visitors to the Prescott Valley Civic Center are being greeted by an atmosphere of creative inspiration.

With eleven new pieces added this year, the Civic Center is now home to 19 sculptures, seven of which the town owns.

The sculptures range in style from modern to western and are spread in and around the Civic Center.
Information from: The Daily Courier

Cowboy artist Joe Beeler died Wednesday in Sedona, and his passing was as characteristic as his painting.

“He was in the saddle when he died,” friend Steve Todd said. “He was working on a ranch with friends and neighbors, branding calves . . . and he slumped forward in the saddle and died of a heart attack.”

The last remaining founding member of the Cowboy Artists of America, Beeler was 74. According to Todd, he frequently visited the ranches of friends to help out at branding time.

“He really lived his life as a true Westerner,” said Ed Reilly, owner of the Bronzesmith foundry in Prescott Valley, where Beeler had his sculptures cast for the past two decades.

“Unlike some other members of the Cowboy Artists of America, Joe really was a cowboy,” said Maryvonne Leshe, partner of Trailside Galleries in Scottsdale, where Beeler had showed his work since 1977. “And going through his home was like visiting the history of the West.”

Beeler was named an Arizona History Maker in 1994 by the Arizona Historic League, an honor that meant a great deal to him.

“It put him in the company of such important Arizonans as Carl Hayden and Ben Avery,” Reilly said.

Beeler joined forces in 1965 with three other Western artists to form the cowboy artists’ group, which has grown to two dozen artists. The group has an annual show in October at the Phoenix Art Museum, where their work sells for up to six figures.

Beeler was born on Christmas Day in 1931 in Joplin, Mo. His art talent was discovered early and he attended several art schools.

He had his first one-man show in 1960 at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, one of the premier museums of Western art in the country, and since then has been one of the most prominent members working in the genre.

“He had his own voice and style,” Leshe said. “He was a warm and humorous person and it showed in his work.”

Unlike some artists, Beeler worked in all media, including painting and sculpture.

“Joe’s art has soul to it. It has a certain feeling,” Reilly said.

“He was never interested in showing something in such minute detail as he was in conveying a feeling or emotion in his art. He had a signature style: You look at a Beeler painting or a sculpture and you could see they both came out of the same person. Whatever flowed through him flowed through everything he did.”

One difference is that Beeler never used a camera to help him out. Many artists will take photographs and project the images onto their canvases to help them get the drawing right. But Beeler didn’t use short cuts.

“He’d take a blank white canvas and with charcoal, he’d put all the things he wanted in there,” Reilly said. “It was a different style, just shoot-from-the-hip sort of style.”

That quality characterized him as a man, too.

“He had no pretense about him,” Todd said. “He was comfortable being Joe Beeler with everyone.”

Beeler lived in Sedona since the early 1960s. His wife, Sharon, died in 2004. He is survived by a brother, two children and one grandchild. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Church of St. John Vianney in Sedona.

Phoenix, Arizona – In braided costumes of red, blue, orange and white, the dancers swirl around a sand circle to the chanting of a dozen elderly Indians, all the while balancing up to 30 flexible hoops on their body.

The scene takes place outside a museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the dancers are competing for the world title in the centuries-old tradition of the hoop dance.

Every year, Native Americans from the United States and Canada come together in Phoenix to celebrate the dance. Participants form figures resembling flowers, eagles or the sun by balancing dozens of metre-wide rings on their feet, legs, arms and shoulders and in their mouths.

‘This is a great example of our culture, and of culture in the Southwest,’ says Brian Hammel, 35, a dancer from the Hochunk tribe in West Wisconsin.

The dancers’ annual meeting place, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, pays tribute to Native American culture all year long. With eight exhibits of tribal art, crafts and history, the museum is the ideal starting point to explore Native American culture in the southwestern United States.

Arizona is home to 21 different tribes with an overall population of more than 250,000 people. Reservations and tribal communities occupy over a quarter of the state’s lands.

Local operators offer trips from Arizona’s major cities to the reservations of the Hopi and Navajo tribes, where tourists can eat indigenous foods and learn more about the traditions of America’s first people.

White European settlers also left their imprints on the region. The flow of cowboys, railroad men and gold-diggers to Arizona in the 19th century kicked off the famous Wild West era, traces of which can still be found across the state.

Visitors can walk the streets of violent cowboy ghost towns like Tombstone or try to find forgotten treasures in the remains of former goldmine camps.

Several sites like the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg, the Skull Valley Railroad Depot or Prescott’s Whiskey Row aim to give visitors a real taste of the old Wild West.

Arizona, however, is best known for its natural beauty. The World Heritage Site of the Grand Canyon is in the state’s north-west, where it attracts more than 4 million people annually to explore the Grand Canyon National Park by foot, air, river, mule or train.

Popular activities are wild-water rafting down the Colorado River, jeep tours through the park’s desert landscape and helicopter tours giving a breathtaking overview of the canyon.

But there are other sites off the beaten tracks which are also worth a visit.

The Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix showcases more than 50,000 local plants including a vast variety of flowers somewhat unusual in the desert. Small birds and local butterflies including Painted Ladies and the regal Queens are regular guests in the floral gardens.

Possibly the oddest desert site is the so-called Mystery Castle. Built in the 1930s outside Phoenix from trash found in the desert, the house looks like a Wild West version of a Hundertwasser design – with furniture created by America’s best known architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The house is still inhabited by the builder’s daughter Miss Gulley, who gives tours of her home. From the Mystery Castle it is only a short ride to Frank Lloyd Wright’s former winter residence in Scottsdale.

The architect famous for designing New York’s Guggenheim Museum built a whole complex including a cabaret theatre, a music hall as well as an architectural studio and living space using local rocks and desert sand. Wright’s winter camp is now managed by a foundation and open for public visitors on guided tours.