‘Entanglements’ with nature

Lens-based exhibit looks at how people relate to environment

BY SONYA ELLINGBOE SELLINGBOE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Metropolitan State University’s Center for Visual Arts starts o a new year with “Entanglements,” a new lens-based exhibit of works by 11 national and international artists, which will run from Jan. 13 to March 25 at the CVA Gallery, 965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver. March is Denver’s Month of Photography, and these works interpret artists’ views about how we, as humans relate to nature and its resources.

Eleven di erent views, that is ...

“Entanglements” was curated by Cecily Cullen and Natascha Seideneck, who teaches at MSU.

ere is an agenda stated: Artists hope to inspire viewers into action that is supportive of the natural environment. Check the CVA website for programmed events as some artists will be speaking at the gallery. Example: Amy Hoagland will speak at 5 p.m. on March 9 and Regan Rosburg will speak at 5 p.m. on Feb. 9. She has written a book called “Church of Water: A Portrait of the Arctic.” She teaches at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Lakewood.

Other artists with works included in “Entanglements” include: Persijn

Brersen and Margit Lukacs; Dornith Doherty, Felicity Hammond, Jana Hartman, Marcella Kwe, Anastasia Samoylova, Sarah Sense and Alicia Wroblewska.

Hammond will have a photographic collage series titled “Hidden Gems,” described as “jumbled, chaotic mining landscapes with the detrius left by the mineral extraction industry.”

Hoagland’s installation, “ awing Web,” challenges the idea that human society exists separate from nature.

Broersen and Lukacs take recognizable landscapes and reimagine them in two works entitled “Mastering Bambi” and “Establishing Eden.”

Both lms feature familiar landscapes — familiar because they were used in popular lms, but minus the actors and set pieces ...

Hartman and Samoylova o er photographic series that juxtapose nature and human society while Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/Choctaw) studies the relationship of her ancestors to the environment through an exploration of their landscapes.

Rosburg calls a viewer to action with her work called “dear future” re ecting on what we could change by taking action now ...

If You Go

Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday to Friday; noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Admission free. 303-615-0282, msudenver.edu/cva.

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SOUTH DENVER

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Coloradans can always look to the west and see the mountains in the distance, but for some who live in the inner cities of Colorado, actually getting to the mountains can be a bigger task.

irty- ve fth-graders hit the slopes in Loveland for the rst time on Dec. 13, some even experiencing the mountains for the rst time.

Students from Laredo Elementary School in Aurora came to Loveland Ski Area to ski with professional skier and Snow Sports Hall of Fame inductee e Chris Anthony Youth Initiative Project works to improve the lives of kids through educational enrichment. One of the ways the foundation does this is by busing classes of fth-graders out to Loveland ski area to spend a day learning to ski.

Chris Anthony.

Anthony has been working with kids for many years and has hosted his youth program at Loveland for the past three.

Anthony’s foundation pays for the bus, winter clothes, ski rentals and passes for the children to come experience the slopes. Most kids who come have never skied, and some have never spent time in the mountains despite living in Colorado. irty- ve fth-graders getting tted for boots, skis and helmets all at the same time was a bit chaotic, but the sta ers at Loveland have done this before. e kids buzzed with excitement and quickly learned about the cumbersome feeling of ski boots.

Peter Zola is the teacher for the fthgraders at Laredo Elementary School.

“Every year we have at least two or three kids who have spent most of their life out on the plains in sight of the mountains but never in the mountains,” Zola said.

Zola has been taking his class to ski for eight years and said he always sees great behavior out of his students during this trip. He attributes that success to the active learning the kids get to see and experience on the mountain.

Anthony sees kids get o the bus with a wide range of emotions, from excitement to nervousness for the day. After a day on the slopes, he sees a common thread between all of them.

“No matter what, at the end of the day, all of them, you can see a bright light ignited in the process,” Anthony said.

Some of the kids were star-struck upon seeing Anthony, one even asking the hall of famer to sign his lunchbox.

After donning their coats and dancing out the morning jitters, the fth-graders were ready to go get tted for skis.

After getting their skis ready to go, the kids headed out to the snow with the instructors. ey learned how to put on their skis and quickly learned how to get up after they inevitably fell down.

Dan Huston is the director of the ski and ride school at Loveland. He said one of the biggest barriers for people being able to ski is location/transportation.

“ e mountains and ski areas usually aren’t very close to urban population centers. We’re unique in that we are 56 miles from Denver,” he said.

After working with the program for a few years, Huston knows the impact it has on kids.

“ ey’re gonna remember this for the rest of their lives,” he said.

Mailene Hernandez, one of the fthgraders on the trip, had a lot to say about the day. She said the bus ride to the ski area was full of mixed emotions, but mostly excitement.

“It was a little bit chaotic, but it was good,” Hernandez said. “I was kinda feeling excited and nervous at the same time.”

Hernandez took to the sport easily and said the process of getting into her skis was pretty natural.

“While I was putting them on I guess I felt a little wobbly, but it was pretty easy,” she said.

Hernandez also had some advice for other kids who might be learning to ski for the rst time.

“It’s really a fun experience, but I do recommend having some ski clothes because of how cold it is, and because you’re going to fall,” she said.

She also went on to say how much of a blessing Chris Anthony was to her class and how happy she was that they even got the opportunity to come.

After lunch, the kids got their skis back on and some of them graduated from the Magic Carpet over to the ski lift. Skiing down the hill was a good opportunity to work on turns and pizza wedges for the fth-graders. Anthony himself skied along with the kids throughout the day, helping to pick them up when they fell. His presence made the day even more exciting for the kids, with high- ves all around.

Hernandez and other students agreed that if they had the opportunity to ski again, they would de nitely take it.