Speaker Biographies

Steamboat Artposium, May 16-18, 2008

Joel Allen is a Montana native new to Steamboat Springs who oddly enough doesn't ski. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from Washington State University (Sculpture/Ceramics/ Installation Art) in 2001 and has since taken every opportunity to teach and make art. His installation work has a decidedly social bent. His most recent exhibition focuses on the pharmaceutical industry and is entitled Pharma-Illogical: Can You Swallow This? Over the past few years he has been developing a course entitled Art in the Environment to engage participants in an evolving dialogue about our natural environment and our integral responsibility to better understand it.
Bruce Beckum teaches writing and literature at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs. He writes poetry, fiction and plays, as well as songs to which he accompanies himself (badly) on the guitar. He holds a B.S. in Journalism, an M.A. in Communications and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. He spends as much time outdoors as possible and believes that “place” can be one of the most important elements of any type of writing.

Heid E. Erdrich is author of two collections of poetry, The Mother's Tongue and Fishing for Myth, as well as co-editor (with Laura Tohe) of Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community. Her third collection of poems, National Monuments, will be published by Michigan State University Press in 2008. A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, she co-founded the Turtle Mountain Writing Workshop with Louise Erdrich, her sister. Her books have each been nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards and her writing has received numerous grants and honors. Her degrees are from Dartmouth College and The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. A long-time college teacher, Heid Erdrich taught for more than a decade in the English at the University of St. Thomas. In 2007 she left full-time teaching to concentrate on writing and working with Native artists.

Mollie Fager is a poet, dancer and actress. Although originally from the south, Fager attended high school, college and graduate school in Colorado. She graduated from CU-Boulder in 1993 with a Bachelor's degree in Women Studies. She received her Master's in Business Administration with an emphasis in non-profit management from CU-Denver in 1999. Fager has built her career in non-profit management from human services work and the environment to the arts. She served as executive director for The Dairy Center for the Arts before becoming the associate development director of the Nature Conservancy Colorado.

Shelley Mastran is a preservation planning consultant and co-directs the Your Town: Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. She has been involved in community planning projects, heritage areas, and scenic byway management plans in Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. She worked with Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute on the publications, Better Models for Development in Virginia. She is a Visiting Professor in the graduate programs of Natural Resources and Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech (Alexandria campus).

She is co-author with Samuel N. Stokes and A. Elizabeth Watson of the second edition of Saving America’s Countryside. She has a B.A. in English from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Maryland.

Matthew Moore. Over the past few years, in an effort to deal with, and better understand, what the eventual loss of the farm to development will mean to Matt and his family, the artist/farmer has been creating large-scale projects on his family farm. He has tried to visualize what it will look like and how it will be used once the family no longer has control of the property.

John Sant'Ambrogio was principal cellist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 1968 to 2005 under music directors Walter Susskind, Jerzy Semkow, and Leonard Slatkin. In 2005, he became a founding member of the exciting ensemble, the Generations Trio with violinist Dmitri Pogorelov and pianist Judith Lynn Stillman. John is also the founder of Arts for the Soul, a week long workshop in Steamboat Springs to nurture creative souls www.artsforthesoul.net

Dean Visintainer, a long-time Colorado rancher, owns more than 53,000 acres in Moffat County. Decades ago he composed a Declaration of Intent for his ranching operation: “When songbirds flourish everything else flourishes. The land provides the base for all creatures, therefore, is the best investment, over time.” Over the past 35 years he has also made habitat changes to increase sage grouse populations on his land. He graduated from Colorado State University and received the Colorado Section Society for Range Management “Excellence in Range Management Award” in 1985.

Steamboat Springs and Hayden

Located in the Northwest section of Colorado these towns have a rich ranching heritage and now are known for recreation and wide open spaces.

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Steamboat Springs Artposium: Plains, Frames & Land Use Ideals
May 16-18, 2008
Registration $225

We have secure online registration, but if you don't like that new fangled stuff you can call Grant Pound (executive director) at 303.279.5198 or send a check to:

Colorado Art Ranch
6878 Taft Court
Arvada, CO 80004

Click here to Register for the Steamboat Artposium