River Currents Issue #6, January 2009
4th Annual Gila River Festival Highlights:
Celebration Inspired All!
Held during a beautiful September weekend, this year’s successful Gila River Festival “A Source of Inspiration” was not only an opportunity to celebrate the Gila River through the eyes of artists, writers, musicians and performance artists, but also for participants to engage in the creative process themselves. Check out the fun by viewing the photo gallery of Gila River Festival images.
2008 Guggenheim Fellow Michael Berman (www.fragmentedimages.com) led two outdoor photography workshops. Aspiring photographers were thrilled to get expert advice from Berman, whose black and white photographs have appeared in Charles Bowden’s Inferno, as well as many other publications. The Gila River Festival, along with Blue Dome Gallery, also hosted an opening of Berman’s Gila River photos.
Saturday was a big day for the Gila River Festival in downtown Silver City. The 75 foot long Gila River mural was dedicated on the corner of Bullard and Yankie streets. The Mimbres Region Arts Council’s Faye McCalmont and artist Diana Ingalls-Leyba, the driving forces behind Silver City’s mural program, introduced conceptual artist Zoe Wolfe, who talked about the mural’s evolving design. Created by kids during the MRAC Youth Mural Camp this past summer, the young student-artists pointed out the plants and animals they had painted and rendered in colorful tile work.
Saturday evening, participants heard the debut of the two winners of the Gila River Festival songwriting contest, when Wally Lawder played his original composition Banks of the Gila and the Silver City String Beans did a cover of Jeff Goin’s Roll On, Gila River. Winners of the songwriting contest received a professional recording of their songs, generously donated by local recording studios, Barefoot Studio and Mountain Air Productions. The next surprise was a long – 11 minute! – ballad, The Flood of 2009, written and performed by Gurnie Dobbs of Gila. Edie and the Silver Blue Roots continued the river theme with their first number, and filled the dance floor for a few hours with their infectious R&B jams.
The Gila River Festival also featured a nature writing workshop on the river with Silver City’s Sharman Apt Russell, author of several books, including Anatomy of a Rose, An Obsession with Butterflies, and the recently published Standing in the Light.
The festival keynote speaker, art historian Dr. Gray Sweeney, kicked off the event with his entertaining talk on the role of art in the settling of the Southwest. Highlighting the artists associated with the US-Mexico Boundary Survey, beginning in 1848, Sweeney zoomed in on painting details, many of which featured angels beckoning settlers to the lands along the Gila River.
Friday night’s community performance, “The Elements: Forces of Nature” featured music, dance, and poetry performed by community members of all ages. The program told the story of the elements – water, earth, air, fire – through the myth of the Goddess Sophia.
And outdoor enthusiasts were treated to a variety of field trips and workshops – truly something for everyone. The most popular events, selling out within two weeks, were the two kayak trips on the Gila. Guides Steve Harris (Far-Flung Adventures, Rio Grande Restoration), Todd Schulke (Center for Biological Diversity) and Adrian Oglesby (The Nature Conservancy) showed participants how to float the mellow stretch of the Gila from Mogollon Creek down to The Nature Conservancy’s Gila River Farm in the Cliff-Gila Valley. Along the way, kayakers were treated to stories about the natural history of the river, and threats to its ecological integrity.
Rock art photographer Anthony Howell led a field trip to the Gila Lower Box, where hikers enjoyed the beauty of a stunning canyon and observed pictographs and a granary, artifacts of the area’s Native American population. On a separate trip to the Lower Box, led by HawkWatch International’s Mike Neal, birders scanned the skies for migrating raptors. One highlight of their day was a good look at an immature Golden Eagle. Another birding trip took birders far upstream, to glimpse water birds at Lake Roberts.
Thank You!
The Gila Conservation Coalition and festival organizers thank all of the wonderful foundation supporters, sponsors, presenters and volunteers that helped us organize a successful 4th Annual Gila River Festival.
The 4th Annual Gila River Festival was supported in part by the New Mexico Humanities Council, Kalliopeia Foundation, New Mexico Arts–a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, McCune Charitable Foundation, and Silver City Lodgers Tax.
Major sponsors
Trail of the Mountain Spirits National Scenic Byway
Center for Biological Diversity
Mimbres Region Arts Council.
Home after 50 Years: River Otters Return to the Gila
Public forum with:
M.H. Dutch Salmon
Gila Conservation Coalition
Rachel Conn
Amigos Bravos
Steve MacDonald
Upper Gila Watershed Alliance
Thursday, October 23, 2008
7:00 pm
Silco Theatre, downtown Silver City
Learn about how river otters disappeared from the Gila and the reintroduction efforts to recover this important species.
Arizona Water Settlements Act Planning Process to Hold Workshop on “Desired Future Conditions”
The Arizona Water Settlements Act (AWSA) Stakeholder Group will hold a workshop on Saturday, October 25 at 9 am at the Grant County Administration Building on stakeholders’ ideas for the future of water management in southwestern New Mexico over the next 40 to 50 years. Presenters will be given 5 minutes each to briefly describe specific future conditions he/she would like to see for the entire region, in specific geographical areas, or particular water use sectors (agricultural, ranching, municipal, industrial, environmental, etc.).
The Southwest New Mexico Stakeholder Group was formed to find consensus on how to utilize the AWSA in a cost effective manner to balance historical and future water demands against uncertain supply while protecting the environment. The AWSA provides New Mexico consumptive use of an additional 14,000 acre-feet of water per year from the Gila and San Francisco Rivers and a federal subsidy of $66 million to meet water supply needs regardless of whether additional water is developed in the Upper Gila Basin.
AWSA Implementation Committee to Hold Special Meeting
The AWSA Implementation Committee will hold a joint special meeting with the AWSA Technical Committee on Saturday, October 25 at 1:30 pm in the Grant County Administration Building. The meeting will be held after the Desired Future Conditions workshop and a brief lunch break. The agenda will focus on how to use state funding appropriated for Gila planning during this fiscal year. In light of poor revenue projections for New Mexico, the Governor’s Office and state legislature will be scrutinizing all outstanding capital appropriations during the upcoming legislative session. Any prior appropriations that are not programmed for expenditure by the end of the year are likely to be de-authorized and re-appropriated for other uses.