Roxanne Everett: Natural Habitats
2023-01-30 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Boise) | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
A chance to meet and learn from January 2023 Artist-in-Residence Roxanne Everett.

While at Surel’s Place, Everett worked on a series of paintings that reflect the grasslands, woodlands, riparian ecosystems and open canopied forests of Southern Idaho. These paintings include both large scale landscapes and individual species’ studies. She spent time outside daily to make entries in her sketchbook and to take photos — many right along the Greenbelt near Surel’s Place. These reference materials were used in the studio to create larger paintings. Some ecological study was a part of this process in order to focus on representing the Southern Idaho ecosystem, e.g. painting native plants and not exotic ones!

The talk begins at 7:30 p.m., with a Q and A and reception to follow. Free.

Roxanne EverettJanuary
Roxanne Everett

Everett is landscape painter with a winding forest path of a background. She trained as an architect at the University of Idaho but after several years in that industry returned to school to earn a graduate degree in forest ecosystems management. Working as a National Park Backcountry Ranger for months at a time in remote and sublime locations allowed her to realize how pristine environments were being altered either through human neglect or through bigger problems like climate change.

“My work is ecosystem based,” she says. “I paint the natural/native vegetation including vistas, endemic plants or animals and often address things that threaten the area. … My goal as a painter is to transport viewers into places they may value, awakening their own previous relationships to the land or inspiring further stewardship. With increasing frequency of large scale disturbances like fire or climate change, these paintings also serve as future documentation for what we see today and may act as a catalyst for greater care toward our fragile natural resources.”

While at Surel’s Place, Everett is working on a series of paintings that reflect the grasslands, woodlands, riparian ecosystems and open canopied forests of Southern Idaho. These paintings include both large scale landscapes and individual species’ studies. She spends time outside daily to make entries in her sketchbook and to take photos — many right along the Greenbelt near Surel's Place. Several workshop participants were able to join her, some pictured below, during this exercise last Saturday for "Sketching on Location." These reference materials are used in the studio to create larger paintings. Some ecological study was a part of this process in order to focus on representing the Southern Idaho ecosystem, e.g. painting native plants and not exotic ones.

Nervous Theatre: Movement and Space Drop-In Workshop
2023-02-04 10:00 - 11:30, 2023-02-11 10:00 - 11:30, 2023-02-18 10:00 - 11:30, 2023-02-25 10:00 - 11:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, Idaho, 83714, United States
Nervous Theatre (Bozeman) invites you to join them in their movement practice on Saturday mornings throughout February. Using exercises that explore the building blocks of theatre, the company’s training breaks movement and storytelling down to their most essential components. Each class in this series will offer you time to get into your physical body and become curious about your relationship to space – bringing particular attention to architecture, scale, and spatial relationship.

All bodies are welcome. Ages 16 & up.People of varying experience, backgrounds and demographics are encouraged to participate.

Free (donations encouraged)

New Date: Drink Great Beer, Support Art!
2023-02-13 17:00 - 20:00 | Lost Grove Brewing, 1026 S La Pointe St., Boise, 83706
Boise’s Lost Grove Brewing has chosen Surel’s Place as the recipient of its Powerful Pints donation for February. That means that a portion of the brewery’s sales for the month will support art and artists through Surel’s Place — and we get a chance to hang out with our friends and supporters over a few pints!

Please join us for a quaff or two on Monday, Feb. 13, and meet some of the board members, volunteers and artists at Surel’s Place and the Garden City Placemaking Fund, and know that for at least a while, your beer budget also benefits the arts! They’ve got a brand new pizza menu and you can show off your musical knowledge in an art-themed game of Music Bingo — so let’s make a night of it!

Lost Grove will donate a portion of all sales on Feb. 13, but if you can’t make it that day, you can still enjoy a beer and help out! Lost Grove is also donating $2 from every pint of Margot Amber Ale sold all month long.

Thanks to Lost Grove’s generosity, we will be featuring art at the tasting room created by some of our recent studio artists-in-residence and Placemaking Fund artists. All the work is for sale, and from artists including Lorelle Rau, Mary Arnold, Julia Green, Justin W. John, Jay Smith, Lily Black, Chloe Pampush and Ace Zappa.

Huge thanks to the good folks at Lost Grove, who built their business around community. Lost Grove is a certified B-Corp, which means they measure success not just through profits but through their social and environmental impact, as well as a certified carbon neutral beverage producer. Along with Surel’s Place, Lost Grove is supporting The Cabin, the Women’s and Children’s Alliance, the Idaho Wildlife Federation and others in 2023.

Nervous Theatre at Surel's Place: A Performance in Process
2023-02-24 19:00 - 20:30, 2023-02-25 19:00 - 20:30, 2023-02-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Get Tickets

Nervous Theatre company members Connor Berkompas and Isabel Shaida work with Space and Movement, exploring the ways we can collectively transform place and each other. Over the course of their month-long residency in Boise, their latest work has been directly informed by Surel’s Place and collaborations with local movement artists.

*The company will also be leading weekly Saturday Morning Movement Workshops throughout February and a 3-hour workshop on Transforming Space on Monday, Feb 27th at the end of their residency.

Nervous Theatre: Transforming Space
2023-02-27 19:00 - 22:00 | Project Flux, 4338 W Chinden Blvd, Garden City, Idaho, 83714, United States
Register

This 3-hour workshop explores movement practices and devising exercises used in Nervous Theatre’s process of collaborative theatre-making. The company uses a variety of entry points to generate physical material and create theatrical compositions. Participants will rediscover their relationship to space and each other, dropping into some of the exercises used in devising Nervous Theatre’s latest piece which was created for Surel’s Place.

All bodies welcome. Ages 16 & up.

People of varying experience, backgrounds and demographics are encouraged to participate. Partial scholarships available by request from info@surelsplace.org.

Stephanie Heit: Sensorial Gardens
2023-04-01 13:00 - 16:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Register

Join poet and dancer Stephanie Heit for a workshop of sensate play at Surel’s Place. We will explore our inner and outer landscapes (including outdoors, weather permitting) through guided awareness exercises to hone our senses, to bring attention to our bodily sensations, and to observe what we notice. Stephanie will offer creative prompts with options to respond in drawing, writing, and/or movement. There will be space to share our responses and experiences. We’ll collaborate as a group to create support, cultivate pleasure, and tend ourselves and the environment around us. Stephanie will share some examples of her own work created using this process.

No experience necessary, everyone welcome, wheelchair accessible space.

Stephanie HeitMarch - April
A queer poet, dancer, and teacher, Ms. Heit engages with her Ypsilanti, Mich., community and beyond through a disability performance collective, a literary organization for disabled poets, and the somatic writing space she runs with her wife, Petra Kuppers, a 2017 Surel’s Place artist-in-residence in poetry. Her first poetry collection, The Color She Gave Gravity (The Operating System), was a Nighboat Poetry Prize finalist and explores the seams of language, movement, and mental health difference. Her second, Psych Murders, is scheduled for publication in fall 2022 by Wayne State University Press. Her work has appeared in journals including Sonora Review, Ecotone, Venti Journal, Rogue Agent, About Place, Anomaly, Bombay Gin, Dunes Review, Typo, and Disability Studies Quarterly.

During her residency, Heit led a workshop on the exploration of our inner and outer landscapes through guided awareness exercises to hone senses and bring attention to bodily sensations. Heit offered creative prompts with options to respond in drawing, writing, and/or movement.

With its location along the river, the Surel's Place residency offered Heit unique support for her continued work on her manuscript Every Horizon Turns Liquid. As an ecopoetic exploration where water is at stake amidst climate change and evolutionary rigors, this residency supported and fostered play and environmental inquiries budding in the piece. The work began along the shorelines of Lake Michigan, documenting through somatic engagement the effects of Lake Michigan’s changing water levels, and now expands to include our environs along with other real and imaginary locations. Heit worked outdoors, utilizing movement and awareness exercises combined with writing to engage with place. She invited the environment to inform her work process and product through dialogue and somatic exchange with the landscapes she visited. These exercises combined with scientific research resulted in the work presented during her reading event.

Stephanie Heit: Every Horizon Turns Liquid
2023-04-05 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
With its location along the river, the Surel’s Place residency offeres Stephanie Heit (MI) unique support for her continued work on her manuscript Every Horizon Turns Liquid. As an ecopoetic exploration where water is at stake amidst climate change and evolutionary rigors, this residency supported and fostered play and environmental inquiries budding in the piece. The work began along the shorelines of Lake Michigan, documenting through somatic engagement the effects of Lake Michigan’s changing water levels, and now expands to include our environs along with other real and imaginary locations. Stephanie worked outdoors, utilizing movement and awareness exercises combined with writing to engage with place. She invited the environment to inform her work process and product through dialogue and somatic exchange with the landscapes she visited. These exercises combined with scientific research result in the work you will hear. This manuscript was a 2020 Nightboat Poetry Prize Finalist.

Free and open to all.

Stephanie HeitMarch - April
A queer poet, dancer, and teacher, Ms. Heit engages with her Ypsilanti, Mich., community and beyond through a disability performance collective, a literary organization for disabled poets, and the somatic writing space she runs with her wife, Petra Kuppers, a 2017 Surel’s Place artist-in-residence in poetry. Her first poetry collection, The Color She Gave Gravity (The Operating System), was a Nighboat Poetry Prize finalist and explores the seams of language, movement, and mental health difference. Her second, Psych Murders, is scheduled for publication in fall 2022 by Wayne State University Press. Her work has appeared in journals including Sonora Review, Ecotone, Venti Journal, Rogue Agent, About Place, Anomaly, Bombay Gin, Dunes Review, Typo, and Disability Studies Quarterly.

During her residency, Heit led a workshop on the exploration of our inner and outer landscapes through guided awareness exercises to hone senses and bring attention to bodily sensations. Heit offered creative prompts with options to respond in drawing, writing, and/or movement.

With its location along the river, the Surel's Place residency offered Heit unique support for her continued work on her manuscript Every Horizon Turns Liquid. As an ecopoetic exploration where water is at stake amidst climate change and evolutionary rigors, this residency supported and fostered play and environmental inquiries budding in the piece. The work began along the shorelines of Lake Michigan, documenting through somatic engagement the effects of Lake Michigan’s changing water levels, and now expands to include our environs along with other real and imaginary locations. Heit worked outdoors, utilizing movement and awareness exercises combined with writing to engage with place. She invited the environment to inform her work process and product through dialogue and somatic exchange with the landscapes she visited. These exercises combined with scientific research resulted in the work presented during her reading event.

First Friday Art and Studio Stroll
2023-04-07 05:30 - 20:30 | Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, Idaho, 83714
Our celebration of arts and artists in the Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District kicks off for 2023 in April!

Sponsored by the Riverside Hotel, The Common Well, Hannah Ball, and Casino Beach, these family-friendly evenings give you a chance to meet Garden City’s artists in their studios and work spaces. Plus, you’ll find hands-on art activities at artKids tables and keep an eye out for roving and pop-up artists and performances throughout the night.

This year, the Riverside Hotel will be debuting mini murals along the Greenbelt fence behind the hotel. They are also hosting a scavenger hunt where people search for certain items in the art. They will choose someone out of the people who complete the hunt to win a staycation at the hotel!We have new venues including Barbarian Brewing, The Common Well, and the Flamingo House (you can’t miss it…).

Surel’s Place is partnering with The Backyard Artists to feature multiple artists and genres. At Surel’s Place look for an installation by Roxy Albig and an exhibit and live art by Jacey Adams and Roman Bolen. Next door to Surel’s Place, in the new “Flamingo House” (you’ll understand the name once you see it!) you’ll find installations by OJ Johnson and Clara Geise along with artwork by Kim Porter. Plus another installation by Megan White at Urban Gallery on 34th Street.

Also new for 2023: we have eliminated the guest artist fee! We can set you up with a location to show your work, all you need to do is apply!FIRST FRIDAY GUEST ARTIST APPLICATION

More information about the next First Friday, is available at The LWC District First Friday Event Page on Facebook.

See below to view an interactive Google map of the First Friday participating venues.

Rafi Münz: Don't Throw it Away!
2023-04-22 13:00 - 16:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
This workshop for people ages 16 and up with Israeli artist Rafi Münz explores the uses of found garbage as initiative and material for art works. This will include collected materials from recycling bins and transforming these materials into whatever one wishes to construct or use as a means for personal expression.

Bring along articles/backgrounds/raw materials from recycling that you might like to include in your creation.

Scholarships available!

Rafi MünzApril - May
Artist-in-Residence Rafi Münz and his host, Boise filmmaker and writer Elizabeth Rodgers.

Rafi Münz ( רפי מינץ) comes to us from the village of Givat Ada in northern Israel where he has lived for more than 25 years. He is a freelance artist and teacher working as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, calligrapher, and printmaker. His works deal with social, political and ecological agendas--expressing these through the personal experiences of daily living rather than global events.

Rafi's work and studies have taken him all over the world, beginning with The Bezalel School of art in Jerusalem and continuing with a Masters of Fine Art from the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. He also developed a specialty in printmaking from the Kunstneijverheid School in Amsterdam and Goldsmith's College in London. He co-founded the Old Jaffa Artists’ Colony in Tel Aviv in 1964 and was active as an artist there for 30 years before becoming the managing director of the Kibbutz Art Studios.

Heritage, Studies, Technique, Experience... these are words Rafi uses to describe himself. But he finishes by saying: "The bottom line: Whenever possible, I try to take myself less seriously."

During his residency, Münz led a workshop exploring the uses of found garbage as initiative & material for art works. They collected materials from recycling bins and transformed these materials into a mean for personal expression.

For his final event, Münz exhibited his installation "Site specific = Spiritual Ecology & Spring of Creativity." Drawings, photos & texts formed the basis for a series of paintings/collages interlacing Münz's experience of the Garden City community with the intentions & choices of the locals who guided him. He recruited individuals of variable ages, gender, and lifestyles to serve as his guides--emphasizing aesthetic views, feelings, and thoughts about recycling and sustainable living. The result was exhibited as several “autonomies”- telling peoples’ stories interwoven with his reaction to them. He used as many recycled materials as possible in the construction of his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O0w6_CVKh8

Idaho Gives: Your Support Makes Art Happen
2023-05-01 08:00 - 17:00 | Idaho
We support artists — and with your help, we can expand that support to more international, national and local artists who have historically been underrepresented or challenged to find a spot in the arts community.

One of the best — and easiest — ways you can support artists through Surel’s Place is to donate during Idaho Gives, which runs this year from May 1 through May 4.

This is the kind of work your generous contributions support:

Our month-long artist residencies are life-changing, career-making experiences, and every time we can increase our stipends or supports we open the door to more BIPOC artists, more artists with different abilities, more artists from ALL economic backgrounds and others who face incredible hurdles in sharing their creativity and insight with the world.

Our subsidized year-long studio residencies give Idaho artists an accessible and affordable opportunity to invest in their own creative futures — and ensure that our community stays vibrant and energized by new artistic voices.

And our events such as the First Friday Art and Studio Strolls in Garden City’s Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District bring the community and the community’s artists together to forge new relationships, new insights into how we can face our shared challenges, and, quite frankly, have a lot of fun together!

DONATE THROUGH IDAHO GIVES!

Rafi Münz: Site-Specific=Spiritual Ecology and Spring of Creativity
2023-05-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Artist-in-Residence Rafi Münz presents his work while he has been at Surel’s Place and gives an artist talk about his process and approach.

Free!

Rafi MünzApril - May
Artist-in-Residence Rafi Münz and his host, Boise filmmaker and writer Elizabeth Rodgers.

Rafi Münz ( רפי מינץ) comes to us from the village of Givat Ada in northern Israel where he has lived for more than 25 years. He is a freelance artist and teacher working as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, calligrapher, and printmaker. His works deal with social, political and ecological agendas--expressing these through the personal experiences of daily living rather than global events.

Rafi's work and studies have taken him all over the world, beginning with The Bezalel School of art in Jerusalem and continuing with a Masters of Fine Art from the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. He also developed a specialty in printmaking from the Kunstneijverheid School in Amsterdam and Goldsmith's College in London. He co-founded the Old Jaffa Artists’ Colony in Tel Aviv in 1964 and was active as an artist there for 30 years before becoming the managing director of the Kibbutz Art Studios.

Heritage, Studies, Technique, Experience... these are words Rafi uses to describe himself. But he finishes by saying: "The bottom line: Whenever possible, I try to take myself less seriously."

During his residency, Münz led a workshop exploring the uses of found garbage as initiative & material for art works. They collected materials from recycling bins and transformed these materials into a mean for personal expression.

For his final event, Münz exhibited his installation "Site specific = Spiritual Ecology & Spring of Creativity." Drawings, photos & texts formed the basis for a series of paintings/collages interlacing Münz's experience of the Garden City community with the intentions & choices of the locals who guided him. He recruited individuals of variable ages, gender, and lifestyles to serve as his guides--emphasizing aesthetic views, feelings, and thoughts about recycling and sustainable living. The result was exhibited as several “autonomies”- telling peoples’ stories interwoven with his reaction to them. He used as many recycled materials as possible in the construction of his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O0w6_CVKh8

From Eternity's Yurt: A Night of Poetry, Philosophy and Music
2023-05-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Poet Diane Raptosh returns to Surel’s Place with Hand Signs from Eternity’s Yurt, a chapbook of poems featuring 22 sonnets. Each of the poems springs from a quotation by the British moral philosopher Mary Midgley, who has a reputation as one of the most expansive and compelling moral philosophers of the twentieth century. “She thinks very much like a poet,” Diane says of Mary Midgley. “The themes are very down to earth and contemporary: the environment, animal rights, civic unease.”

Diane has invited Greg McElwain, Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The College of Idaho, to join her. McElwain published Mary Midgley: An Introduction, which is the first substantive introduction to Midgley’s influential philosophy on the human condition. Joining both Diane and Greg is their musician friend Scott Knickerbocker who will punctuate the words with tunes on the guitar.

Free!

Elizabeth Powell: Introduction to Hand Printed Linocut
2023-05-27 13:00 - 15:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, Idaho, 83714, United States
In this workshop, painter and printmaker Elizabeth Powell (Vermont) will lead you in the creation of hand printed linocuts focused on pattern.

People of different backgrounds and demographics are encouraged to participate. Partial scholarships are available by writing info@surelspalce.org.

Ages 16 and up. Materials will be provided.

Elizabeth PowellMay - June
Elizabeth Powell is a painter and printmaker in Burlington, Vermont.

She earned her MA and MFA in Printmaking and Painting from the University of Iowa in 2020 and a BA in Economics and Fine Arts from the University of Vermont in 2016. She has a keen interest in color theory, patterning, and the morphology of shapes as psychological representations of femininity.

Having extensively studied gender inequality in her economic studies, Powell explores the way the same sociological differences that lead to a systemic economic imbalance between men and women, present themselves in visual taste for form, pattern, and color.Since finishing her MFA, Powell has had solo shows in Iowa and upstate New York and is looking forward to her 2023 solo exhibition with Kishka Gallery in White River Junction, Vermont.

Powell has attended residencies with BreckCreate in Breckenridge, Colorado; InCahoots in Petaluma, California; and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico.

During her residency, Powell led a workshop on the creation of hand printed linocuts focused on pattern.

Powell exhibited her work and gave an artist talk at the end of her residency. Her work wass comprised of abstract shapes and patterns. During the pandemic, she largely focused on creating small paintings because of limited studio space and a desire for easily portable materials. She used the residency at Surel's Place to explore how her individual works of art can exist on a larger scale, focusing on two larger canvases. This continued expansion is fitting since this work developed during one of the most constricting situations imaginable: while she was immobilized during an illness. Experiencing physical limitations, she instinctively began to draw and abstract the shape of her own body to reconnect with it and to reclaim it.

An overlying skeletal structure often accompanies these forms, but they entered Elizabeth's work from a surprising source. "On a quest for plain, utilitarian underwear,

I was pulled into the abyss of online shopping. I am fascinated by over-the-top lingerie, which is both impractical and outlandish. I am intrigued by the way the fabric forces women’s bodies into geometric shapes, as if they are packaged into a smaller container." It was after this, the cage or net-like imagery became a part of the work, informed by her studies in gender inequality and its expression in form, pattern, and color.

First Friday Art and Studio Stroll
2023-06-02 17:30 - 20:00 | Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, Idaho, 83714
Our celebration of arts and artists in the Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District.

Sponsored by the Riverside Hotel, The Common Well, Hannah Ball, and Casino Beach, these family-friendly evenings give you a chance to meet Garden City’s artists in their studios and work spaces. Plus, you’ll find hands-on art activities at artKids tables and keep an eye out for roving and pop-up artists and performances throughout the night.

New for 2023: we have eliminated the guest artist fee! We can set you up with a location to show your work, all you need to do is apply!FIRST FRIDAY GUEST ARTIST APPLICATION

More information about the next First Friday is available at The LWC District First Friday Event Page on Facebook.

See below to view an interactive Google map of the First Friday participating venues.

Elizabeth Powell: Caged
2023-06-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, Idaho, 83714, United States
Elizabeth Powell’s work is comprised of abstract shapes and patterns. During the pandemic, she largely focused on creating small paintings because of limited studio space and a desire for easily portable materials. She is using the residency at Surel’s Place to explore how her individual works of art can exist on a larger scale, focusing on two larger canvases. This continued expansion is fitting since this work developed during one of the most constricting situations imaginable: while she was immobilized during an illness. Experiencing physical limitations, she instinctively began to draw and abstract the shape of her own body to reconnect with it and to reclaim it.

An overlying skeletal structure often accompanies these forms, but they entered Elizabeth’s work from a surprising source.

“On a quest for plain, utilitarian underwear, I was pulled into the abyss of online shopping,” she says. “I am fascinated by over-the-top lingerie, which is both impractical and outlandish. I am intrigued by the way the fabric forces women’s bodies into geometric shapes, as if they are packaged into a smaller container.”

It was after this when the cage or net-like imagery became a part of the work, informed by her studies in gender inequality and its expression in form, pattern and color.

Free.

Elizabeth PowellMay - June
Elizabeth Powell is a painter and printmaker in Burlington, Vermont.

She earned her MA and MFA in Printmaking and Painting from the University of Iowa in 2020 and a BA in Economics and Fine Arts from the University of Vermont in 2016. She has a keen interest in color theory, patterning, and the morphology of shapes as psychological representations of femininity.

Having extensively studied gender inequality in her economic studies, Powell explores the way the same sociological differences that lead to a systemic economic imbalance between men and women, present themselves in visual taste for form, pattern, and color.Since finishing her MFA, Powell has had solo shows in Iowa and upstate New York and is looking forward to her 2023 solo exhibition with Kishka Gallery in White River Junction, Vermont.

Powell has attended residencies with BreckCreate in Breckenridge, Colorado; InCahoots in Petaluma, California; and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico.

During her residency, Powell led a workshop on the creation of hand printed linocuts focused on pattern.

Powell exhibited her work and gave an artist talk at the end of her residency. Her work wass comprised of abstract shapes and patterns. During the pandemic, she largely focused on creating small paintings because of limited studio space and a desire for easily portable materials. She used the residency at Surel's Place to explore how her individual works of art can exist on a larger scale, focusing on two larger canvases. This continued expansion is fitting since this work developed during one of the most constricting situations imaginable: while she was immobilized during an illness. Experiencing physical limitations, she instinctively began to draw and abstract the shape of her own body to reconnect with it and to reclaim it.

An overlying skeletal structure often accompanies these forms, but they entered Elizabeth's work from a surprising source. "On a quest for plain, utilitarian underwear,

I was pulled into the abyss of online shopping. I am fascinated by over-the-top lingerie, which is both impractical and outlandish. I am intrigued by the way the fabric forces women’s bodies into geometric shapes, as if they are packaged into a smaller container." It was after this, the cage or net-like imagery became a part of the work, informed by her studies in gender inequality and its expression in form, pattern, and color.

Sound Topography: A Live Performance by The Wind and All Around Cowboy
2023-06-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
The Wind is a podcast by Fil Corbitt (they/them), made at a handmade desk in the Sierra Nevada. This performance will mix script reading, interview clips and immersive soundscapes to create a full audio experience. Fil has performed The Wind at Treefort the last three years, and their work has appeared on NPR, CBC, Outside Magazine, 99% Invisible, Snap Judgement and The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, among many others.

You can only hear the wind in relation to what it’s scraping up against. Fil’s podcast The Wind works that way too: though it’s usually made from a quiet desk in the woods in a mountain wilderness, the show often touches on topics more loud and confronting. From the politics of sound (Whip Law: an exploration of Reno’s houseless whip culture, aired nationally), to queer spaces (They/Them), radical Brazilian punk, train yards, and rodeo chutes, Fil’s work aims to observe and meditate on the way sound shapes our lives both overtly and ethereally. You can learn more at TheWind.org.

The evening will also feature local Boise artist, All Around Cowboy. In live shows blending folk music and performance poetry with kabbalistic mysticism, his work explores alternative Americanas. Both his music and his poetry are structured around loops: layered chords and ambiences as well as repeating names and images. His other projects include the podcast Sage Country Fragments, the found sound project The Living Room Orchestra, and the stage plays Has This Ever Happened To You? and Administrative Leave.

Free!

The Quintessential Small Works Show by BOSCO, Opening Reception
2023-06-16 19:00 - 20:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
It’s the Surel’s Place annual gallery show featuring the artists of the Boise Open Studio Collective Organization — this year featuring work in both 2 and 3 dimensions, but it’s all under 12 inches.

It’s quintessentially small.

Free!

In addition to the June 16 opening reception, gallery hours will be Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. for three weeks:June 17th & 18thJune 24th & 25thJuly 1st & 2nd

Featured artists include:

Mary Arnold

Sandra Berkson

Brecken Bird

Wendy Blickenstaff

Martha Channer

Matt Ciranni

Julie Clemons

Carol Elliot Smith

Lisa Flowers Ross

Sara Hill

Nicole Hitchcock

Stephanie Inman

Lauren Kistner

Sue Latta

Jill Lawley

Susan Madacsi

Deborra Marshall Bohrer

Jennifer Parks

Bonnie Peacher

Claire Remsberg

Sue Rooke

Nikki Russo

Katherine Shaughnessy

Jill Storey

Jessie Swimeley

Rachel Teannalach

Lauren Thiem

Abbie Thomson

Beth Trott

Cindi Walton

Anne Watson Sorensen

Genie Weppner

Laura Wolstenholme

The Quintessential Small Works Show by BOSCO, Gallery Hours
2023-06-17 13:00 - 16:00, 2023-06-18 13:00 - 16:00, 2023-06-24 13:00 - 16:00, 2023-06-25 13:00 - 16:00, 2023-07-01 13:00 - 16:00, 2023-07-02 13:00 - 16:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
It’s the Surel’s Place annual gallery show featuring the artists of the Boise Open Studio Collective Organization — this year featuring work in both 2 and 3 dimensions, but it’s all under 12 inches.

It’s quintessentially small.

Free!

Gallery hours will be Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. for three weeks:June 17th & 18thJune 24th & 25thJuly 1st & 2nd

Featured artists include:

Mary Arnold

Sandra Berkson

Brecken Bird

Wendy Blickenstaff

Martha Channer

Matt Ciranni

Julie Clemons

Carol Elliot Smith

Lisa Flowers Ross

Sara Hill

Nicole Hitchcock

Lauren Kistner

Sue Latta

Jill Lawley

Susan Madacsi

Deborra Marshall Bohrer

Jennifer Parks

Bonnie Peacher

Claire Remsberg

Sue Rooke

Nikki Russo

Katherine Shaughnessy

Jill Storey

Jessie Swimeley

Rachel Teannalach

Lauren Thiem

Abbie Thomson

Beth Trott

Cindi Walton

Anne Watson Sorensen

Genie Weppner

Laura Wolstenholme

An Evening With Eilen Jewell: Surel's Place Summer Fundraising Garden Party
2023-06-20 20:00 - 21:30 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
Surel’s Place is honored to host the woman American Songwriter has called “one of America’s most intriguing, creative, and idiosyncratic voices” at our summer fundraiser — featuring both an intimate concert and an even more limited number of seats at an exclusive family-style meal in Surel’s own dining room.

Idaho native Eilen Jewell has shared bills with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn, Mavis Staples, Wanda Jackson, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, and The Blind Boys of Alabama. Rolling Stone lauded her “clever writing,” while NPR declared that she has a “sweet and clear voice with a killer instinct lurking beneath the shiny surface.” The Washington Post mused that “if Neko Case, Madeleine Peyroux and Billie Holiday had a baby girl who grew up to front a rockabilly band, she’d probably sound a lot like Eilen Jewell.” You can learn more about Eilen and her music on her website, eilenjewell.com.

Eilen is donating her time and talents to raise money for the arts and artists through Surel’s Place, and we are grateful that we get to extend this unique chance to hear her deeply personal work in a rare solo performance.

We are equally grateful for our presenting sponsors at Holland & Hart for the support that is making this evening possible.

In addition to the general admission tickets available below, a limited number of seats are available for an intimate family-style dinner of authentic Puerto Rican cuisine catered by our Garden City neighbors at Wepa Cafe. You can purchase seats for dinner and the show here.

Milia Ayache: No People Are Uninteresting - An Introduction to Writing Through Études
2023-07-22 13:00 - 16:00 | Surel’s Place, 212 E. 33rd Street, Garden City, 83714, United States
This workshop emphasizes the link between writing, presence, and performance through three tools from the later training of Konstantin Stanlislavski: the impression, the game, and the étude. The étude is a structured improvisatory short piece intended for the practice of a point in acting technique, but can also be used for great effect in generating writing. Exploratory in nature, it allows the actor or writer to exit the world of overthinking and, instead, think through action.

By exploring new approaches drawn from Russian theatre games as well as aspects of psychoanalysis, you will explore different levels of attention and awareness, infusing your writing with spontaneity, urgency, and layers.

In his poem “People,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko laments generalization when he says, “No people are uninteresting/Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.” Why not take it a step further? Every seascape, seedling, and centipede is particular; and yet, how can you find the shared humanity in your dramatic writing? By the end of this workshop, you will have the beginnings of a dramatic piece that emerges from the body through action.

Ages 14 & up

Partial scholarships available by request to info@surelsplace.org

Surel’s Place is accessible by wheelchair. Please contact us for any additional accommodations.

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Milia AyacheJuly-August
Milia Ayache is a Beirut-based actor and writer. She originated the role of Molly in The Birth of Paper, an online/offline show linking the cities of Beirut and Pittsburgh through the mail, as well as The Performer in Angelmakers: Songs for Female Serial Killers, both plays produced by Real/Time Interventions.

Milia Ayache

Her latest piece of writing "Splits/kin" was published in The New England Review. “Vocal Hygiene for the Revolution” was published in Contemporary Theatre Review in 2020. Her article “Playing for Time in Beirut” on making theatre in public spaces was published in American Theater Magazine in 2017.

She recorded the entirety of Etel Adnan’s The Arab Apocalypse for the Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Hamburg. Favorite credits include Frog and Nadezda in Masrah Ensemble’s production of Derek Walcott’s Ti-Jean and His Brothers and Biljana Srbljanović’s Family Stories; Hermia in Walden Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Miles in the world premiere of Futurity: A Musical at the ART Institute at Harvard. In 2022, Ayache was in residence at Hedgebrook.

As an educator at the American University of Beirut and as a volunteer both at a senior citizen university program and in Syrian/Palestinian refugee camps, she championed voices from the margins- including migrant workers, refugees, women, seniors, and youths of different sexual orientations. She helped design and run Youthful Cities, a writing residency between Beirut and Coventry for writers under the age of 25; sat on the panel for the Mastercard scholarship, edited (and still edits!) drama for the Beirut literary journal Rusted Radishes, and produced plays for disenfranchised drama students at the university. Her mission has continued even while as a visiting assistant professor at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. In joining the community at Surel’s Place, she wants to offer her time, mentorship, connections, and advice on digital security/open source technology...if anyone wants it.

During her residency, Ayache led a workshop on the link between writing, presence, and performance through three tools from the later training of Konstantin Stanlislavski: the impression, the game, and the étude. The étude is a structured improvisatory short piece intended for the practice of a point in acting technique, but can also be used for great effect in generating writing. Exploratory in nature, it allows the actor or writer to exit the world of overthinking and, instead, think through action.

For her final presentation, Ayache performed Divas You Don’t Know, a one-woman play in English, Arabic, French, and Russian. In it, she explores her enduring preoccupation with three transnational divas of yore, their presence (or lack thereof) in contemporary culture, their posthumous impact on women in the public sphere, as well as the converging struggles that accompanied their personal and professional lives. Through song, dramatic monologue, and movement, she investigates their legacies and questions their roles relative to the politics of their respective nations.

Not completely forgotten, the divas, Maya Kristalinskaya (Russian), Asmahan (Syrian-Egyptian), and Dalida (French-Egyptian-Italian), have little space carved out for them on our consumer culture sponsored world stage. In our fraught political landscape where we are cornered into choosing sides, this is a story of women who didn’t. Kristalinskaya, once a grand Soviet diva, was relegated to touring backwoods cultural centers due to the rising anti-Semitism in the USSR. Asmahan, a Druze princess and spy, was murdered for being a double agent during WWII. Ayache dedicated much of her time at Surel’s Place to writing their stories in order to get their show on the road.
