Renoir? No

Degas? No!

It’s a Colbert.

At first glance you might think it’s a painting.

Actually it’s a hand-crafted art quilt by Incline Village artist Karen Colbert.

These are not like your grandmother’s quilts. Instead of relying on complicated quilt patterns, Karen uses hundreds of small different colored fabric to create intricate designs that stand apart from traditional quilts.

Her use of light and dark fabrics add depth to her art quilts that capture the imagination and subtleties of nature’s handiwork.

Many of her garden and floral quilts are reminiscent of Monet’s paintings.

In her own words:

“Fabric provides a wonderful medium to create subtle shading in my quilts. Playing with the fabric colors allow my pieces to transition through the entire color wheel, providing a unique bold landscape or abstract picture.

I use simple squares and triangles when creating my quilts so I can focus on the artistic elements of the quilt versus the intricacies of the patterns. It is the play with the colors that fascinates me and gives my quilts their individuality.

Nature is my inspiration, fabric is my medium, and my quilts are an interpretation of God’s landscape. Quilting is also a way that I’ve found to bring a bit of nature indoors – and quilts are a versatile and useful art form!”

Each of Karen’s quilts recreates nature’s landscape and palette. Her favorite subjects include mountains, streams, floral fields, and abstract images.

To see more samples of Karen’s amazing art quilts, click here. Her quilts are also on permanent display at the North Tahoe Art Center in Tahoe City and the Log Cabin café in Kings Beach.

In addition to quilts, Tahoe Quilts also offers a line of semi-precious stone and beaded jewelry, home décor items such as table runners, decorative gifts, cards and other local artwork.

Karen is participating in the Incline Village Artists Studio Tour, August 5th through 8, 2010, and invites you to stop by her studio:

Artists At Lake Tahoe
797 Southwood, Suite 1 (Village Center)
Incline Village, NV

Please call Karen at (775) 833-0637 or reach her via email at karen@tahoequilts.com for more information.

Tahoe Longboards was started by Chuck Vogt in 1997 in Kings Beach.  Chad Thomas, local photojournalist and woodworker, has joined Chuck as co-owner, co-fun hog, co-local entrepreneur and they have launched all new 2012 boards.

The secret to their success after 15 years going strong is unrivaled craftsmanship, and small batches of boards.  The small batches allows them to maintain a tight grip on quality-control, adapt quickly and keep things fresh. (And probably go out and ride more…)

Check it out at www.tahoelongboards.com.

Chuck said he’s committed to keeping the Tahoe riding style hangin’ out there. And he should know. He’s been skating for over 25 years.

Not only is skating just plain fun, Chuck and other skaters know the benefits of cross training for our winter sports.

Pictured here is the Tallac 62, Chuck’s favorite board, which he named after the tallest mountain on Lake Tahoe and represents freedom. We agree.

Check out their online store and Facebook page – Tahoe Longboards – or go to Tahoe Dave’s or Porter’s Tahoe in North Lake Tahoe, and South Tahoe SUP  in South Lake Tahoe to hold one of these masterpieces. You’ll be sold.

In addition to making custom, high quality longboards, Chuck also co-founded Skate the Lake to benefit Boarding for Breast Cancer in tribute to his mother who has survived breast cancer.

Skate the Lake is a 26 mile longboard relay skating event along the North Shore bike path that takes place in late September. Skaters of all abilities get together and shred the bike path to increase breast cancer awareness and to raise thousands of dollars to fight cancer.

It’s not a pill – thank goodness! And, it’s easy to do on your own once you learn the simple techniques.  Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT taught by Rosemary Manning is the cure.

Join Rosemary on Saturday, May 19th at Unity at the Lake from 9:00am to 12:00pm (at the door registration begins at 8:45am). Cost is $30 or $35 at the door.

By stimulating meridian points on the body, you can balance your vibrational matrix and enjoy good physical and psychological health. EFT can eliminate stress, physical symptoms, anxiety, fear, food cravings and more.

All workshops are taught by Rosemary Manning, who has been a practitioner of mind-body therapies for more than 25 years. Manning has a master’s degree in clinical psy­chology, is a master hypnotist, a Reiki master, a licensed massage therapist, and an ordained minister. Learn how to clear blocks that hold you back from having financial success, loving relationships, and a healthy lifestyle.

For more information about workshops, please contact Rosemary Manning at (530) 541-6565 or tahoehealthtouch@yahoo.com and be sure to visit her website at www.TahoeHealthTouch.com.

Forms created through rhythm and motion.

Like the process that completes my work, it fires me up.

Keeps my inner fire burning and sets my soul free.” B Wesson

Looking at Barbara’s pottery, one might not realize the expertise she brings to her art form from other areas.

She has studied Zoology and Botany, is an avid succulent specimen collector, an award-winning landscape designer using zero-scaping techniques, and has designed zoo exhibits integrating native plants of the southwest.

Is that it? Jeez!

Oh yeah – and she’s developed a special technique to fire her pots to retain just the right balance of elements to make plants thrive at any elevation – especially 6,200′.

With all this knowledge of plant environments, she’s mastered the perfect succulent habitat in a pot that feeds her creative energy and passion for living.

To see Barbara’s pottery, please visit www.letsgetmuddy.net and her online store.

Like this classic of Chief Black Cloud.

Meet Randall Stauss of Carnelian Bay.

Randall Stauss’s watercolor plein air paintings have captured the essence of Lake Tahoe and the west coast for over thirty years. Making his home at Carnelian Bay with his wife Edith in 1980, he is an unassuming personality to the local residents and tourists alike, and is often seen painting along the lake’s edge.

A third generation Oregonian, Stauss began drawing and painting at an early age.  Encouraged by his parents, he began taking art lessons at the Portland Art Museum. He studied at the Portland Art Institute, Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. In 1985 he was accepted as a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, the same year as he began teaching his popular watercolor workshops.

Through teaching, Stauss is able to share his vision with other artists:

“Painting is largely a matter of inspiration and seeing things clearly. Two of my favorite painters are Winslow Homer and Childe Hassam. Hassam’s work looks like it was sheer joy to paint, and Homer was always looking for the truth of the matter. I try for both.” – Stauss

To see more of his work, please visit www.rstauss.com.

Learn why so many people are turning to Rolfing for optimal health and performance, especially as we get older, at this free talk on Wednedsay, May 30th from 6pm to 7pm at Elevated Wellness Center in South Shore.

Join Heather Valentine for a talk about Rolfing® Structural Integration, a holistic system of soft tissue manipulation and movement education that organizes the whole body in gravity. And, it’s free!

Need another reason to attend? Here you go:

Receive a Complimentary Structural Integration Session with Heather by attending the  talk!

Elevate Wellness Center
1113 Emerald Bay Road
South Lake Tahoe

To register for the free talk, please call Elevate Wellness Center at (530) 541-9355.

Matt’s work will be the featured art exhibit gracing the walls of Soule Domain May through July following his artist reception Wednesday, May 16th from 4:30pm to 6pm. Everyone is invited for complimentary appetizers and half-price beverages.

The Soule Domain is located across from the Tahoe Biltmore at 9983 Cove Street in Brockway.

“I create modern images that document contemporary man’s celebration of the eternal earth,” states Dodge. “I blend the excitement of my experiences with a primal urge to create.”

Dodge’s experiences, coming from a mountain existence, are a combination of adventure and awe. His pieces, part punk, pop, and psychedelic, are also part past, present and future.

Dodge’s labor is the exploration of form, based upon natural imagery. Throughout his body of work exists a consistent theme of examining the relationship between man and nature.

Dodge’s unique process, starting with snapshot photographs of the outdoor world, involves several layers of varying art and graphic techniques, resulting in one-of-a-kind hand-colored, hand-etched images, which he terms “sculpted photographs”.

He adds, “I create, somewhat unconsciously, mixing visual imagery taken from my life in the Sierra with the swirling abstractions that reside deep within my soul. Ultimately, the finished creation should translate visually the potency of the life that I lust.”

Dodge resides with his wife and two children in Incline Village, Nevada. A snowboard pioneer and former world champion, he remains an active outdoor athlete and adventurer, using adrenalin to fuel his imagery.

Matt Dodge received the degree Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Along with Jennifer Ornburge, Matt invites you to stop by their studio:

Blue Pixie Fine Art Studio & Gallery
120 Country Club Dr, #22
Incline Village, Nevada 89451

Ph: 775-830-6554 (Matt)

www.bluepixie.biz

Besides being a favorite spot for artists and hikers, the Echo Summit area has been the site of several significant historical events that have shaped our distinct mountain culture as well as the expansion of California and Nevada history.  Echo Summit was even part of the Lincoln Highway and a major training venue for the 1968 Olympic Summer Games. 

Bisecting the Sierra Nevada mountains, Echo Summit was a major distribution route for delivering the mail, starting with John Calhoun Johnson and followed by one of Lake Tahoe’s most famous mountaineers, Snowshoe Thompson, who is considered the father of California skiing.

Between 1856 and 1876, Snowshoe Thompson delivered mail on skis following the “Johnson’s Cutoff”, between Placerville, California and Genoa, Nevada and later Virginia City, Nevada when he delivered the first silver ore to be mined from the Comstock Lode. Later he taught others how to make skis, as well as the basics of their use. Despite his twenty years of service, he was never paid for delivering the mail.

Wagon trains rolled up and down Osgood’s Grade and played a significant role in the Comstock Lode with the discovery of silver in 1858 in Virginia City, NV. An opportunist, Nehemiah Osgood arrived in South Lake Tahoe from New Hampshire in 1859 and built and operated a toll house at the foot of Meyers Grade (Osgood’s Grade) where Echo Creek flows into the Upper Truckee to collect money for road maintenance.

The road was busy in both directions with coaches, freight schooners, bullion wagons, carrying the tides of prospectors eastward to the Comstock Lode, and Pony Express riders who delivered the mail on the famous route between 1860-1861. The typical toll was 5 cents per animal and 6 bits for men and their wagons. Traffic dropped off considerably with the completion of the railroad over Donner Summit in 1868. Osgood’s Toll House was finally abandoned in 1898 when toll houses were phased out.

The Celio family, who operated a lumber mill and ran the Yank’s Station complex at the same time, rescued the toll house and moved it to their ranch where it was used for storage for over 50 years. In 1974, the Lake Tahoe Historical Society was instrumental in moving the toll house onto public land on Highway 50 at Rufus Allen Blvd. In 1991, Nehemiah Osgood’s Toll House reached its final home next to the museum and log cabin in the middle of South Lake Tahoe.

Since then, many local and second homeowners built cabins along Echo Summit and along the shoreline of the two Echo Lakes.  The Berkeley Echo Lake Camp has been a popular summer camp since 1922.

In 1968, the U.S. Olympic Planning Commission chose Echo Summit over three other sites for the 1968 Olympic trials.

In order to adequately prepare the U.S. team for the Summer Games in Mexico City, the City of South Lake Tahoe built a track at 7,377 feet at the parking lot of Echo Summit Ski Area. The 400-meter oval track was nearly identical to the track in Mexico City and did well for the American Olympians who set 6 world records and won 24 medals – including 12 golds.

Today, Echo Lakes is a prime location for plein air outings by artists, as well as hikers. Echo Summit is one of the best entry points into Desolation Wilderness to the north, and Meiss Meadows to the south along the joint Tahoe Rim Trail/ Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. And, in the summer hikers can cut down their hiking time into Desolation Wilderness by using the taxi boat service at the marina to reach the trail at the far end of the upper lake.

“Wellness is an essential component in allowing us to be happy and productive people in our daily lives. If we don’t have a focused intent on our health we are not truly living, we are only existing.” -Kate Leist

Breathe Into Bliss will be held on June 10, 2012 from 12-7pm at Zenergy Wellness Spa and Studio Tahoe in the Pioneer Center in Truckee, CA. The focus of the event will not only be directed towards learning about health and wellness from our local holistic health professionals, but it will also be about engaging in activities such as Yoga, Acupuncture, Massage, and Meditation.

In addition, several local artists, designers, and businesses will be offering services and selling goods. Healthy options from our local food truck, Red Truck, will be available as well. Not only will this event be hands-on and educational, it will also be entertaining. Several performances will be held during the event; Yoga, Hula Hooping, and Poi.

The season opener is the annual Sawmill Pond Kids’ Fishing Derby on June 9, 2012 from 8am to noon hosted by Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters.  Get your gear ready for a fun day at this annual tradition. All kids under 14 are welcome to participate in the free derby. (Sorry parents. You can help your children get their poles ready, but you can’t fish.) Sawmill Pond located 2.5 miles past the “Y” in South Lake Tahoe on the corner of Sawmill Road and Lake Tahoe Boulevard.

If you don’t have a fishing pole, the guides from Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters will have some loaners. Please note that no lures can be used during the derby. In addition to the fishing derby, the Optimist Club will provide  hot dogs and refreshments.

The pond has been stocked with rainbow trout so you’ll be sure to land one. Please enter on the meadow side to get your raffle ticket and a bag of goodies.

Note to Parents:  If you’d like to donate prizes or volunteer to help, please contact Mac-the-Naw at (775) 267-9722 or Victor Babbitt at the Tahoe Fly fishing Outfitters at (530) 541-8208 for more info about this South Lake Tahoe event.

Have fun!