By Sally Gracie
At the end of Sunday’s Seahawks-49ers game, commentators and players alike credited the 12th Man — the fans — with the Seahawks’ amazing season. Twisp has no shortage of Seahawks fans.
Roscoe Roseland and Hillary Ketcham have erected a huge lighted “Go Hawks” sign behind her mom’s house up on Bigelow Street. As you drive up the highway from Hank’s Harvest Foods, you can’t miss it. Hillary and Roscoe hope to win a couple of Super Bowl tickets for their efforts. I can’t announce that they won, but the Seahawks did, beating the San Francisco 49ers, 23-17, at the end of a fourth quarter that left (even) me gasping.
In Twisp the place to watch the Seahawks’ advance to their second shot at a Super Bowl victory in their 37-year history has been Twisp River Suites, where owner Joe Marver offers a great spread of food and drinks and the game action on a bigger-than-life, 12-foot screen. I was there for the playoff game against the New Orleans Saints along with some serious football fans. According to Joe, the party room was over-booked for the NFC Championship game on Sunday. By today, Monday, no doubt it’s booked for Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2.
Lots of young people attended the two Saturday art events on Glover Street to see the art and theater created (for the most part) by their peers. “Teachers and Their Students” at Confluence Gallery showcases the work of students of all ages, including a lovely watercolor by 86-year-old Gloria Jones, but at the reception the younger artists were most conspicuous.
Max Cheeseman, Randy Johnson and Liam Keohane are eighth grade art students in Dan Brown’s class at Omak Middle School. Their contribution to the show is a plaster sculpture (dressed by the artists) of a man with a guitar that at least one adult confused with a live guest. The three say they like Dan’s class and plan to “stick with art.” An adult student of Stephanie Clark’s at the community college, Kathleen Jasper, admitted that “It’s neat to have something up [in the show].” Kathleen’s teenage daughter came along because her mother thought the gallery experience would be good for her.
These four artists seemed self-conscious about their work being on display, but proud at the same time. To me, that’s a sign of the show’s success. Co-curators Patty Yates and Dan Brown have mounted an exhibit that allows new artists to experience the thrill of revealing their work to the public, and credits the teachers who encouraged them in their art making.
High school senior Morgan Tate’s debut as a director was also a success, according to Saturday night’s audience at The Merc Playhouse. For her senior project, Morgan chose two short plays and cast three actors to perform Sure Thing and Arabian Nights by David Ives as a Readers’ Theater presentation. Her choices provided an entertaining something less than one hour of theater. Kathleen Chavey-Reynaud, Lori Ludeman and Jesse Tissell captured the audience with their quick, humorous repartee. We all laughed, as the miscommunication between or among the characters was funny, but the theme Morgan chose is serious: how what we say may not always be understood in the way we intended.
Congratulations to Morgan, the actors and all the young artists and their teachers from around the county.
