STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts is embracing the natural beauty surrounding Sun Valley as it kicks off its 36th Annual Sun Valley Center Wine Auction on Thursday.
The Center is staging one of its Vintner Dinners alongside the “Spur” sculpture that it commissioned to celebrate the National Park Service Centennial. It will hold cocktail hour at the 75-foot-long sculpture constructed of Alaskan deadwood cedar to resemble a lava tube at Craters of the Moon National Monument and the tracks of the Union Pacific trains that once delivered vacationer to the Wood River Valley.
Following cocktails patrons will move from the sculpture, which sits along the bike path near Ketchum, to dine alongside the Big Wood River.
“We’re calling it a field dinner,” said Wine Auction Director Callan Miranda. “We’re always looking for ways to tie in art while having fun And Britt and Peter Palmedo and Leslie and Michael Lanahan stepped up to make it happen.”
The Sun Valley Center Wine Auction, named one of the 10 best charity wine auctions in the country, starts with the Vintner Dinners on Thursday, July 20, and concludes with the always-popular Vine & Dine on Dollar Mountain on Saturday, July 22.
There are still some tickets left for the Vine & Dine lawn party featuring wines, a wide range of tapas-style food dishes, a beer garden and live music and dancing from 6 to 9 p.m. at Dollar Mountain Lodge. Tickets for that and a Vine & Dine Plus package, which offers an intimate tasting with participating vintners an hour before the picnic, are available at www.sunvalleycenter.org/wineauction or by calling 208-726-9491.
“We’ve brought back the Pink Flamingo band that everyone loved so much a couple years ago. And we have some new vendors that haven’t participated before, including Red Shoe in Hailey and the Wood River Sustainability Center. So we’ll have a good mix of new vendors along with old favorites like The Haven,” said Miranda.
The elegant Wine Auction Dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, July 21, will feature entertainment by LED, a Boise-based performance art group that tells narrative through music and dance.
“It’s another type of art and creativity,” said Miranda.
This year guests will e seated at long tables, rather than round ones. And Wine Auction Chairs Sarah Woodward and Carol Swig have championed a tent decorated with National Forest Service signs, burlap and other things evoking Idaho’s allure as an outdoor mecca and adventureland.
“We want to celebrate Idaho. After all, it’s our beautiful location that sets our auction apart,” said Miranda.
Miranda herself moved permanently to Sun Valley from her native London in 2014 to take advantage of Sun Valley’s skiing and outdoors activities. Callan's parents have a home here and had been bringing her here on ski vacations since she was a teenager.
A literature major, she planned corporate events and weddings in London before coming here. She orchestrated the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s Wild West Game Dinner and Janss Pro-Am events before joining The Center.
The Wine Auction is The Center’s largest fundraiser of the year, raising half of the Center’s budget. The Center reaches 40,000 adults and students annually through its visual arts exhibitions, Company of Fools professional theatre, performances by an eclectic mix of musicians from across the world and lectures by award-winning authors.
It invests more than a million dollars annually into its arts education programs for students in kindergarten through high school. And its scholarship program has awarded more than $800,000 over the past 19 years for Blaine County students and teachers who wish to take special workshops in arts and humanities.
Miranda loves the opportunity to plan events for nonprofits like The Center that she believes have an impact on their communities.
“The most memorable part of last year’s Wine Auction was the paddle raise at the Gala, which raised over $900,000,” she said. “That moment was incredible—everyone had goose bumps. It’s amazing to see people’s generosity in supporting something like the arts in our valley.”