Celebrating 10 Years of Passion for the Arts
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Celebrating 10 Years of Passion for the Arts
February Artist-in-Residence Stephen Aifegha
Surel’s Place is Celebrating its 10th Anniversary with Parties, Special Events and a Bright Future.
Surel Mitchell was a self-taught, prolific, accomplished artist, and an enthusiastic community builder. Her desire for a formal degree in fine arts brought her to the Treasure Valley in the 1990s, where she built her Garden City home and studio. Surel served on the Garden City Arts Commission and worked actively with the City Council to establish a Live-Work-Create District that would set Garden City apart as a city that supported the arts. Years later, while she battled lupus, multiple sclerosis, and lung cancer, she turned her home into a vibrant gathering place, full of art and love and conversation.
Surel's Place
To honor Surel’s vision and work after her death in 2011, her friends and family formed Surel’s Place, a nonprofit that keeps her legacy alive. During its first ten years, Surel’s Place has housed, celebrated, and advanced the careers of more than eighty artists-in-residence. The organization has also supported hundreds of Idaho artists through Flash Shows and exhibitions, First Friday Art and Studio Strolls, studio residencies, pop-up sales, live performances and much more.
Additionally, Surel’s place has shared art and literature with hundreds of Treasure Valley students through its “pARTner Schools Program”, has enhanced the artistic abilities and creativity of hundreds of workshop attendees, and has inspired many thousands of neighbors and patrons to appreciate and support the local art community. This work has ensured that Surel’s vision and passion for the role of art remains strong.
The core of Surel’s Place remains the residency program that brings artists of all disciplines, from around the world to Garden City, where they pursue their work, share their process, and connect with the community.
Surel’s Place adapted its residency program during the pandemic by providing Studio Residencies to local artists in need of affordable and accommodating space, and is expanding these opportunities in the Surel Mitchell Live-Work-Create District today.
Sponsorships & Nonprofits
In 2020, Surel’s Place started a fiscal sponsorship program to help other nonprofit organizations. This program helped the Visual Arts Collective weather the pandemic that crippled public venues across the country. It supported the Idaho Prison Arts Collective achieve their mission of providing transformative art experiences to incarcerated Idahoans, and it has helped launch the Voces Internship of Idaho, an equity-driven internship program that strives to bring new and needed voices to Idaho’s news landscape by opening doors for young Latino Idahoans to get professional paid experiences.
The most recent project at Surel’s Place, the Garden City Placemaking Fund, has the potential to help shape the community for decades to come. This group gives local, emerging and BIPOC artists opportunities to create public art projects, while developing skills and experiences to enhance their artistic journeys. These activities also facilitate new conversations on how to tackle community challenges with creativity and cooperation.
February Artist-in-Residence Stephen Aifegha
Join in the Festivities to Celebrate Surel’s Place 10th Anniversary!
Thursday, May 26th
OURSELF BEHIND OURSELF, CONCEALED
7:30pm
Dave Eggar and collaborators at the Morrison Center
Friday, May 6th | timed entry tickets
THE LOOK
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Choreographer Savannah Dunn and visual artist Jennifer Dunn collaborate to create an immersive multimedia dance performance.
Friday, June 10th
10TH ANNIVERSARY SHRINKY DINK AUCTION
At Surel’s Place