International Economic Summit
Boise State University

April 30, 2013
CenturyLink Arena
Boise, ID

A great event for Idaho high schoolers that promotes the study of economics.  

To see more pictures from this event click here.

To learn more about the International Economic Summit, visit them at www.econsummit.org or their Facebook Page

Boise Real Estate Notes:
Eric Allen Construction
North End Renovation

I was recently asked to photograph a major residential renovation in Boise's North End by Eric Allen Construction.  The original home was in the farmhouse style and has been brought up to the 21st century with a number of edits to the trim, surface textures and colors.  A solarium-style sitting room in the back supports a rooftop deck accessed from the second story.   It's an addition that feels like it's been there all along.  The focal point of the downstairs is a Dale Chihuly-inspired light fixture suspended over the dining room table, its tentacles pointing exuberantly at the room's built-in cabinetry and the kitchen's glowing stainless steel appliances.  The upstairs rooms revolve around an inviting central sitting space that begs for a stack of books or a chessboard.  Nestled comfortably in the middle of Boise's best known residential district, this gem on 19th St. will make a stunning and comfortable place for its lucky owner's hats to hang.

Eric Allen Construction can be contacted at:

Eric Allen
1202 N. 16 th
Boise ID. 83702
208 577 8065


The home is offered by John Poole at Atova Real Estate.  Contact John at jpoole@atova.com


For the complete set of photographs, follow the link below:

Pete Grady Photography

Food Truck Rally Boise

Despite having to overcome the specter of Friday the 13th, 2,000 Boiseans shrugged off any hint of friggatriskaidekaphobia to make their way to the MK Nature Center parking lot for the April edition of the Food Truck Rally Boise, or FTRB.  For what is quickly becoming an essential after-work experience in the mold of Alive After Five and First Thursday this event, the eighth since its beginnings in September 2011, showed that the concept is maturing.  Seeing a steady climb in attendance as the weather improves, even temperatures of 10 degrees couldn't stall December's gig, which left customers cold but satisfied nonetheless.







 For more pictures of last week's event, click here.

The idea of Jake Black of Payette Brewing and Jason Barber, operator of the food truck Archie's Place, the FTRB benefits from a national trend that is the confluence of several factors.  Young chefs wanting to create simpler fare in a lower pressure atmosphere that rewards experimentation, a marketplace that has become more low key as the economy struggles to achieve lift-off and very complimentary reviews by cable TV luminaries like Anthony Bourdain, Guy Fieri and James Cunningham all combine to create the favorable circumstances that have seen an explosion of food trucks and carts on streets across America. Boise's rally is helping to bring awareness to locals that we aren't being left out here in Idaho. All the vendors in this rally are regulars on Treasure Valley avenues and at local fairs and festivals. Many supplement their business with private catering.

I chatted with Sheila Francis, Marketing and Events Coordinator at Payette Brewery to find out  more about the philosophy of FTRB and where it's headed from here. "We definitely want to spread the love around and will be taking the rally to other parts of the valley," comments Sheila. "Next month we'll be in Meridian on May 11 at High Desert Harley-Davidson.  Hopefully that will attract not only those from the western end of the Treasure Valley, but some of the motorcycle crowd as well.  It should be a lot of fun." Sheila went on to describe some of the other ideas for times, places and frequency.  "As we get closer to summer we're going to have to consider all the other events that are going on as we set dates for ours.  Boise is a pretty busy place and we want to compliment, not compete with all the fun things people like to do."  We may even see two rallies per month as more local truck operators want in on the phenomenon according to Ms. Francis.  Bottom line though, the quality of the event remains their highest priority and format and logistics will adhere to that goal.




To keep current with the latest times and locations visit the Food Truck Rally's Facebook page.

Cinema in Boise: Carole Skinner

I tagged along this week with Michael Guillen while he interviewed Carole Skinner, owner and operator of The Flicks.  Michael is a cinema journalist who publishes The Evening Class, a blog that explores film, film makers and festivals.  It is oriented towards the world of movies that concerns itself first with making a statement rather than a dollar.  As such, The Evening Class is a great place to go and wash away the commercial pablum that has accumulated in your brain from reading too many Yahoo! movie articles on your way to checking that first, early email address of yours.  An Idaho native, Michael splits his time between Boise and San Francisco. His soon-to-be-published interview with Carole is the first installment in a series of articles that will explore such things as the history of cinema in Idaho, the current state of theatergoing and filmmaking in Idaho and will most likely speculate on how Boisean's interest in film might be expanded.  In our conversations, Michael has hinted at some intriguing plans and I can't wait to see where that goes.  He has generously invited me to add a visual component to this series. 

I will let Michael's interview speak for itself.  Suffice to say, Carole's warmth and charm made her an easy subject to photograph.  She certainly looked at home in the cozy and familiar surroundings that she and her husband Rick have created while nurturing what has become an important cultural landmark in Boise.

Pete Grady photography is accepting editorial, commercial and personal assignments.  Please contact me for rates and availability.

Idaho Wine: A Winter's Vineyard Tale in Images

Idaho Vineyards: Snake River Valley AVA Under Snow

Click on any image for large scale slideshow

Last Tuesday the Treasure Valley woke to a light dusting of snow, the first in more than a little while. I've been eager to get out to the Sunny Slope vineyard area this winter and had missed a couple opportunities earlier this season.  This time everything lined up and I managed to get out there with my cameras and found the Snake River Valley AVA under clear skies, cold temperatures and a hint of fine powder on the ground.  I spent most of my time under favorable light at Symms and Williamson vineyards.  Neither has been pruned and the dormant canes glowed an earthy orange in the early morning sun.  Most of the world's vineyards never see snow.  Idaho vineyards, on the other hand, can see at least a little most years.

For you camera buffs, although it's tempting to pull out that wide angle lens, I used my telephoto zoom for most of the shots because of the great distances.  I set the camera at ISO 200 and worked mostly at f/8 to f/16. My Nikon lenses have a vibration reduction feature that allows me to work hand-held and still get sharp images.  That gives me the freedom to move around easily and find exactly the right point of view that will convey the story I want to tell.  Later, in the digital darkroom, I nudged the saturation on the oranges and blues to accentuate them a bit without creating an "artificial" look.  

Be sure to click through to my website gallery for more images from this set.  

Dave Thomas at the Gallery at the Linen Building

ART SEEN:

DAVE THOMAS AT THE GALLERY AT THE LINEN BUILDING

I caught up with artist Dave Thomas at his Eagle, ID studio recently.  Dave is preparing for his upcoming show, Timeline Paintings, at the Gallery at the Linen Building, the last of a trio of solo exhibits that have taken his work to Salt Lake City, Seattle and now downtown Boise.  At this point I will issue the disclaimer that I have an association with Dave and his work by way of the exhibit, Calendars, presented earlier this year at the Rosenthal Gallery on the College of Idaho campus where I showed photomontage alongside Dave's paintings. That appearance formed a sort of foundation for this series, having given Dave the chance to see his large scale works in a gallery setting prior to their commitment to the OK Hotel in Seattle and the House Gallery in Salt Lake.  It also validated his fledgling impulse to show a set of complimentary drawings that work off the same inspiration, but on a smaller scale.

My visit did not allow for a comprehensive examination of what will be at the Linen Building.  There were numerous works, large and small, scattered about the garage attached to his home that has been his workspace for the past two years.  What I did see was a progression forward, the most recent pieces displaying a heavy impasto of paint and modifiers that build up into rich surface effects.  In that way they are reminiscent of the paintings Dave was making when I first met him in 2003.  Those works possessed a limited palette and were concerned primarily with the surface of the canvas and the edges of the shapes and forms, creating a sort of monumental architectural presence.  In contrast, the new paintings use vivid color as a counterpoint to the light and shadow that dance across the picture plane.  There is a little of that monumental quality creeping back in, mostly by way of their scale, but also as a result of a labored placement of shapes and lines that testifies to the obvious struggle that was engaged in during their manufacture.  The results are visually compelling.

Any sense of labor evaporates in the drawings which are small in size and create a more intimate experience.  They appear fresher and more experimental, their charge carried by the liveliness of a single gesture or the interplay of drips, smears and puddling of paint, gesso, graphite and possibly the remnants of his lunch.  For me their success lies in the distance their size removes, allowing the viewer to experience the artist's touch close up.

Click any image to start slideshow

Either way, all the works stand as records of the back and forth of action and deliberation that takes place in their making.  Dave is a painter's painter and his brand of abstraction, while familiar, nonetheless continues to offer new ways of communicating.  This is work that will challenge a lot of the local audience by its raw emotion and lack of sentimentality.  In that way it is refreshing and I urge everyone to drop by and see it.

For more images from my session in Dave Thomas' studio, click here.

Pete Grady Photography is accepting commercial, editorial and retail assignments.  Call for availability and rates.

Idaho Wine: Sippin' In the City

Sippin' In the City

Idaho wine, Boise style...

As much as I claim not to be a wine snob, from time to time I know I've erred and laid a pretty big egg. Long before I actually moved to Idaho, I was traveling from my home in Santa Clara, California to Boise and Pocatello regularly for business purposes.  I had developed good working relations with my customers and even had a comfortable social standing with some of them.  Gradually we shared our interests after hours over dinner or a refreshment at a local watering hole.  Wine was a passion of mine as it was for several of them and we spent many hours chatting up our latest finds and perhaps recalling some grand bottles we had enjoyed over the years.  On the occasion of the annual holiday dinner one of my associates presented me with a gift; a bottle of Idaho wine.  We had never talked about Idaho as a wine region and frankly, in the mid 1980s when I was still a visitor here, it really wasn't.  When I unwrapped the gift on the spot, I was so taken by surprise that I remember chuckling and blurting out something intelligent like "gee, I didn't know there was a riesling variety of potato!"  Score one for the California ingrate!  

Well, that was then and this is now.  If you haven't figured out that Idaho is a reputable source of fine wine you need to because that train actually left the station a few years ago now.  One group of people who are taking it to the streets on behalf of Idaho's wine producers is the Idaho Wine Commission.  They hosted a wonderful event called Sippin' In the City on November 17 at the Linen Building Event Center that was, drumroll, please...SOLD OUT!  Local winemakers and staff roamed the crowd of 300+ pouring samples of their current releases and discussed their winemaking philosophy, product line and other tidbits about their respective wineries and their history.  Speaking of tidbits,  hors d'oeuvres were provided by the good folks at Open Table Catering and a great soundtrack was presented by Vinyl Preservation Society Idaho.  As always, the pictures tell the story better than I can.  Click on any shot below and enjoy the interactive slideshow!

Pete Grady Photography is accepting commercial, editorial and personal assignments.  Please contact me for schedule and rates.