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For more information contact mark.a.kinders@uwrf.edu or brenda.k.bredahl@uwrf.edu.

Sustainability, Art Explored at Presentation

MAY 12, 2006--The kick-off event for a series of forums, conversations and art exhibitions exploring sustainable community will join an environmental expert with a nationally known folk musician for an evening of education and entertainment on Tuesday, May 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson.

"Sustainability 101: Art, Form and Function for Sustainable Communities," will be presented by Kelly Cain, professor of environmental science and management at the University of Wisconsin - River Falls, and includes musical performance by folk guitarist Cam Waters.

Funded by the St. Croix Valley Community Foundation, the Wisconsin Arts Board, the state of Wisconsin, and Fresh and Natural Foods of Hudson, the May 23 event, launches the regional series, "What We Need Is Here: Encouraging Sustainable Communities." A $5 donation for the event is suggested. A list of other activities in the series is available at the kick-off event or online at www.ThePhipps.org.

Cain teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at UW-River Falls and manages community service projects in sustainability-based planning and management. He is co-director for the new master's degree program in sustainable community development launched in May, and is program coordinator for the University's Wildlife Recreation and Nature Tourism graduate online certificate program, one of the only such programs in the country. His work in international projects ranges from China and Trinidad to Bolivia and Nicaragua. In addition to his teaching duties, Cain is actively involved in community outreach in the St. Croix region, speaking and consulting on sustainability-based lifestyles, business models and community development.

Waters has spent the last two decades crisscrossing the country and honing his unique style on the stages of coffeehouses, clubs, concert halls and festivals. Critics across the county and in Europe commend his understated, expressive singing and his simple yet inventive fingerstyle and slide-guitar playing. His literate, tradition-based songwriting mixes seamlessly with his arrangements of rural blues, jug band songs and American folk music. He has appeared in concert with Doc Watson, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, Maria Muldaur, Greg Brown, Spider John Koerner, Roy Book Binder, Steve James, Bob Brozman, Robin and Linda Williams, and many more of acoustic music's most well-respected performers. For more on Waters, go to www.CamWaters.com .

The "What We Need Is Here" series runs throughout 2006 and is co-sponsored by Arcola Mills, ArtReach Alliance (Stillwater), Community Arts Base (River Falls), UW-River Falls Department of Environmental Science and Management, Hammond Arts Alliance, The Phipps Center for the Arts, River Falls Public Library, St. Croix ArtBarn (Osceola), River Falls Public Library, and St. Croix Valley Community Foundation.  

The Phipps Center for the Arts is located 15 miles east of St. Paul off Interstate 94. For more information, contact Anastasia Shartin, visual arts director at the Phipps Center for the Arts, at 715-386-2305, ext. 103.  

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