Bud Werner Memorial Library

Bud Werner Memorial Library and the Steamboat Springs Arts Council present a free screening and discussion of the PBS Independent Lens documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing, a film by Neil Berkeley.

Beauty Is Embarrassing is a funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White.

“A future perennial favorite on the order of Crumb.” — Austin Chronicle

“Zippy… Delightful… The doc exudes the relieved good vibes of a narrowly-averted tragedy, and has a broad enough appeal to draw arthouse audiences from both high-falutin’ and punk-rock constituencies.” — The Hollywood Reporter

“Frantic, sentimental, surreal and very funny.” — Wired
 

The screening will be followed by a discussion moderated by SSAC's Artistic Director Park Myers, leading local artists and the audience in the thematic direction of arts as common arena in which every person (self titled artist or not) can see themselves as a participant or recognize that 'art' actually spans and intervenes in life more than its traditional notions.

About the film
Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in New York City. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the TV show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world.

Beauty Is Embarrassing chronicles the vaulted highs and the crushing lows of a commercial artist struggling to find peace and balance between his work and his art. Acting as his own narrator, Wayne guides us through his life using moments from his latest creation: a hilarious, biographical one-man show. The pieces are drawn from performances at venues in Tennessee, New York and Los Angeles including the famous Roseland Ballroom and the Largo Theater.

Whether he’s parading a twenty foot tall puppet through the Tennessee hillside, romping around the Hollywood Hills dressed in his LBJ puppet suit, relaxing in his studio pickin’ his banjo, or watching his children grow up much too soon, Wayne White always seems to have a youthful grin and a desperate drive to create art and objects. It is an infectious quality that will inspire everyone to find their pleasure in life and pursue it at all costs. At its core, Beauty Is Embarrassing is a reminder that we should all follow our passion. It is those creative impulses that will lead us to where we need to go.

About the speaker
Park Myers, originally from The Woodlands, TX is the Artistic Director for the Steamboat Springs Arts Council. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and has worked in Marfa, TX and New York, NY.  In addition to independent curatorial work in contemporary art Myers is also apracticing artist.

 

WATCH THE TRAILER

RUN TIME: 91 min.

ABOUT COMMUNITY CINEMA
Community Cinema is a groundbreaking public education and civic engagement initiative featuring free monthly screenings of films from the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens and other PBS presentations. Community Cinema is on location in more than 95 cities nationally, bringing together leading organizations, community members, and public television stations to learn, discuss, and get involved in key social issues of our time.

ABOUT ITVS
The Independent Television Service funds, presents, and promotes award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television, innovative new media projects on the Web, and the Emmy® Award-winning weekly series Independent Lens on Monday nights at 10:00 PM on PBS. Mandated by Congress in 1988 and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ITVS has brought more than one thousand independently produced programs to date to American audiences.  www.itvs.org

Made possible by a partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS.