APRIL, MAY, JUNE 2023
travelogue: greece
20 april 2023 thursday, 1 pm and 6 pm
museum of authenticity annex
119-b east 1st street, salida CO 81201
$10 cash or check; reservation optional but appreciated
Museum founder, Thordis Niela Simonsen, has been an independent specialty small-group travel guide in Greece since 1995. In a program for armchair travelers and travelers to Greece alike, Thordis’ anecdotal slide presentation will bring to life the Greece she knows and loves.
Beginning in 1981, Thordis sojourned annually in Elika, a village in the Peloponnese, for nearly four decades. She attended weddings and wakes. She picked olives and reaped wheat. She kneaded dough with women in their kitchens and sipped retsina with men in their tavernes. More remark-ably, Thordis single-handedly restored an abandoned roofless village house that had been used to stable sheep.
Beyond her village, Thordis has stood at the center of the Sanctuary of Athena at Delphi, founded, according to legend, by Zeus. She has traveled by motorboat to the partly submerged mouth of the Cave of Hades. She has explored the labyrinth of Knossos where Theseus slew the legendary Minotaur. She has climbed stairs to a 14th century monastery suspended in air.
The handmade utilitarian objects and folk art now on permanent display in the Greek Room in part motivated Thordis to create the Museum of Authenticity.
Rich in appreciation and understanding, autographed copies of Thordis’ poetic book Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting will be available for purchase ($30.50 cash or check).
Thordis Simonsen’s presentation was captivating, her slides were breathtaking, and her journey is inspiring. —Eve Jaffe, Travel Books & Language Center, Washington, DC
Thordis Simonsen’s story inspires people to travel, to see Greece, and to change one’s way of life. —Alaine Borgias, Village Books, Bellingham, Washington
When the power went out the night of her presentation, Thordis Simonsen gave a “slide-less” slideshow with aplomb. —Greg Ohlsen, Travel Bug, Santa Fe, New Mexico
the art of framing & installation
04 may 2023 thursday, 1 pm and 6 pm
museum of authenticity
124 east 2nd street, salida CO 81201
$10 cash or check; reservation optional but appreciated
Framing and installation can detract from or enhance a work of art and the space it occupies. Granting that these are a matter of personal taste, during an intimate tour of the Museum of Authenticity galleries and Annex, curator Thordis Niela Simonsen will explain the reasoning behind the framing and placement of objects on display.
thordis: a biographical sketch
18 may 2023 thursday, 1 pm and 6 pm
museum of authenticity annex
119-b east 1st street, salida CO 81201
$10 cash or check; reservation optional but appreciated
In a slide presentation designed especially for the Salida community, Museum of Authenticity founder, Thordis Niela Simonsen, will offer a glimpse into her rich and rewarding—and sometimes challenging—life. Her story moves from a high school biology classroom in Baltimore, to a high school cultural anthropology classroom in Denver, to county roads coursing through central Alabama, to a narrator’s kitchen in Cleveland, to a roofless house in a Greek village, and, finally, to the Jessine M. Hartwell residence and homeopathic office, now the Museum of Authenticity, in Salida.
Conversation with the audience will follow.
Thordis Simonsen is a soul worth knowing. Her art and artistry ignite a flow of grace. Like May Sarton, she bears witness to the life well-lived. —Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, The Right to Write
P L A N [E] T
15 june 2023 thursday, 1 pm and 6 pm
museum of authenticity
124 east 2nd street, salida CO 81201
$10 cash or check, reservation optional but appreciated
This event celebrates the current changing exhibit, P L A N [E] T, before it closes on 26 June 2023 Monday. After viewing landscape prints by mid-20th-century Colorado and New Mexico artists and Thordis Niela Simonsen’s colorful monotype prints of plants she has imagined, our attention will turn to the Museum gardens, with a focus on what perennials can thrive in Salida.
inquiries & reservations—303.585.1783 and/or info@museumofauthenticity.org
museum access—Although the doors are closed and the lights may be out, the Museum of Authenticity (124 East 2nd Street) and Annex (119-B E 1st Street) are open year-round most days and times by reservation or by chance. Please dial 303.585.1783 for admission; the ring serves as doorbell. Museum only, $10 cash or check, kids free.