By Mike Cook
Kathleen Albers and Kathleen Key – billing themselves as “The Two K’s” – have joined forces to create the ARTE Institute for Lifelong Learning (AILL), based in Las Cruces. They are offering their first-ever “ARTE Dream Trips” Zoom classes and local day trips, beginning Tuesday, June 1.
Albers retired earlier this year after more than 20 years with the Doña Ana Arts Council, including serving as its director from 2012 to 2019. Key teaches art history at UTEP. The two have collaborated on a number of DAAC arts programs in the last several years.
The fee for the Zoom classes and trips is $135 per person.
Zoom lectures:
- Egypt: Egyptian history, geography and ancient engineering with Bill Key, six sessions, 1:30-3 p.m., Tuesdays June 1-July 13. The topics of the lectures are “Moving the Big Ones,” the spectacular engineering feats of ancient Egyptians transporting enormous statues and obelisks; “The Magic of the Nile Flood,” how a combination of weather, geography, geology and astronomy brought about the “magic” of the annual Nile flood for thousands of years; and “Two Hundred Years of Building Dams on the Nile and their Effect on the Nile Today,” the story of the numerous dams along the Nile and what effect they have had on the Egyptian environment. Key worked in Egypt for 20-plus years in and has lectured on various topics of Egyptian history, geography and engineering in the UTEP continuing education program.
- ARTE Dream Trips United States and Europe: Kathleen Key leads eight sessions, 1:30-3 p.m., Wednesdays, June 2-July 21. The four “Dream Trips USA” cover Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, New York City and Bentonville, Arkansas (the largest collection of American art in one location). The four “Dream Trips Europe” cover the French Riviera (two lectures); Andalusia and southern Spain; Art Nouveau Brussels and Barcelona; and London. The lectures are designed to answer the question, “What should I absolutely not miss when I visit?”
Day trips:
- 1-6 p.m., Friday, June 4: El Paso Museum of Art, view special exhibition Cercle et Carre and the International Spirit of Abstract Art, plus drinks at the Dome Bar in the historic Trost-designed Paso del Norte Hotel (now named Camino Real Hotel del Norte);
- 2:15-6 p.m., Friday, June 18 (tours for three groups of 10 each at 2:30, 3 and 3:30 p.m.): Las Cruces Museum of Art, Sonya Fe exhibition, and drinks at Broken Spoke;
- Friday, July 9, time TBA: Tour of historic Taylor Family Home and art collection in Mesilla, plus food and/or drinks at La Posta Restaurant;
- 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday, July 23: Historic Art Deco Plaza Hotel, downtown El Paso; tour the recently renovated hotel (designed for Conrad Hilton by Trost & Trost in 1930); explore the hotel’s colorful past, featuring Elizabeth Taylor and “participants in the Mexican Revolution” and the plaza’s art collection; plus lunch and bar options.
