RAW: Natural Born Artists, a national organization that supports and showcase the work of independent artists, just started operating in Boise. It seeks to do for fashion designers, performers, filmmakers, photographer, makeup artists, musicians and visual artists what Etsy does for craft artisans.

The group organizes monthly multimedia showcases on the third Thursday of the month at different locations around Boise. The jury process will be overseen by Boise RAW coordinator Amy Johnson Myers.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, one of the largest charitable organizations in the Northwest, included three Idaho arts groups its report "Bright Spots Leadership in the Pacific Northwest": The Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Trey McIntyre Project and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.

Shoe designer Donald J Pliner made his second public appearance in Boise today in Dillard's women's shoe department. A super star in the shoe world, Pliner will meet customers and signed both past and new Pliner shoe purchases until 5 p.m. March 30.

“Children of Eden," a musical by Stephen Schwartz (“Godspell”) and John Caird (“Les Miserables”) tells the stories on the Book of Genesis. Music Theatre of Idaho is offering two-for-one tickets for its upcoming run: 7:30 p.m. March 30-31, April 6-7, and 2 p.m. March 31 and April 7 at the Nampa Civic Center, 311 3rd St. South. $17 general for a single ticket at 468-2385.

Click HERE for more details and to buy tickets.

Boise High senior Rosa Wolf, 17, was named a national Portfolio Gold Medalist in the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and will receive a $10,000 cash scholarship.

The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers gives out gold and silver medals to teens in grades 7 through 12 in 28 categories of writing and visual arts.

Past winners of this writing award include Sylvia Plath, Robert Redford and Joyce Carol Oates.

Brown’s Gallery, one of the oldest Boise art galleries is currently closed.

Gloria Brown started the business in 1977. Over the years, it has been in different locations: Latah and Cassia streets, Boise and Broadway avenues — the longest at1022 Main St., in Downtown Boise — and since 2010 at 408 S. 8th St., in Bodo.

The gallery specialized in Idaho landscapes, traditional and Western sculpture and ceramics and showed the work of more than 70 artists.

The first Sun Valley Film Festival wrapped up with an awards ceremony March 18 at the Ketchum Town Square.

Idaho film producer Heather Rae won the coveted Vision Award, given to the best producer. She had three films in the festival's line up: Jaffe Zinn's “Magic Valley" (Zinn is pictured below), Aurora Guerrero's “Mosquita y Mari” and Rae's documentary “First Circle.”

Zinn's film, which was shot in and around his home town of Buhl, also took the $1,000 juried Zion Bank Gem State Award for Best Idaho Film and the “One in a Million” Award for best feature made for under $1 million. National Geographic's “War Elephant,” about the efforts to rehabilitate elephants that survived the brutal war in Mozambique, won best documentary under $1 million.

Jay Pickett's “Soda Springs,” filmed in and around Caldwell, won the Audience Choice Award.

Identical twins Kevin and Kieren Donahue, a sheriff’s detective and steel erector in Mackay, Idaho turned filmmakers with “Lost River,” one of the many surprises at the Sun Valley Film Festival. It screened March 17, with a second screen added to handle the overflow.

It was shot for what most filmmakers would consider no budget – just $7,000 — on a trip on horseback through the wilds of central Idaho.

No one is wearing green today! Guess people are so absorbed in the film festival that they forgot it's St. Patrick's Day. Next year green t-shirts.

Festival executive director Teddy Grennan says he, the staff and board will do a postmortem then start talking about Sun Valley Film Festival 2013 on Tuesday.

Boise’s Alan Heathcock received third place for fiction in Barnes and Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers” awards for his taunt short story collection “Volt” (Graywolf Press, $15). Heathcock received the award and a check for $2,500 earlier today at a ceremony in New York City from judge Bo Caldwell.

“I’ve never read stories quite like these,” Caldwell said of Heathcock's collection of tales of life in a fictional town in the American west. “Page after page, I had no idea what was coming next.”

March 8 is Heathcock’s birthday but he feels like he got his big gift today, he said.

Since coming out in 2011, “Volt” had received glowing reviews in the New York Times and other publications, and Heathcock in January was named the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s winner of its 2012 GLCA New Writers Award for fiction.

One of the benefits of this award is the promotion at Barnes and Noble stores, and opportunities for public readings.

Scott O’Connor’s novel “Untouchable” ((Tyrus Press) took first place in Fiction and Alice LaPlante’s novel "Turn of Mind" ((Grove/Atlantic) took second.