Thordis Simonsen, founder of the Museum of Authenticity, on living a bold, creative & courageous life

In this episode of the We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast, Adam Williams talks with Thordis Simonsen, the founding director and curator of the Museum of Authenticity in Salida, Colo. Thordis is a painter, photographer, writer and curator. She’s the author of three books, including “You May Plow Here.”

In this conversation, Adam talks with Thordis about how she came to leave a career as a school teacher to go live in a small Greek village, where she would spend years interviewing villagers and documenting their life in photographs. Never mind that Thordis did not know Greek.

That initial experience would lead to Thordis selling her Ford Pinto station wagon and buying dilapidated sheep stables in that Greek village with the proceeds: $2,000. She would spend 10 years rebuilding that stone structure by hand into a house for herself, and participating in a 40-year relationship with that village.