Silver City Offers Summer Events for All Ages

Silver City, Nevada – A number of different groups sponsor an annual summer series of public events in historic Silver City. This summer, events include a free family-friendly concert by Kantu Inka, visits from award-winning visiting artists and writers, kids science and engineering activities, plus a floral design class, a coding workshop, lectures and more for adults and teens. All of the children’s STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) events are co-sponsored by Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties.

For more information, contact Quest Lakes at (775) 847-0742.

Where: Events take place at the Silver City School House (community center) or the town park and outdoor stage (the Silver Pavilion),at 385 High Street, Silver City, Nevada 89428.

This year's summer public programming kicked off on Tuesday June 18th with a visit from the scientists of Nevada Bugs & Butterflies. Scientists including Kevin Burls, PhD, offered an Insect Petting Zoo at the Silver City School House. Parents, grandparents and children all enjoyed learning more about butterflies, scorpions, tarantulas and more.

A Day for Preschoolers: United Way offers its annual School Readiness and Educational Fun Fair for preschoolers and their parents on Tuesday, June 25 from 10am-noon at the Silver City School House. The event is perfect for children ages 1 year to 6 years and their parents and grandparents. The event, which includes children's books, healthy snacks, plus arts and crafts and hands-on science and literacy activities led by United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, is free.

Hands-on Science Fun: On Tuesday July 2nd and also Tuesday July 9th, join popular teacher Jim Barcellos of the University Nevada Cooperative Extension for his interactive science experiments for 8-13 year olds with their parents.

Robotics Camp: One of the most popular summer events, the Engineering/Robotics Mini-Camp for kids ages 8-14 and their parents, takes place on Tuesday, August 6th from 10am – noon at the Silver City School House. The annual event is led by the Society of Women Engineers and First Nevada.

Floral Design and Computer Coding: Summer events include something for teens and adults too, with a Floral Design Class for adults and teens, Tuesday, August 20 from 10am-noon at the School House with floral designer Lynnette Edmondson of Community Roots & Shoots. There will also be a free Computer Coding Workshop for teens with programmer Zephyr Perkins (time and day to be determined).

Book Signing: Also for adults, Virginia City’s Shaun Griffin offers a book signing and reading from his latest book of essays, Because the Light Will Not Forgive Me, on Sunday July 28, at 2pm.at the Silver City School House. The book is described as “a poetic meditation on living meaningfully in this world.”

Outdoor Concert: Kantu Inka will bring a family-friendly concert to the Silver Pavilion outdoor stage in the Silver City Park on Saturday, August 3. Bring a chair and a picnic and enjoy music of Peru and the Andes performed with traditional instruments like zampoñas, quenas, charangos, bombos, chacchas, and cajón. The concert is sponsored by the Silver City Historic Preservation Society and local donations. Audience members are invited to arrive around 6pm. The concert begins at 6:30pm and ends at 7:30pm.

Jam Sessions: In addition, there’s a casual acoustic jam in Silver City on the fourth Saturday of each month from 3-5pm in the park or School House (depending on weather). Bring your instrument and join in. The jam is sponsored by Silver City Arts group.

Visiting Artists: Throughout the summer, visiting artists with the local Resident Artist Program will offer free artist talks, workshops, and pop-up shows. Summer Residents include Stewart Easton of the United Kingdom, whose unique artwork has been shown at the Tate Modern, the Ashmolean, the Victoria and Albert Museum, etc. and Claire Scully of London whose latest book of illustrations , Desolation Wilderness, is like “jazz for the eyes.” Award-winning painter Morgan Craig of Philadelphia arrives in July, after a busy spring with three solo shows in three states. David Cote, a talented playwright and librettist from Manhattan, arrives in August. In the last two years alone, his librettos have been in operas performed in New York (Carnegie Hall), Chicago, Boston, Montréal (Canada), Cincinnati, Nashville , and Shreveport.

Silver Citizen June 2019 Town Newsletter

Public Reception Friday June 7th for "Translating Silver City" Show

Several art and music events in Carson City on Friday June 7th are perfectly timed so you can attend all three. Drop by for appetizers and see the "Translating Silver City" art show at City Hall between 3pm-4:30pm, then view CCAI's "New Crop 2019" exhibition and meet the artists over a glass of wine at the nearby reception at the Court House Gallery from 5pm-7pm. Finish the night with a free concert by Athena McIntyre at McFadden Plaza near The Fox Brewpub from 7:30pm-10:30pm.

First stop, see the exhibition titled “Translating Silver City: Artwork from the Permanent Collection of the Resident Artist Program in Silver City” at City Hall at 201 North Carson Street during a reception from 3pm-4:30pm (to locate the event, enter on the East Musser Street side entrance to City Hall). The show, which has been up since March and will be on view until June 28th, is sponsored by the Municipality of Carson City’s Department of Arts and Culture, and graciously hosted by City Hall.

About the Show: Although Silver City, Nevada has roots in the Comstock mining boom of the 1860s, by the 1950s the town had become a quiet place, a curiosity for passing tourists who saw it as a ghost town. A shift began in the mid 1960s, however, with the arrival of a new wave of residents, and the town's "cultural re-population" continued for the next five decades.

Among those contributing to the “cultural re-population” was University of Nevada, Reno art professor Jim McCormick, who came to Silver City with his wife and children in the 1970s and built a unique house, which writer Lisa Gavon describes as being like a “giant sculpture: unexpected and aesthetically compelling.”

Today McCormick House serves as the living space for visiting artists, musicians and writers from around the world who come to participate in the Resident Artist Program in Silver City. Jim’s son, Theo McCormick, and daughter-in-law Quest Lakes, fund and direct the Program.

“Translating Silver City” includes selections from the Resident Artist Program’s permanent collection that show how artists and writers living at McCormick House have interpreted Silver City. David Lee, Utah’s first and longest serving Poet Laureate, described sunrise and the Sierra mountains as seen from the large kitchen windows of McCormick House. Sophie Scott of New Zealand chose to paint an image of 19th century Silver City. Jim McCormick’s Comstock Lode Series of lithographs imagines the Silver City men and women of the 1860s whose hard lives were centered around mining. London-based artist Claire Scully drew the present-day art studio at McCormick House, while photographer Frances Melhop captured images of past and present Silver City denizens in her “Comstock Portrait Project 2013-2017.” After the reception for “Translating Silver City,” there’s an opportunity to see some of Frances Melhop’s more recent work at the nearby Court House gallery.

Stop two: From 5-7pm, Capital City Arts Initiative (CCAI) hosts an opening reception for “New Crop 2019,” an exhibition featuring work by Frances Melhop and Mark Combs at the beautiful gallery on the second floor of the nearby Carson City Court House at 885 E Musser Street. The artists will give brief talks about their work starting at 5:30 p.m.

Stop three: After the CCAI show, catch a free outdoor concert. From 7:30pm-10:30pm, one of Northern Nevada’s favorite song writers/singers, Athena McIntyre, will offer a concert at the Bob McFadden Plaza, 223 W Third Street (behind the Fox Brewpub and near Bella Fiore Wines).

More events: There are many other things happening as well in Carson City on Friday, June 7, including the Nevada State Fair at Mills Park. Find the full schedule of all June events here: https://visitcarsoncity.com/events/2019-06/

Jim McCormick and Burning Man’s First Art Installations

First published as a column by Quest Lakes in the Mason Valley weekly news column Silver City Neighbors, Aug. 2018

Nevada’s Burning Man event has become internationally known with about 80,000 participants from all over the world expected this year. The art portion of the annual festival got its start back in 1992 and now, extraordinary art is one of Burning Man's main attractions.

My father-in-law, artist and University Nevada, Reno professor Jim McCormick, installed a monumental, cartographic grid sculpture titled “Vista Revisited” on the Black Rock playa in 1992. The large piece, which he had created while he was on sabbatical leave from UNR in 1989, had been shown previously at the university under the title, “Vista”. Two other primary works on display at Burning Man that year were three wicker “women” by British artist Serena de la Hey and a sculpture titled “Waterway” by Gregg Schlanger.

Jim had retired earlier that same year, with a Governor’s Arts Award, UNR’s Distinguished Faculty Award, and many other awards under his belt. As a key advocate for the arts in Nevada, he loved the challenge of bringing art to the “canvas” of the Black Rock desert.

Jim’s “Vista Revisited” was a 320 foot long cross, composed of individual boxes measuring 12' x 12' x 1.5' that formed a huge compass that oriented toward the 40-foot-tall Burning Man sculpture.

In the very first issue of Building/Burning/Man: Newsletter of the Burning Man Project, June 1992, Volume 1 No. 1, Richard Washburn discussed Jim's installation in his column "Guest Artists." He wrote, "This year, for the first ime, the Black Rock festivities will include works and performances by guest artists...All works will have been designed with the surreal, empty desert flats in mind...Nevada artists will be represented by Jim McCormick, chair of the University of Nevada-Reno's art department which will display a work which by his own admission, resists description. Consisting of 1,000 moveable wood and foam-core modules, the work is reconfigured and retitled every time it is shown in a new environment. Though currently on display in the confines of a gallery, entitled "Vista" and meant as a statement about the human obsession with measuring and dividing, the character of the piece will doubtless undergo a radical change when it is shown outdoors for the first time."

The world is always full of surprising connections. One of my sons-in-law has worked with teams on a number of sound and art projects for Burning Man, and one of my stepdaughters helped weld a large pipe dome structure for a Burning Man camp. And several years ago, before I even realized that Jim had installed one of the first pieces of artwork at Burning Man in Nevada, I went to the festival with an economic development group consisting of representatives from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, USDA Rural Development, the City of Fernley, etc. We embarked on a “ship”, a double decker bus re-purposed as a ship on wheels, with the playa as the sea. Burning Man art covers an enormous area, but the ship tour allowed us to take it all in from the ship’s portholes and upper deck, with stops along the way at central art structures such as the Temple.