Review of Silver City's Summer 2017 Art, Music, Science Programming

Silver City, Nevada – The historic Comstock town Silver City offers a wide range of public programming year round, but the community really goes "all out" during the summer months.

This summer, Silver City Arts group sponsored two exhibitions, one with artwork by local artist Larry Kotik, well-known for his remarkable mural in the Dayton Elementary School multi-purpose room, and the other with paintings by local artist Molly Brunhild, whose work is featured in the first chapter of Mary Beth Hepp-Elam’s book Mining the Treasures: Contemporary Comstock Artists. The group also continued to host their monthly acoustic music jams at the Silver City School House and Park, and their Poetry Corner at the Post Office, with featured poems and/or song lyrics by Shaun Griffin, David Lee, Will Rose, and Jim McCormick. PHOTO BY CATHERINE BACHAND OF RECEPTION FOR MOLLY BRUNHILD'S EXHIBITION.

MUSIC: A number of groups - Evangeline Presents, Yellow Truck Productions, Silver City Historic Preservation Society, Comstock Residents Association, and the Resident Artist Program - sponsored concerts in Silver City over the summer, with everything from blues, folk, classic rock, ukulele, and opera to show tunes. Musicians and bands included Red Rose, the Ukulocos, Constant Coogan, Wayne Thomas, Robert Elston, Mylo McCormick, Trevor Thomas, Gabe Sosa, Roger Haas and others.

CONSTANT COOGAN CONCERT IN CONJUNCTION WITH EXTENDED EXHIBITION OF LARRY KOTIK PAINTINGS

Through the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet David Lee came to the town again and offered another of his popular poetry readings, including a poem he wrote about Silver City that’s been nominated for the prestigious literary award, the Pushcart Prize. The Program's summer guests, Sue Mark and Bruce Douglas of marksearch.org, immersed themselves in the community for 10 weeks and held a number of gatherings and events focused on preserving local history through art. The result was an artpiece built by Bruce Douglas and local artist Doug Beverly Brown that doubles as a town podium, plus a dozen new postcard designs by Sue Mark celebrating the town's sense of community and recent history.

Additionally, each summer since 2003, local and regional groups and volunteers come together to offer a free children’s program to the region. Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey (HCC) helps organize and co-sponsor some of the programming in STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math - that the town offers annually in partnership with nearly a dozen groups and volunteers.

This summer, HCC co-sponsored a wide range of educational activites led by guest teachers from the Society of Women Engineers (Sierra Nevada region), The Sonic Screwdrivers, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, Safe Routes to Schools, the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, the Silver City Volunteer Library, United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra, Nevada Families First, Parents as Teachers, Community Chest, Lyon County Human Services, etc.

With hands-on, interactive activities and experiments, visiting experts taught concepts in environmental and mechanical engineering, robotics, scientific uses of drone technology, bicycle safety, Co2 and water pollution, etc. Events also included a music concert by Mylo McCormick, a cloth diaper "how to" workshop with Marielle Toll, a school readiness fair for preschoolers and their parents, a Harry Potter library display (20th anniversary of the first book’s publication) and summer reading promotion.

People from Dayton, Virginia City, Mound House, Carson City, Reno, Fernley, Silver City and beyond attended the public events.

For more information about the annual summer program, contact Quest Lakes at 847-0742.