Silver City Lectures: Danish Artist Nes Lerpa, October 25, 2014

Pop-Up Show and Lecture by Danish Artist Nes Lerpa: Saturday, October 25th at 6pm at the Silver City Community Center/Library 385 High Street, Silver City, Nevada - The public is cordially invited. This is your opportunity to meet internationally known Danish artist Nes Lerpa in an intimate setting, and to view some of his latest works of art during a pop-up show and lecture about abstraction in the 21st Century.

Join us for hors d'oeuvre and stimulating discussion at this free event.

Nes Lerpa is a celebrated artist who works with oil, acrylic, watercolor, and ceramics, and has had shows throughout Europe and in the U.S., China and India. Born in Denmark, today he lives in the hills behind Piacenza in Northern Italy, and in the woods north of Copenhagen. His work has been inspired by Hans Øllgaard, André Masson, Phillip Martin and Emilio Vedova. He notes that their friendship has been of great importance to him, as well as his travels to Spain, France, England, Italy, Lappland, Morocco and India, where he has stayed for long periods of time. Nes Lerpa's visit to the historic community of Silver City is made possible through a partnership of the Silver City Volunteer Library, St. Mary's Art Center, and the Silver City Arts group. Donations to Silver City's many free, public arts and culture programs are welcomed.

Nes Lerpa is the Resident Artist at St. Mary's Art Center this Fall. See St. Mary's Art Center webiste for a list of his upcoming workshops on largescale abstract painting: http://stmarysartcenter.org/ The photo used here was taken at Nes Lerpa's Studio in Avezzano, Italy by fashion photographer Daniela Rettore.

Overview of Silver City Nevada Summer Program 2014

About two dozen children whose parents and grandparents live in Silver City or Dayton attended the annual Silver City Summer Program in 2014. This year, the theme for the summer kids' program in Silver City was "STEAM" (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math). The program began on Thursday June 19 and ended on Thursday August 7.

Activities included:

1)Engineering, Science, Math: Two classes of two hours each included Science activities with Jim Barcellos of 4-H. Mr. Barcellos taught kids to build and test their own wind turbines and to carry out other experiments. Parents and kids alike always enjoy his classes.

Following are a few quotes from parents and kids who took part in his classes: "Jim is a very nice man to give his time for the kids to broaden their horizons and brighten their summertime." - parent. "I thought it was fun."- participant, age 9. "Wonderful with the kids, and very patient. He kept all of them engaged." parent. "He interacted so well with the kids, remembering each of their names from last week. He made the concepts understandable and relevant to the kids. And they loved the use of the glow sticks in the activity last week." - grandparent

2)Environmental science: participants had lots of fun during two classes of two hours each, observing live bees and honeycomb and preserved bat specimens,working out math problems, identifying clay models of animal tracks and scat, and even doing jumping jacks to learn about birds, bats, and bees with with Linda Conlin of River Wranglers fame.

3)Horticulture: Kids learned how and why to grow edible flowers, including Scarlet Runner beans, and planted their own to take home and grow. This popular class was taught by farmer Mary MacDonald of Silver City's Beautiful Food Farm

4)Engineering and Design: Local fine arts store Doodads Emporium will be sponsoring the first annual Silver City Invitational Downhill Derby in September, and this summer kids had a chance to find out more about the the engineering and design elements required for "soap box" or gravity racer motorless cars when they took a look at Doodad's gravity car.

5)Arts: 8 parents and kids from Silver City attended Shakespeare at Lake Tahoe (Sand Harbor). The play this year was "As You LIke It", set in the Wild West.

6)Literacy: Kids borrowed lots of books, especially nonfiction books on animals, from the Silver City library this summer, and those who read over the summer can choose from a prize box at the local fine arts and antiques store, Doodads Emporium.

7)Gardening: Kids visited the garden and harvested snow peas for a mid-morning snack

8)Crafts: Old fashioned Playdough turned out to be one of the most popular activities of the summer, with kids gathered at one of the picnic tables in the shade to play for hours.

Plans for Summer 2015:

Summer 2015 will include continued focus on STEAM activities, with visits from the Society of Women Engineers for hands-on engineering activities, and lots of visits from local professional artists.

FUNDING: The youth program is funded, in part, by Healthy Communities Coalition, plus guest teachers from regional nonprofits such as 4-H, local fundraisers and donations and volunteer work from Silver City residents and groups.

The program is an annual tradition in the community of Silver City, which is located in one of the few National Historic Landmarks in the state of Nevada. The town is home to the renowned Silver City Fireman's Ball, to the world famous, annual Ferrari Races, and to many well-known artists, musicians, archaeologists, artisans, and writers. It's views of the Sierras and its historic buildings and sites attract visiting plein air painters and photographers from around the West.

For more information, contact Quest Lakes of Healthy Communities at 287-7598.

FAQ About the Silver City Nevada Volunteer Library

1)HOW MANY BOOKS DOES THE Volunteer LIBRARY HAVE? The volunteer library now has thousands of books, many sets of reference works like encyclopedias, a large film collection, magazines, etc. thanks to donors from all over the U.S., Silver City, and the county. Especially generous donors include the Lyon Public Library System, which buys magazines for the library and donates discarded books to us (books they no longer need).

2)I don't see thousands of books? Where are they? Most of the collection is stored in the basement of the school house/community center so that there is plenty of room for other uses upstairs. The collection is rotated every 3 to 4 months, and new arrivals are added each month so there are always new things on the shelves. Below is a list of some particularly interesting parts of the book collection, but the collection includes something for most interests and for every age level.

3)If it's not a public library, how do you keep track of the books? Locals can borrow up to 20 books at a time - it's an honor system and people are encouraged to bring them back in a month or two. There's never been any problems with books disappearing. People are really good about not only returning the books, but bringing them back with a few extras to add to the collection.

4)When is it open? The library has no regular hours, but local residents can borrow books whenever they're at the School House for a town event (and there are lots of those!) or a town meeting.

5)What is the Summer Reading Program? During the summer, the library encourages local kids to read books from the library and in years past, kids who read a particular number of books got to go on a reward trip (for instance, to Tahoe, the VC Pool or a children's movie in Carson City). In summer 2015, the library will offer incentives such as art materials for kids who keep up with their summer reading.

6) Does it Include Publications by Current and Former Residents of Silver City and the Comstock Region? Yes, you'll find books by Robert G. Elston , Robert Elston Jr., Karen Wright, David Toll, Jim McCormick, Shelia Swan, Peter Laufer, etc at the library. See this link for more about the Peter Laufer books: http://www.silvercityreads.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-books-by-shelia-swan-and-peter.html

7) I'm a Science Fiction fan; does the library have much? The library has added hundreds of titles in the sci-fi category, including series from Marion Zimmer Bradley, David Eddings, Zenna Henderson, Raymond E. Feist, Andre Norton, Jennifer Roberson, Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon, and Mercedes Lackey, among many others.

8)I like to read mysteries; what do you have? The library has hundreds of mysteries by dozens of authors, including Raymond Chandler,Tony Hillerman,Walter Mosley,Nevada Barr, Haruki Murakami, Steg Larsson,Carl Hiassen,Ruth Rendell, Ngai Marsh, Patricia Highsmith,Elmore Leonard, Dorothy Sayers,etc.

9) Do you have reference works on art? Yes, due to a generous donation from local artist Karen Kreyeski, the library now has a larger section on art history and selected artists, including works on Picasso, Wahhol, Escher, Goya, Gaughin, Klimt, van Gogh, O’Keeffe, Judy Chicago, and Aubrey Beardsley.

10)I'm a Civil War buff; what do you have on that subject? Due to a donation through local Larry Steinberg, the library has a large collection on Civil War history too

11) Does the library host events? The library periodically hosts special events, including an annual summer reading program and various guest speakers. On Feb 11, 2014 from 5:30pm-8pm, the library hosted a Nevada Arts Council "Art Town Meeting" for the Comstock region. Following are just a few examples of other events the library has hosted in the last few years 1)local resident Dr. Ron Reno gave an archaeology lecture on Windmill Wash and the Civilian Conservation Corp's attempt at a flood control project for Bunkerville, NV in the 1930's. The young CCC men ended up creating some skilled rock work that still exists today. 2)During a Chautauqua performance at the library, scholar Doris Dwyer portrayed the famous photographer, Margaret Bourke-White who married novelist Erskine Caldwell in Silver City in 1939 when the couple toured Nevada 3)Fun with Science, a hands on class approved by the Nevada Registry for child care providers, preschool and elementary teachers, parents and grandparents, was offered free of charge at the library. It was one of a series of similar classes at the library 4) "Tune In To Kids" hands-on educational activities with kids and their parents was offered at the library and park with staff from the Nevada Early Childhood Project for 3 summers in a row

Silver City Volunteer Library celebrates all of September as Banned Books Month. Don't you love libraries? "They're the literary underground, full of book ninjas, fREADom fighters, privacy protectors, censor stoppers, and information wizards." Happy Banned Books Month!

Recommended Summer Reading: Mark Twain's "Roughing It"

This summer seems like an especially fine season to read Mark Twain's "Roughing It." It helps to understand what a "salted mine" is before reading the story. "A salted mine is a mining claim that has been planted with a small amount of gold, silver, etc to make it appear more rich than it is. A classic confidence trick, the salted mine plays on the greed and haste of the "mark" who, in his hurry to claim near instantaneous wealth, fails to ascertain the true value of the land in question before laying out his money. The glittering appearance of the salted mine was designed to make the seller rich and the speculator poor.

The trick worked because most of the mining fortunes made after the initial surge of the gold rush were not made by individual miners driving their picks into veins of solid gold or panning goose-eggs out of the local stream. Actual mining was expensive, back-breaking work best conducted on a large scale by cheap labor. The real money was in speculation. Mines were established with minimal labor, their value assessed (often unreliably) by a small sample of rock submitted to an appraiser, and then they were sold by the foot to other miners, who often had no more intention of actually working the mine than the original owner did."

Adapted from a blog by Sterling at http://saltedmine.blogspot.com/2007/10/in-blog-titled-salted-mine-it-seems.html

New at the Silver City Volunteer Library

New at the Silver City Library:


Fiction:   

 A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin: 4 books from A Song of Ice and Fire Series (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords and A Feast of Crows


The Help by Kathryn Stockett

New DVD:  Easy Rider, with Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper

Comments by Youth Patron:  Mylo McCormick, age 13, notes the value of reading Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events series after reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. He comments, "The Snicket series is quite cleverly funny. The author does not portray the events as seriously as Charles Dickens does in his novels like Great Expectations. Snicket ingeniously pokes fun of Dickens'  writing style, and the old, soot- covered tales of Charles Dickens are brought back to life in a new form  through Snicket's humorous tales about 3 orphans, and their plight through disaster after disaster."

 Volunteer Librarian's Recommendation of the Week: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (as is often the case, the book is much better, and quite different, than the movie):

 The Talented Mr. Ripley is considered to be a classic of the crime genre, featuring Tom Ripley, an agreeable and urbane psychopath who surely must be one of the oddest series figures in crime fiction. Patricia Highsmith is one of America's greatest, yet rarely noted, modernist writers.

Silver City Volunteer Library: Looking Forward to Summer 2013!

It's so beautiful out today that I started thinking about summer in Silver City. Every summer since 2003, Silver City Community Partners task force has organized a themed free kids' summer program for the Comstock region (Silver City, Virginia City, Dayton area). Parents and kids come to the program together and do all sorts of fun things as a family. Below is a small sample of some the activities that the Silver City Community Partners have organized since 2003. The Silver City Volunteer Library organizes its events to coordinate with the Community Partners events, hosting performances or presentations, featuring special book collections relevant to whatever the kids are studying for the summer, etc. The Silver City Volunteer Library and the Silver City Community Partners are both partners with the nonprofit Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey.

Sample of Events Since 2003:

Field trips to Shakespeare at Sand Harbor, to organic farms like Smith and Smith Farms, to museums and hands-on discovery centers in Reno, Carson, Tahoe, and Virginia City, to pools and state and large municipal parks, and to opera and musicals in Reno.

Summer reading programs at the local volunteer library

Themed book release parties for popular fiction such as the Harry Party series

Science, math, and engineering activities with 4-H and visiting engineers, scientists, geologists,  park rangers, River Wranglers, Mackay School of Mines Museum, Nevada Department of Minerals, Department of Wildlife, etc

Art lessons with professional artists like Deb Glogovac, Alison Harris, Andrea Delfin, and Larry Wahrenbrock, and artists and folk artists from Nevada Council on Arts 

Theatre productions like Old Plumbottom written by Will Rose and performed by local kids

Acting lessons with Nevada Shakespeare Company

Music lessons with Will and Sheree Rose, Chris Bayer, and Bob and Cashion Elston

Cooking lessons with locals like Renate Victor, Meg Burns, Louise Crawford, Sara Ross, Bonnie Brown and Cashion Callaway

Gardening and horticulture lessons by Renate Victor, Mary MacDonald, UNCE Master Gardeners and others

Lessons in basketball, yoga, and dance

Chautauqua or “living history” events with Civil War groups and Nevada Humanities scholars and Young Chautauqua performers

Bicycle repair classes with Chris Brown

“Tune In To Kids” parents and kids hands-on educational enrichment fairs with United Way

Chess lessons with Jim Allander

Rocket-building with Mind Builders teachers on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). 

Old-fashioned ice cream making with a hand-cranked ice cream maker (using organic fruit). 

Photography and journaling workshops with Renate Victor

Workshops on water systems of the region with Linda Conlin of River Wranglers

Workshops on animals like bats with Nevada Department of Wildlife

Geocaching Treasure hunt with Nevada Dept of Geology staff who taught how to use GPS systems