Healthy Communities Coalition is happy to add support for arts and culture events in public spaces whenever possible. Coming up this Saturday, check out this show with live music, delicious treats made from Community Harvest CSA produce, and a chance to meet New Zealand artist Sophie Scott and to see the incredible works of art she’s created since she’s been in Nevada – they’re based on topographical maps and historic photographs of the Comstock. Press release below is from the Resident Artist Program in Silver City Nevada:

Public Invited to Art Show Saturday, October 24th

The Resident Artist Program in Silver City is delighted to announce that New Zealand-based painter and printmaker Sophie Scott is the resident artist in Silver City, Nevada this Fall!

The award-winning young artist, who has already had a number of shows in Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand, will have a pop-up show and public meet and greet on Saturday, October 24th from 1pm-4pm at the Silver City School House at 385 High Street. She’ll share her latest works of art, which are based on historic photographs and the topography of the historic Comstock communities.

The free event includes music by Mylo McCormick, and hors d’oeuvres made with local organic produce from Community Harvest CSA. The show is sponsored by the Silver City Volunteer Library, Healthy Communities Coalition, and the Resident Artist Program.

Sophie, who graduated in 2011 with a BFA in painting from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, creates art that is concerned with the tension of the urban and rural. She works through a reductive process of stencilling, usually from black and white historic photos. Of her unusual artwork, she writes, “My work is primarily concerned with the stripping back of an image. Through the stencil process I search for the point where an image forms and dissolves. My work consists of two parts, the painting and the stencil. The stencils are residues of my painting process, which hold traces of the hand on the outskirts of a preconceived structure of voids. The editing process of the stencil reduces the image down to what is essential leaving a confetti of geometrics.”

Both an artist and a shepherd: In addition to creating artwork that’s acclaimed in both New Zealand and Australia, Sophie works as a shepherd on high country sheep and beef farms in the remarkably beautiful South Island of New Zealand.

Parallels between hometown and the Comstock: She grew up on a high country station in the south of New Zealand bordering Lake Wakitipu in the Queenstown/Kingston region. Kingston, which was a main access way for the gold in the New Zealand gold rush, is now a sleepy village at the bottom of Lake Wakatipu, never to regain the population of the gold mining days.  These parallels between her hometown and similar settlements on the Comstock attracted Sophie to the area and it’s unique history.

What is the Resident Artist Program in Silver City? A unique resident artist program has developed in Silver City, a vibrant small community on the Comstock which is located within one of the nation’s largest federally designated historic landmarks. Recently designated an “Arts and Cultural Resources Production Center,” the town is already home to a surprising number of Nevada’s highly productive artists, musicians, photographers, writers, actors, artisans, academics and other innovative thinkers and unique souls. Those creating in the performing, visual, media, design, or literary arts are being invited to reside in town for periods of up to 4 months, in exchange for offering public performances, exhibitions, workshops, art work, etc. in the community.

Contact: The “Resident Artist Program in Silver City” is privately funded and directed by Theo McCormick and Quest Lakes. Artists have been scheduled through Summer 2017, and additional applications are being accepted for later dates. Please contact Quest Lakes at P.O. Box 123, Silver City, Nevada 89428 or quest@theodata.com for additional information.

More about the Resident Artist Program in Silver City can also be found here: https://www.facebook.com/silvercitynevadaresidentartistprogram

Sophie Scott, New Zealand artist and high country shepherd