Northern Nevada – During this school year, both Dayton and Silver Springs students are being treated to visits with acclaimed artists and curators. Visits from 4 artists were made possible through Capital City Arts Initiative (CCAI), with matching funding from Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey, including visits to Dayton High School art classes by artist Katie Lewis, curator Paul Baker Brindle, and painter Mahsan Ghazianzad, and an upcoming visit to Silver Stage Elementary School by ceramic sculptor Tom Drakulich. The visits are part of a collaborative effort between CCAI and Healthy Communities Coalition that began in 2012 to bring international and local artists, writers, and curators to Dayton and Silver Springs schools.
Artist Katie Lewis visited Dayton High art classes in the Fall of 2015. She has her Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from California College of the Arts, and has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art Luxembourg, Museum Rijswijk – The Netherlands, Stanford University, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco State University, and the Patricia Sweetow Gallery. In 2010 she was awarded a prestigious Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. She has also been included in the publications The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography and Cartographies of Time.
Paul Baker Brindle is Director of University Galleries at University Nevada Reno’s art museum and a frequehntly published visual arts critic. As a member of the UNR Department of Art, he facilitates development of student exhibition practices, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, and fosters connections between students and communities beyond the UNR campus. His curatorial work includes contemporary photography, LGBT art practice, contemporary art made by Indigenous Americans, and Outsider art. Baker Prindle is a leading authority on the work of Ernest Hüpeden, and he also contributed to an exhibition of photographs by Hoorace Poolaw currently on view at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of the American Indian.
Mahsan Ghazianzad is a painter who has shown her work in exhibitions such as Beyond Narrative at UNR, Drawing the Line in Sacramento, and the upcoming juried show Muse in Bend, Oregon. Mahsan will speak about her own work and her major art influences with Malaynia Wick’s art students at Dayton High School. She will visit Dayton High art classes this Spring.
Nevada native Tom Drakulich is a ceramic sculptor. He’ll lead a lesson in clay with 6th graders at Silver Stage Elementary School in Silver Springs in March. His work has been shown in exhibits at University of Nevada Reno such as Recurring Dreams in 2015 and The Spectacle in 2014. Tom attended Truckee Meadows Community College and the University of Nevada, Reno where he received his AA in Art History and his BA in Criminal Justice; he’s currently completing his Masters Degree in Fine Arts at UNR.
Previous Artist and Writer Visits
During the 2014-2015 school year, textile artist Paula Chung and Director of Contemporary Art Initiatives at Nevada Museum of Art JoAnne Northrup visited Dayton High art classes, and writer Caleb Cage gave a reading for Silver Stage High English students.
During 2013-2014 school year, award winning Nevada poet and editor Shaun Griffin gave a reading and led a lesson at Silver Stage High and artist and writer Jane Kenoyer gave an art lesson at Silver Stage Elementary. Artist and mathematician Ben Hoffman, internationally known artist and professor Suzanne Kanatsiz, and Sierra Nevada College instructor and artist Julia Schwadron visited Dayton High art classes.
During the 2012-2013 school year, writer and artist Scott MacLeod of Oakland, science illustrator and writer Laura Cunningham of Berkley, and sculptor Stephen Reid of Dayton visited Dayton High art classes, and artist Jane Kenoyer of Silver Springs gave a presentation to students from several classes at Silver Stage High.
What is CCAI? The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered organization committed to the encouragement and support of artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects. For more information, go to http://www.arts-initiative.org
What is Healthy Communities Coalition? The Coalition is a collaboration of dozens of local, state, federal and tribal group partners, plus hundreds of community volunteers, all working together on a common goal to promote well-being for all in the Lyon/Storey region. For more information about Healthy Communities, please see healthycomm.org.