Window/Mirror on the World

By Kathleen Kuo

I close my eyes, and I hear the ocean. The whispers of wind filtering through leaves of grass, small flies buzzing next to my ears and zipping in and out, the round notes of a bird call. I am peacefully laying in the middle of a mountain meadow on a hot summer day and losing myself in meditative listening. After being cooped up at home for more than a year, Nevada has never sounded more beautiful than in this moment.

Then the five minutes are up, we open our eyes, and I am back in the space of our online listening workshop with Fil Corbitt.

Since March, we have been hosting a free online series of creative workshops inspired by the themes and illustrations found in Aimee Nezhukumatathil's book World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, one of our 2021 Nevada Reads selections. During these workshops, participants spend time together learning new creative techniques and skills using the natural world as inspiration. (Learn about the butterflies of Nevada with Cynthia Scholl here!) The current exhibition, Wonders of Nevada: Nature as the Artist’s Muse, is a collection of artwork and other media from our workshop leaders that highlight the wonders of our state’s living environment and great outdoors.

My colleague Bobbie Ann Howell, also an accomplished and talented artist in her own right, curated this exhibition. But there's another side of Bobbie Ann that people don't always know about - spend five minutes with her and you'll learn more nature facts than you thought possible (I’m amazed at her knowledge of butterflies and bees and bighorn sheep), ask her about her favorite places in Nevada and you'll be swept up in her loving descriptions of places far and wide. And now, having worked with the other artists and naturalists featured in this exhibition, I too can feel their passion for the outdoors and their wish to share what they experience with others through art and other media.

After having hosted these workshops, seeing the artwork up close for the first time prompted a more emotional response. Visiting the Program Gallery in downtown Las Vegas, I could finally get up close to Candace Garlock's printed quilt blocks and see the fine details, imagine feeling the bumps and ridges of the textured painted surfaces. I could walk around Tia Flores' detail-laden calabaza vessel, marveling at it from all angles, and see the same controlled lines she demonstrated with pyrography during her workshop being used here. I could feel myself mimicking the painting strokes I watched on screen during Ahren Hertel's workshops as he created happy little sagebrush, the organic lines and motions that Anne Hoff used as she taught us how to depict the spaces between the forms of trees. There is nothing like seeing art up close and in person; Ahren discussed this during his most recent workshop, of the stark contrast between seeing great masterpieces in textbooks or on the computer screen, and then seeing them in front of you at an art museum.

For over a year and a half now, my outdoors experiences have been more or less non-existent; daily dog-walks around the neighborhood are pretty much the only breath of fresh air I get before heading back into the enclosed sanctuary of my home. But as we gather together during these workshops, I get a tiny taste of Nevadan life beyond the screen. Over the course of an hour, I learn artistic techniques and other useful knowledge about Nevada nature and ecology, but I also learn about life and climate in other parts of Nevada during our casual conversations. As participants come back for repeat workshops, I feel a quiet and peaceful warmth in my chest sparked by this open community we have gathered.

Nevada Humanities Exhibition Series 2021, Wonders of Nevada with author. Photo/Bobbie Ann Howell.

Our current exhibition series asks us to consider the ways in which nature might act as the artist’s muse. But nature is also more than just a muse - we must also cultivate and protect our relationship with the earth and those who inhabit it. During the pandemic, nature is a source of healing and respite when we are otherwise kept indoors, a reminder of the special spaces of our state that motivate our artists and scientists to keep on going - a true source of wonder. I look forward to unpacking the relationship our artists have with Nevada’s outdoor spaces and nature during our discussion on September 2. I encourage you to get your blood flowing by going outside (safely) on a walk, to get your mirror neurons firing left and right, and most of all, to think about the myriad ways that the environment shapes who we are and what we want to be, as well as how we want our environment to look and be for generations to come.

Kathleen Kuo is a Program Manager for Nevada Humanities.

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Our series of online creative workshops will continue into 2022, and we look forward to hosting in-person and outdoors workshops when the time is right. You can find more information and register for upcoming workshops here.

Join us for an online discussion with some of the artists featured in this exhibition on Thursday, September 2, 2021, at 6 pm PDT. You can find images and other media from our current exhibition in the Las Vegas Program Gallery online here.

Nevada HumanitiesAugust 26, 2021