Creating Hammock Time for the Future
McCormick House's north side in late spring. Photo/Quest Lakes.
By Quest Lakes
For years my husband Theo and I wanted to buy the land surrounding McCormick House—the housing for visiting artists with our Resident Artist Program in Silver City, Nevada. When the property, which is located within the National Historic Landmark of the Comstock, came up for sale a few months ago, we bought it and began exploring the acres of trails made by wild horses and mule deer. We imagined how the land could be used by visiting artists with the Resident Artist Program for plein air painting, acoustic music, and photography. We considered building small writing or art studios with windows facing the spectacular views of the Sierra and Pine Nut mountains. We imagined possibilities for commissioning artists to create temporary and/or permanent outdoor art pieces on the newly acquired land once the pandemic wanes.
On a sunny 50° day last month, I snapped a photo of my husband relaxing in a hammock he had hung between two trees on those undeveloped acres. The scene reminded me of something the Australian father of permaculture, Bill Mollison, was known for saying: “maximize hammock time” by “working with, rather than against, nature.” Mollison urged people to use “thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor,” allowing nature to do some of the work of gardening and farming.
Theo McCormick of the Resident Artist Program in Silver City at sunset on the Program's newly acquired land. Photo/Quest Lakes.
That insight led us to begin working with local permaculture designer Canyon Cassidy, who helped us see the land in an entirely new and hopeful way.
Nearly every inch of the land we bought shows evidence of disturbance from mining exploration in the late 1800s to early 1900s. There are historic headframes, deep mine shafts, mine tailings, and dirt haul roads. Canyon pointed out that much of the land was disturbed in such a way that any rain that comes washes downhill into mine shafts or onto surrounding public roads instead of nurturing the native pinon pines, shrubs, wildflowers, and anything else that might be able to grow there.
Canyon is working with us to design a long-term plan so this little patch of scarred land can eventually provide nuts, berries, and tree shade that future generations can enjoy.
The backdrop to this permaculture story is that it exists within a pandemic, and all the crushing sorrow that entails. But another impact of COVID-19 is also part of this story—my attention has shifted so that now when I’m here, on this roughly used land, I see it freshly, as our visiting artists do. I find delight in the native plants, the shy wildlife, and even in unearthing the rusted bits and pieces that remain of the hard scrabble-shacks of the past.
Now the red-tailed hawks, formidable tarantula hawks, and signs of mountain lions and mule deer stand out for me as if in bas-relief, as they have for many of our previous visiting artists. When Pulitzer Prize nominated poet David Lee was a Resident Artist in Silver City in 2017, he sent emails about his experience hiking near McCormick House and hearing live music from the town's outdoor stage a mile away. He wrote, "I hiked a long way yesterday...Way way up there I heard the music...The local band and their Tumbling Tumbleweeds sparked a poem I spent the entire afternoon and a lot of the night on...It was a moment of epiphany for me. I sang along with Tumbling Tumbleweeds, deliriously, off key and viva voce and when we finished, all together, in fact, I stayed still for a while, seconds, maybe minutes, time was suspended, and when I came back there were 3 jackrabbits almost within spitting distance of me, staring at me, all, and I could hear them wondering Who and what in the world is this? and 2 hawks directly overhead screeing, and I came back and then walked away, down, and the jackrabbits did not move, and the hawks, for a short way, lead the way, singing. Glory."
These days I also take more notice of the historic fragments here—rusted cans from the 1930s, bits of china dishes, square nails, shiny desert glass. Modern day “Danger!” signs posted on open mine shafts stand out among the ruinous impacts of the mining operations of earlier Comstock history. When Michigan-based artist Brian Schorn was a Resident Artist in Silver City in 2015, his fresh look at this historical detritus resulted in the creation of two dozen masterfully constructed assemblages that have been on display in seven solo shows around northern Nevada sponsored by Sierra Arts Foundation. Brian wrote, “I remember so many times, while hiking alone, seeing something out of the corner of my eye, looking closer and finding an amazing configuration of colored rocks, purple glass, and rusted metal. This experience was so powerful, that I began picking up my own found objects along the trail. I brought them back to the studio and ended up with a collection of material that eventually became a series of wall assemblages entitled ‘Comstock Wabi-Sabi.’" He explained that one of the artworks in “Comstock Wabi-Sabi” titled Dinnerware included "broken pieces of plates, cups and bowls,” common objects to “find in and around the mining areas. Often, upon finding colorful, ornate, yet deteriorating pieces of dinnerware, I would pause and think to myself, 'Who ate off of this plate and what was their life like?' This historical perspective gave significant impact to every fragment I found. Each fragment containing its own stories, some evident, some secret.”
Over the last few months, our children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, and friends have come to walk this land with us, also seeing it anew. It’s something we can safely do together, still taking the precaution of wearing masks and staying distant as we take in the views. Walking the land, seeing its wounds and scars and envisioning it healing over time inspires a real and concrete hope for a future beyond this pandemic. I imagine this land 50 years from now covered with trees and berry bushes, inhabited by frogs and lizards, owls and deer, and enjoyed by visiting artists and writers from around the world.
View toward the Sierra mountains, which can be seen southwest of the Resident Artist Program land. Photo/Quest Lakes.
Photo/Quest Lakes.
Quest Lakes moved to Nevada in the 1980s and fell in love with the state and its fascinating history, landscape, wildlife, and culture. She and her husband Theo McCormick fund the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, which provides a way for visual artists, writers, and musicians from other parts of the U.S. and the world to engage with the town and the region through the arts. Visiting artists reside at a geodesic dome known as McCormick House in exchange for offering free public performances, exhibitions, workshops, etc.
Thank you for visiting Humanities Heart to Heart, a program of Nevada Humanities. Any views or opinions represented in posts or content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage are personal and belong solely to the author or contributor and do not represent those of Nevada Humanities, its staff, or any donor, partner, or affiliated organization, unless explicitly stated. At no time are these posts understood to promote particular political, religious, or ideological points of view; advocate for a particular program or social or political action; or support specific public policies or legislation on behalf of Nevada Humanities, its staff, any donor, partner, or affiliated organization. Omissions, errors, or mistakes are entirely unintentional. Nevada Humanities makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on these posts or found by following any link embedded in these posts. Nevada Humanities reserves the right to alter, update, or remove content on the Humanities Heart to Heart webpage at any time.