Two Sisters by Erika Hughes

Come and leisurely stroll through the Neighborhood Center of the Arts on Saturday and Sunday October 9 & 10 and October 16 & 17. Usually closed on the weekend, this gives people a chance to explore their art center.

A complete collection of year round art created by developmentally disabled adults will be available to the community during Open Studios. The Neighborhood Center of the Arts is participating in the Western Nevada County Open Studios Art Tour and Sale, a self-guided tour of 55 artists in 50 studios. Choose from items created in our Ceramics, Woodworking, Visual Arts, Computer Arts and Fiber Arts departments. Once you experience this magical fantastic collection of art by this special population, you will walk out our doors with a heart opening you didn’t expect.

Hours: 10:00 am to 5:00pm. Sat. & Sun.
When: October 9 & 10 and October 16 & 17
Where: Neighborhood Center of the Arts (up the hill to the left of Briar Patch Coop)
Who: Neighborhood Center of the Arts (NCA)
What: Art Exhibition and Sale created by Developmentally Disabled Adults
Contact: Amee Medeiros (530) 272-7287 ncadirector@nccn.net
Neighborhood Center of the Arts, 200 Litton Drive #212, Grass Valley, CA 95945
www.neighborhoodcenterofthearts.com

Photographer Lesley Deutsch

Furniture makers, painters, sculptors, printmakers and fiber artists, along with mosaics, ceramics, glass, wood art, and jewelry round out the offerings of this year’s Open Studios.

As a Sierra College/Rocklin survey noted, Nevada County has more artists in proportion to its population than any other county in California. This statistic is borne out in the Open Studios tour, which presents the artwork of just a fraction of artists in the county.

“We are a culturally very rich,” remarks Tour producer Carol Herschleb. “If all our artists chose to participate in the Tour, we’d need a couple of months, instead of a couple of weekends, to give the public an opportunity to see it all. With 45 studios, art lovers can choose their favorites, enjoy our fall season, and perhaps visit an area of the county they’ve never seen before.”

This is a free event! Directories, complete with maps, are available at these outlets: in Grass Valley, at Center For The Arts, ArtWorks Gallery, GV Chamber of Commerce, AS IF Studios. In Nevada City, at NC Picture Framing, JJ Jacksons, Mowen Solinsky Gallery, NC Chamber of Commerce, Broad Street Bistro, and LaLoo.

For more information, visit www.openstudiostour.org. This website includes a printable directory and maps. Become a friend of the Open Studios Tour Facebook Page for updates on the tour and meet other folks attending this fantastic event.

Nothing compares to the handcrafted quality of letterpress printing. Used for over five centuries, this printing technique originally employed raised metal type cast from hot lead. Judith Berliner has been in the printing industry since she was 14 years old when her father, Harold Berliner (attorney, author of the Miranda Warning and a printer), moved his print shop to their family home in Grass Valley, CA. As the fourth of eight children, she continues the family tradition with Full Circle Press, where she prints one-of-a-kind invitations, announcements, cards, letterheads and other projects for clients all over the world.

Jacob Morrison - Dancing in the Wind Art Seat

Jacob’s passion for woodworking took root during his years at Truckee High, where he repeated the wood shop course three times. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in biology and summer stints as a tile layer, in 2007, Jacob and his wife Lindsey moved to Portola to start up his Rustic Tree Creations business.

Searching for special chunks of wild wood, or taking someone else’s throwaway lumber, Jacob has a unique way of allowing each piece to speak to him, envisioning how it will best be utilized as functional art.

Jacob also spends time scavenging old tools from antique shops and flea markets, refurbishing them for use in his craft. Recently, he took a group of unusable relics and made them into a chair that he calls his Rustic Chairmakers Chair. It won the People’s Choice award at the North Tahoe Arts Gallery May showcase.

The whimsical Art Seat called Dancing In The Wind is a playful design from lodgepole pine branches—the legs dance while the back is blowing in the wind. The seat is fashioned from a reclaimed Turkish shipping crate. Those who try out this chair always remark on the surprising solid comfort despite its appearing as though it might whisk them away.

Currently, a variety of works from Rustic Tree Creations can be seen at the new Artisans Market Place on Donner Pass Road in Brickelltown, Truckee (just east of Burger Me). The art co-op features 19 local Artisans and is open daily 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. For more information about Rustic Tree Creations, contact Jacob Morrison at 530-832-5435.

On June 24th, the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet will perform at Music in the Mountains SummerFest concert series as they honor Terry Riley, one of the most significant composers of the 20th century. June 24th also happens to be Terry’s 75th birthday. This concert celebrates Terry’s musical contribution to Kronos over many years as Kronos Quartet will uncustomarily perform an entire evening of solely Terry Riley compositions.

Thursday, June 24, 2010 7:30pm, Amaral Family Festival Center, Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley, CA, For tickets go to www.musicinthemountains.org

Thursday, June 24th, the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet will honor composer Terry Riley at Music in the Mountains SummerFest. Riley is one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, steeped in jazz as well as traditional Indian music. As a pianist and singer, Riley is still actively performing all over the world. In C (1964) is probably Riley’s best-known work and one that brought the minimalist music movement to prominence. Its influence has been heard in the works of prominent composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams and in the music of rock groups such as The Who, The Soft Machine, Tangerine Dream, Curved Air and many others. Among his numerous contributions to music, Riley has also scored three feature films and made music for numerous short films. Riley began his long-lasting association with the Kronos Quartet by meeting its founder, David Harrington, while teaching at Mills College in the 1970s.

For more information call the Music in the Mountains box office for tickets, 530-265-6124, or visit www.musicinthemountains.org to purchase tickets online.

Music in the Mountains’ Young Composers continuing the great tradition of music in Nevada County

Nevada County has a rich musical history. From classical and folk to rock and bluegrass, Nevada County has been home to many popular music festivals, camps and musicians such as Alasdair Fraser, Roy Rogers, Roger Hodgson, Jonathan Richman, Terry Riley and Joanna Newsom. Since 1982, Music in the Mountains, has been bringing classical music to the beautiful California Gold Country. The Young Composers Program is a collaboration between Music in the Mountains and the Nevada County Composers Cooperative and taught by composers Jerry Grant and Mark Vance. It kicks off early in the school year with youth from 5th grade through college. Students present a mid-year recital of vocal works, and the program culminates with the exciting and highly anticipated Young Composers Concert. For more information on click here.

Photographer Elizabeth Carmel in the High Sierras, CA

“So what would you do if you came upon a sight seen before only to see it as if for the first time? This was the effect Carmel’s work had on me; capturing the power of what exists while elevating the experience through the poetic use of photography.” – Robert Redford from the forward to Brilliant Waters

Following in the footsteps of landscape photographers like Ansel Adams, photographer Elizabeth Carmel has made a career out of capturing majestic mountain scenes throughout the Sierra Nevadas and sharing them with both outdoor and art enthusiasts. Inspired by the changing light at dawn and twilight over snow covered peaks and pristine alpine lakes, she makes the long journey into these remote locations by mule bringing only the necessities – camping supplies and of course her Hasselblad h44D camera. With an ultra-high resolution 39 megapixel, she is able to capture the vivid colors and subtle details of the natural world. She does all of her own printing on fine art paper or canvas with long-life pigmented inks. Carmel’s breadth of work is astonishing. Her award-winning photos are on display at galleries throughout California and Washington including her own gallery in Truckee, CA, and at the Nevada Museum of Art. She is also the author of two books Brilliant Waters (2006), which features a forward by Robert Redford and The Changing Range of Light (2009). Along with her husband Olof, also a photographer, they own Carmel Gallery in Truckee, CA.

How did you choose this place to live, work, create?

I moved to Truckee in the early 90s to work for the newly incorporated town as a land use planner, and found that it was the perfect place for me with all the outdoor activities, friendly community, and beautiful scenery. Now I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Describe the art community where you live and work.

I think our arts community here in Truckee has so many wonderfully talented and creative people. I think it would be great if we had more art galleries in our historic downtown, but it is difficult to pay the high downtown rents as an art gallery. We really got our start through the North Tahoe Arts in Public Places program. We sold our first prints at the Truckee Starbucks and Wild Cherries coffee houses, and everything progressed from there through participation in Art Tour and then in a few local galleries & art shows, until we were able to open our own gallery in 2006. I hope there is an opportunity for a local artists co-op to take root in downtown Truckee.

What inspiration do you derive from your community and place?

We are so fortunate to be able to live in an area with such beautiful scenery and unspoiled places. I realize that most people do not have this opportunity. I am constantly inspired by the great vistas and places I see while out skiing, mountain biking, and hiking. It is not hard to be inspired when you live in the Sierra region. I particularly like to work with the seasons and take advantage of all the photography opportunities offered by the changing seasons.

You’ve traveled all over the world, what makes the Nevada County arts community and the art made here unique?

We love to travel but there is nothing like being able to return home to such a great place. One thing I talk about in my books is that the Sierra region has wilderness that is still wild and primeval. The concept of protected wilderness in the developed world started as a very American construct, and one of the things about which I am very proud of as an American. We owe a great debt to the previous generation who was visionary enough to protect large swaths of the Sierra as national parks and wilderness. I think the large, protected, beautiful parks are one of the reasons we have seen some great photographers emerge from the Sierra, such as Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, etc. The challenge of our generation is to be good stewards of what we have inherited and to address modern threats to our region, particularly the issues presented by climate change and increased motorized recreation.

Do you see your work as commercial, political or fine-art? Or a little of both?

I think it is a little of all of those. It has to be commercially appealing for me to be able to devote myself full time a a profession. It is political in that I have a message I try to communicate about the importance of protecting beautiful, wild natural areas. And it is fine art since I shoot primarily with an eye to creating pieces that (I hope) communicate a sense of transcendence and the experience of that which is also invisible.

Not only are you a photographer, but a gallery owner, publisher, mother and wife. How do you juggle all of these?

We are fortunate at the gallery to have a wonderful staff of people working with us as art consultants and we also have an amazing framer who is an artist himself. I definitely couldn’t manage without Olof being the great father & husband, & businessman that he is. I have to stay organized and focussed on priorities, but enjoy having alot going on so it works out well. We realize that we are very lucky to do what we do for a living, and try to never take that for granted. We are grateful to the community for supporting us in our artistic ventures.

What is your favorite season in the Sierras?

That would be like trying to pick a favorite child, it can’t be done!

For more information on Elizabeth Carmel go to www.elizabethcarmel.com. Visit Carmel Gallery in Historic Downtown Truckee, 9940 Donner Pass Road, Truckee, (530)-582-0557.

Miners Foundry Cultural Center

From humble beginnings as a machine shop in 1855 to its current incarnation as a cultural center and community meeting place, Miners Foundry has prospered and grown with Nevada County. Located in the heart of downtown Nevada City, California, Miners Foundry retains the character of gold rush days with its rough hewn beams, heavy metal doors, antique fixtures and furnishings. The Miners Foundry has been host to Richie Havens, Roger Hodgson, Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, and the popular annual Artisans Festival.

"The Elders" Kurt Steger Sculpture, Grass Valley, CA

After years as a trained woodworker and fine furniture maker, Kurt Steger decided to turn his hand to sculpture. Heavily influenced by the American Arts and Crafts movement, Japanese woodworking, indigenous art, and the artwork of Martin Puryear, Andy Goldsworthy and Eva Hesse, Steger uses natural materials to echo the forms found in nature. With reverence for the past and the sacred, Steger’s work connects with the deep currents of life to shed light and heal.

Since 2008, Steger has been dividing his time between Grass Valley, CA and Floyd, VA. It is a move he hopes will help in establishing a presence for his artwork on both coasts. The two studios, both located in distinguished art communities, allow him to take summers to recharge and develop his studio works on 100-acres of wilderness preserve in Virginia and during the winters construct larger pieces including commissioned public art pieces in his 3300-sq foot studio in Grass Valley.

His work has been shown throughout Northern California, New York, and Santa Fe. He has had solo shows at the Sonoma Museum of Visual Art and b.sakata garo Fine Art.  He has also shown at Crocker Art Museum. Steger is also frequently commissioned for public art including a piece in Sacramento City Hall.

How did moving to Nevada County effect you as an artist and/or your art?

The City of Grass Valley recently commissioned a $50,000 public art piece for a roundabout in the Hills Flat area. The timber, metal and concrete structure is five-feet tall, stretches 35-feet long and made from local materials. Four panels of timber frames hold rusted metal sheets with symbols of Nevada County’s history including the original inhabitants of the area the Tsi-Akim Maidu, Cornish and Chinese people that migrated to the area during the Gold Rush to work in the mines, and the mining and logging industries.  The roundabout piece marks an exciting artistic turning point for Steger who wrestled with making himself and his artwork so visible. Fortunately, his overwhelming desire for art to be enjoyed by all members of the community quieted any uncertainties he had and has begun a new chapter in his career.

Kurt Steger at work

Fifteen years ago, you moved from Sonoma County to Nevada County. How did you choose this place to live, work, create?

I didn’t know any one at the time. My partner Libby and I had heard about this property, the old Empire dairy in downtown Grass Valley, as a possible studio. After seeing it, the studio had so much to offer; more than I could deal with at the time. I realized that I could grow into the space and in the years to come I could do large-scale pieces with a lot of weight.

Sonoma County was the birthplace of my art career. It was where I started doing sculpture fulltime. When I came here the possibilities increased in terms of what I was able to do. Nevada County was a smaller community and I felt that there was more possibility of forming a tighter knit art community. It was small enough to have shows in my barn and bring the entire art community together. Something vibrant happened during those first years. I think the shift for me in my work was the message behind it. My art still had the level of craftsmanship and fine work, but the works had more of a connection to what was happening in the world. The first show I did was at the Exploding Head Gallery in Sacramento two days after 9-11. I was honored to have a show at that time, and it had a healing aspect to it. My “Weight of Time” show was at Julie Baker Fine Art right after the invasion of Iraq. It was about healing what was going on politically in the world. I was staying in my studio, instead of being active politically. These events touched me deeply and the end result really touched people in a deep way. It was an influential show in my career in realizing my artwork does have a viable way in touching people in a non-verbally and creating a space to heal a community.

You mention living close to nature, how has the natural setting of the Sierra Nevada’s influenced your work?What sets Nevada County apart from so many small art communities?

Location. In the foothills, you are between the extreme nature of the Sierra Nevada’s and the metropolitan influence of the Bay Area, and also Sacramento, that has an incredible arts community and a really wonderful support for the arts especially public arts.

I’ve realized the healing aspect of it – this area in particular has a mix of natural beauty in contrast to the devastation that occurred during the Gold Rush with the mining industry. I find the contrast fascinating. Another aspect is the human element – people came out here to strike it rich and make their way, which turned out to be a very hard way of life. I feel fortunate enough to have had some old miners still living in my neighborhood when I moved here to share their stories of how hard it was, what happened to the environment and the destruction of the native peoples. I’m becoming more aware of what happened to the native people here. 99.8% of the native peoples where wiped out and I believe that this area carries that energy and personally that needs to be acknowledged and healed before we can move forward. Without me trying, this is becoming more important in my work, and showing up more. The second half of my career has been more about the energy of healing and acknowledging the truths of how we live, have lived and need to move forward with forgiveness.

Sculptor Kurt Steger

You incorporate many natural elements like stone and wood into your sculptures. Do you find inspiration in nature like hiking along the river or are you more inspired by the architecture and contrast of wood and metal buildings?

I love to walk the river. It’s where I let go of my art in pursuit of beauty. I find more inspiration walking the Empire Mine and seeing the architecture, not so much of the mansion but of the old foundations of the mining equipment and the concrete that has been there for a hundred years weathering. It is a manmade footprint on the environment. I’m fascinated with the contrast, on one level I it very ugly and on another the weathering and disintegration of man’s footprint on the environment. My biggest inspiration and what I’m fascinated in pursuing is the contrast between the human element and nature and how each can enhance the other.

What do you want people to know about the arts in Nevada County?

That this community cares about the arts and realizes that the arts are the soul of a community. I love the fact that people can come here and theatre is happening and music is happening, from classical with Music in the Mountains to contemporary at the Center for the Arts. I love that we have the environmental film festival and the other film festival started by young filmmakers. I’d like to see people take away a realization that young people are involved in the arts and this is a place for young artists to experiment, show and have their work experienced so they can grow as artists.

What is your legacy in this community? Is it the roundabout piece or something else? And is it frightening to think you have a legacy?

I had a moment right before we installed the roundabout piece where I felt very vulnerable and naked and questioned if I wanted to be that visible. It was a momentary fear that came up and I realized this is what I do and what I want to do. I want beautiful artworks to have a large presence and if they have my name it, then so be it. I do feel like I have a legacy in this community that started in 1997 when I landed here and threw my first arts party. This piece is huge for me because I built it to last and unless they tear it out to do something with the roundabout, it will be here for a hundred years or better, I built it to be passed down by the generations.

For more information on Kurt Steger click here.  Photos by Linda Savitz.