Capital City Arts Initiative

Artist’s Reception: Sunday, June 27, 1-4pm
Exhibition Dates: June 27 – August 22, 2015
Exhibition Venue: Meinecke Gallery, St. Mary’s Art Center 55 North R Street, Virginia City

Emily Silver Exhibition
at St. Mary’s Art Center

The Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] announces its exhibition, Counterpane by artist Emily Silver, at St. Mary’s Art Center’s Meinecke Gallery from June 27 – August 22, 2015. CCAI and St. Mary’s will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, June 27, 1-4pm including an artist talk at 2pm. St. Mary’s Art Center is located at 55 North R Street, Virginia City, Nevada. The reception and the exhibition are free and the public is cordially invited. The gallery is open to the public Thursday – Sunday, 11am – 4pm.

Annually, CCAI and St. Mary’s Art Center collaborate on an artist residency and exhibition. Ms. Silver will begin her residency at the Art Center on June 8 to create the work for her exhibition. This is the seventh artist residency/exhibition collaboration between St. Mary’s and CCAI.

Emily Silver’s landscape-based abstract paintings reflect her deep personal connection to the Great Basin desert landscape and geography. As a former northern Nevada resident, her art describes how the physical environment influences her work. Using maps as signifier of place she develops paintings that aim to conjure a sense of atmosphere, topography, and what we recall about a landscape. Through this series of paintings, she explores sites to discover the comforting elements of attachment. More information and images about Emily Silver’s art is available online at http://emilysilver.com/

Emily Silver’s exhibition history includes solo shows at McKinley Art Center Gallery, Reno [2014]; The Springs Preserve, Las Vegas [2010]; The Painting Center in New York [2002]; Nevada State Library and Archives [2002]; and Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, California [2000]. She teaches Drawing and Watercolor at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California, and spends as much time as possible in the high desert, as she says: “filling the well.” She earned a M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute, in Painting, 2007 and a B.A. With Distinction at Stanford University in Studio Art, 1973. Silver currently lives with her family and maintains a studio in Ferndale, California.

Shaun Griffin has written the essay, Cartographer of Stone, Silence, and Dust, for Emily Silver’s exhibition. Click HERE to read the essay. He is the author of five books of poetry including This Is What the Desert Surrenders, New and Selected Poems, [2012], editor of two anthologies, and translator of a book of poems. He recently finished a memoir about thirty years of living, working and writing in the Great Basin, Anthem for a Burnished Land, and edited a book of essays on the late poet and critic, Hayden Carruth: From Sorrow’s Well: The Poetry of Hayden Carruth, University of Michigan Press, 2013. Griffin is the co-founder and director of Community Chest, a non-profit agency serving children and families in northwestern Nevada since 1991. He earned his M.S. in Counseling, 1978, and a B.A. Psychology in 1975, both at California State University, Fullerton. He lives in Virginia City, Nevada, with his family.

This exhibition is supported with a lead donation from Comstock Foundation for History and Culture.

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. The Initiative is committed to community building for the area’s diverse adult and youth populations through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects.

CCAI is funded in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, Nevada Arts Council, City of Carson City, NV Energy Foundation, U.S. Bank Foundation, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Comstock Foundation for History and Culture, and the John and Grace Nauman Foundation.

top image: Weather, Portent, Weather, watercolor on paper, 2010
2nd image: Summer Lake: Inconstant, watercolor on paper, 2014
3rd image: Comfort East Facing Slope, watercolor on paper, 2015
bottom image: Counterpane exhibition flier