Capital City Arts Initiative

Artist’s Reception: Saturday, July 12, 5-7pm
Exhibition Dates: June 1 – August 25, 2013
Exhibition Venue: CCAI at St. Mary’s Art Center 55 R Street, Virginia City, Nevada

Barbara Holmes’ Marker
CCAI Exhibition at St. Mary’s 

The Capital City Arts Initiative [CCAI] and St. Mary’s Art Center present Marker, an exhibition by artist Barbara Holmes through August 25. The exhibition is in the Center’s 4^th floor gallery from June 1 – August 25. CCAI and St. Mary’s will host a reception for the artist on Saturday, July 12 from 5 – 7pm. St. Mary’s Art Center is located at 55 R Street, Virginia City; the gallery is open to the public Thursday – Sunday, 10am – 6pm. The exhibition and reception are free and the public is cordially invited.

Ms. Holmes created the art during a residency in May at St. Mary’s. Much of her art practice has focused on the reclamation and creative reuse of discarded construction materials. For the Marker project, Ms. Holmes researched the source of the lumber used in the Comstock era mines that was gathered from Tahoe Basin trees. Ms. Holmes searched out these old growth stumps and made “rubbings” on paper of the stump tops to memorialize the trees and what was given to the mines. The exhibition presents ten large prints of the felled tree stumps.

Barbara Holmes is a sculptor and furniture maker who received her MFA from San Diego State University in 2002 and her BFA from Brigham Young University in 1993. Her work has been included in group exhibitions locally at Headlands Center for the Arts, Museum of Craft and Design, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, Root Division, Catharine Clark Gallery, The Compound Gallery. She has participated in national group exhibitions at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, and at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, among others. She has been awarded Artist Residencies at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado, and at Recology in San Francisco. Her art is part of the permanent collection at SFMOMA. She also has extensive teaching experience, having taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, San Diego State University, Southwestern College, Mira Costa College, and currently at California College of the Arts.   Ms. Holmes lives in Oakland, California.

Scott Oliver wrote the exhibition essay, This Side of Oblivion: Reflections on Marker; click here to read the essay. In 2005, Mr. Oliver co-founded Shotgun Review, an online source for reviews of Bay Area contemporary art, with curator Joseph del Pesco. He was a frequent contributor to Shotgun Review and has written essays and conducted interviews for The Present Group, Southern Exposure, and Art Practical. Oliver holds a BFA in Graphic Design and an MFA in Wood/Furniture from California College of the Arts. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at venues throughout the Bay Area and nationally. Mr. Oliver lives in Fort Bragg, California.

CCAI appreciates photographers Gerald Holmes and Frances Melhop-Deming assistance in recording Ms. Holmes’ printmaking processes during the residency.

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 its online projects.

CCAI is funded, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, City of Carson City, Nevada Arts Council, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, John and Grace Naumann Foundation, and the Carson Nugget.