Arts Council presents new exhibition

An opening reception for artists involved with Beverly & Her Stuff exhibit is set for April 14 from 5-7 p.m. at the Oats Park Arts Council.

The selected mixed-media works of Beverly & Her Stuff also opens on April 14 for a three-month run that ends on July 14. The show features mostly artists from the Reno area and several from rural Nevada.

Joan Arrizabalaga, who now lives in Reno but attended schools in Fallon until she graduated and headed to Reno to attend the University of Nevada, and fellow artist Marti Bein have been conceiving eccentric art experiences in Reno. Arrizabalaga said they worked with The Wedge Ceramics Studio’s owners, Sutter and Samantha Stremmel, to show their art exhibits. She said the group, which is known as Wedge Outside the Box, presents unique and creative art shows.

“We decided to give back to them with a show called ‘Panic,’” Arrizabalaga said.

Arrizabalaga and Bein, with upward to 40 artists, had been presenting their art in Reno until the late Kirk Robertson, the program director of the Churchill Arts Council, saw part of their show, and Kirk’s wife, Valerie Serpa, began to arrange for the exhibition to open in Fallon. Arrizabalaga said the group of artists first started the project in January 2017.

For Beverley & Her Stuff, Arrizabalaga said the artists began with a lifestyle portrait of a lady and from there, they drew life-size templates for each artist. The artists then made a garment for the doll out of anything they found. For example, Arrizabalaga said one artist used bricks for Beverly’s suitcase and called it “Traveling Light.”

Arrizabalaga said Beverly resembles the old-time paper dolls that children would cut out and then take different pieces of apparel and hook them onto the doll with small tabs. When the artists hosted their first show more than 15 months ago at UNR’s Student Galleries South, about artists designed outfits for Beverly, and Arrizabalaga made a design out of puzzle pieces.

In June 2017 article in the Reno News & Review, Bein said, “I think [the shows] are successful because they’re funny and fun. It gets you outside the box, which is kind of what we wanted, to think like you don’t normally think, to make work you would never, ever consider making and see it up in a gallery space.”

Arrizabalaga said she has had a love for the arts since she attended Oats Park School and learned from the legendary Laura Mills, a teacher there.

“She was great,” Arrizabalaga recalled. “We would draw ducks a lot.”

Arrizabalaga, who left Fallon in 1957, said she has many fond memories of growing up here. Her father owned a Basque hotel on Maine Street across from the Court House, and they lived in a house on South Taylor Street near The Slanted Porch restaurant.

For information on Beverly & Her Stuff, call the Churchill Arts Council at 775-423-1440 or email charts@phonewave.net.