All ‘ale’ the brew master

Churchill Arts Council’s annual fundraiser for the 2018-2019 programs and activities — Ales for Arts — is just around the corner on Sept. 28 from 5-9 p.m. at the Lariat Courtyard.

Valley Distributors and breweries such as Great Basin, Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada, Bunejug, Barry Cochran and several other local breweries have donated sample brews. For nondrinkers, Lori Van Woert will whip up a specialty cocktail, and Francine Tohannie will have Auntie’s Indian Tacos.

While sipping your favorite libations and having a bite to eat, groove to the American sound of local band Old River Road, featuring Fallon’s own Dineen Caseday.

Admission is free but unlimited beer tasting is $20 per person.

The exhibit galleries will also be open that night, Kirk Robertson’s “Homage to Collage: Mixed Media Works from Three Decades” and Jay Schmidt’s “The Middle of Nowhere: Recent Sculptures, Paintings and Collaborations.”

Robertson, a longtime and well-known prolific literary writer, poet, columnist and conversationalist who passed away in 2017, and his wife, Valerie Serpa, transformed the old Oats Park School one of the finest arts venues in Nevada if not the West.

Robertson had written collage and assemblage were two of the most important creative strategies in 20th- century art. He revealed many well-known artists frequently used collage and assemblage methods in their works including Pablo Picasso, Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters, among others

This show is in the newly renamed Kirk Robertson Gallery (formerly known as the Classroom Gallery).

The 66-year-old Schmidt currently resides in Bozeman and retired from a 26-year career as a professor in the School of Art at Montana State University. Arts Council patrons will notice how his enormous paintings engulf the viewer. He said several collaborative art-making groups have been major sources for energy and inspiration.

Before Ales for Arts, the Arts Council presents Las Cafeteras on Sept. 22 at the Oats Parks Arts Center’s Barkley Theater.

The Los Angles group takes the stage at 8 p.m., preceded by a free conversation with the artists at 3 p.m. Individual tickets are $17 members, $20 nonmembers. To purchase tickets, call 775-423-1440 or charts@phonewave.net. Tickets are also available at Jeff’s Copy Express and ITT@Naval Air Station Fallon. All seats are reserved.

The box office, Art Bar and galleries open at 7 p.m.