Marie Nygren and fellow artist Larry Neel share some moments at the artist’s reception Jan. 23 at Western Nevada College.
Provided to the LVN
Nevada photographer and retired Churchill County educator Marie Nygren has a special love for the Silver State.
Nygren’s landscape photos show the beauty of Nevada from the tip of Clark County in Southern Nevada to the Ruby Mountains south of Elko and closer to home to the salt flats of Churchill County.
Western Nevada College’s Fallon campus held a reception Jan. 23 at the Virgil Getto Art Gallery for the artist and photographer before the show closed last week. As local residents stepped from photograph to photograph, Nygren talked to other guests about her landscapes.
“Of course, I love my home county of Churchill, and there’s so much beauty here that no one has ever seen,” she said. “You have to go the backroads, but it is there; however, my favorite photo, personally out of all these, is the Ruby Mountains.”
Nygren said she visited the Ruby Mountains, which has earned the nickname of the Swiss Alps of Nevada,
“I happened to be there at that magical moment,” she said. “All of these photos have some magical moments in them.”
Her magical moment of the Ruby Mountains, for instance, shows clouds beginning to envelop an autumn-hued peak.
For those in attendance, though, every photo stood out from an old building nestled in rustic Nevada to quiet scenes among the autumn trees or along a body of water.
Many of the visitors stood in front of her landscape photo of Sand Mountain that showed the pristine dunes with storm clouds billowing in the background. Clouds shrouded the range in eastern Nevada with the Ruby Dome summit reaching 11,387 feet.
Nygren said reaching the photos involved biking or hiking, but she loves the Ruby Mountains the best.
During her career, Nygren has attended numerous art shows. Her latest show began on a brainstorm, and she started with 18 photographs, many of them reproduced on canvas. She traveled around Nevada and centered her attention on seven communities. Nygren said she doesn’t want to give up the project.
“I like to focus on the rural areas because they don’t get the art like the big cities already get,” she said, adding many people in rural Nevada are kind and appreciative of her photos.
When she created a show, Nygren said she received a call from a Lander County commissioner, and the county wanted to wanted to buy the show for the library. She later received a grant from the Nevada Arts Council to help her with the latest project that took more than six months to complete.
Nygren, who has exhibited her work before at WNC, said she blocked the state into areas, and some photos were taken in last fall or during the spring. She concentrated on the landscapes such as trees, mountains and clouds.
Nygren also has a second show in texture at the Churchill County Administrative Building. Eventually, though she would like to concentrate on lines and shape and write a book for artists who are also teachers.
Nygren spent 37 years in education in Lyon and Churchill counties with 30 years as a teacher and the other seven years as a teacher’s aide or substitute teacher.
“I’m very passionate about making my footprint,” she said of her career.
Lisa Gallo Swan, director of the WNC campus, said the college is showcasing Churchill County artists to include those from the community and the schools.
“It’s been wonderful,” she said of the art shows.