The year is off to a great start with the news that I received two Artist Power Convening Grants from the Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts. The Artist Power Convenings are a new community investment strategy by YBCA to build the capacity of artists and artist-led organizations in service of their communities.
The grants will fund two of my community projects:
1. A brainstorming session with artists and the Executive Director of the Suscol Intertribal Council to develop arts curriculum that can bring awareness to our indigenous histories.
2. A continuation of Conflict Zone, bringing Haider Elias, President and co- founder of Yazda.org back to Northern California. Haider has been living in Iraq for the past 9 months and will provide an update on the Yazidi efforts to rebuild their lives and hold ISIS accountable.
Finding Beauty After the Fire
Nancy Willis, What About Us?, charcoal and oil on paper,30 x 44” 2021
finding beauty after the fire
Commemorating the Glass Fire of 2020
September 25 – October 3, 2021
Nimbus Arts STUDIO 2
649 Main St, St Helena, CA 94574
Gallery hours: 12-5pm
(masks required in gallery)
Reflections: Artifacts from Daily Life
public art in Lyman Park
First Nation community blessing on
Sunday, Oct. 3rd, 4 PM Lyman Park
“My goal is to pay homage to the land, the wildlife lost, and help my community heal from the devastating Glass Fire of 2020. I want to create beauty from the devastation.” Nancy Willis
Approaching the anniversary of the 2020 Glass Fire, artist Nancy Willis will present a series of paintings that reflect her artistic response to the 2020 LNU and Glass wildfires. With support from the ACNV Adaptation Grant, Willis developed new work that tracks the devastation and renewal in the grove of trees around her home. Last winter, she created an intervention in the grove, with lights and chandeliers to bring hope and light back into the forest and her neighborhood.
In the aftermath of the fires, Willis collected items from several household remains, hearing people’s stories of loss. She created a chandelier sculpture: Reflections: Artifacts from Daily Life, made from burnt manzanita, detritus from the fires, crystals, and lights as a prototype of a future public art piece. The chandelier will be installed in Lyman Park for the duration of the exhibition as a place for the community to reflect and heal. Everyone is invited to attend a First Nation blessing for the land, the wildlife, and the community to be held on October 3 at 4:00 PM in the park.
In May, Willis participated in Ashes to Springtime, a fundraiser for Solano County farmers. With other plein air artists, she painted the landscape affected by the LNU fires in Pleasant Valley. And over the summer Willis worked with students at Nimbus Arts who created their own lighted “Tabletop Forests” some of which will be on view in the gallery at 649 Main Street. The exhibition is funded in part by a grant from the ACNV Community Fund and hosted by Nimbus Arts.
“Residents of the Napa Valley have suffered consecutive trauma as wildfire season impacts more territory every year. Art has the capacity to heal and move us through grief by connecting people to one another and to the land.”
Re-Emergence! Explorations in Printmaking & Photography →
Remarque Print Workshop & Gallery
Re-Emergence! Explorations in Printmaking & Photography
July 9 - August 28, 2021
The pieces in this show are connected by two common threads - first, they all explore the intersections between photography and printmaking, using techniques such as photogravure, cyanotype, transfer printing, platinum palladium prints, and much more. Second, they explore the theme of re-emergence. Some pieces explore this theme through motifs of new life, while others examine it through the lens of climate change and natural geological processes, reshaping the land around us in various ways. Others capture the complicated feelings we are all experiencing as we re-emerge from a devastating global pandemic - joy and hope, but also fear and sadness.
Remarque Print Workshop & Gallery
3812 Central Ave SE 100 B
Albuquerque, NM 87108
image: Nancy Willis, Skipping/Emerald Green, photopolymer monoprint (3 plates), 10" x 10"
DAAP Made: The Exhibition →
University of Cincinnati
DAAP Made: The Exhibition
Sept 3 - Oct 2, 2021
A showcase of the talents from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, this juried exhibition presents work of DAAP Alumni from all creative backgrounds as well as faculty and faculty emeriti.
Indian Hill Gallery
9475 Loveland Madeira Road
Cincinnati, OH 45242
image: Nancy Willis, Hold on Sinjar, two-plate photopolymer monoprint, 2021, 8 x 8”
Landscape: Exploring the Built and Grown →
Site:Brooklyn Gallery
Online Exhibition
Juried by Jennifer McGregor
The confluence of built and grown landscape is represented in this exhibition through fragmentary approaches and processes that reveal the human presence in nature. The works were created over the past two years and convey a sense of urgency or dislocation. The artists’ relationships to nature and their curiosity and willingness to experiment come through in these paintings, photographs, sculptures, and mixed media artworks. The fractured points of view expressed are in keeping with the ruptures caused by the pandemic and a sense of increased environmental urgency.
image: Nancy Willis, Summer Interrupted, 2020, oil on canvas 60 x 32 x 3”
ACNV Adaptation Grant
I am happy to announce I was one of the artists awarded an ACNV Adaptation Grant. I am using the funds to create a series of paintings about the burnt trees and forest from the Glass Fire.
Winter Light at Westin Verasa
Solo Exhibition
Paintings and works on paper
February-May, 2021
WESTIN VERASA NAPA
Solera Courtyard Gallery
1314 McKinstry St, Napa, CA 94558
With this exhibition, artist Nancy Willis presents an array of perspectives on light. Through paintings and printmaking, the viewer can experience the beauty of winter color and light.
Open to the public following county health guidelines.
Crossing the Divide at Gallery Route One
Crossing the Divide: 2021 Annual Juried Exhibition
Gallery Route One
January 23 – February 14, 2021
I have two works from my Conflict Zone series in this thought-provoking exhibition juried by Donna Seager of Seager Gray Gallery. There will be a Virtual Art Opening on Sunday, January 24 at 3 pm with a presentation by Donna Seager. The exhibition can be viewed online at galleryrouteone.org.
Regular gallery hours are 11 am to 5 pm, Thursday through Sunday
Eight person occupancy; mask and social distancing required in the gallery.
Gallery Route One, 11101 Highway One,
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
Aleppo Two Wheelin, photo polymer multi-plate-monoprint, 10x10”
The Invisibility Project: SEEN x UNSEEN
The Invisible Collective Exhibition “SEEN x UNSEEN”
Opens Sat, Dec 5, Noon-6pm, at the Radian Gallery (440 Brannan Street, SF)
CLICK HERE for tickets
The Invisibility Collective is a collaborative group of nationally acclaimed artists, curators, and social activists exploring the deep experiences and complexity of the concept of Invisibility. I will be participating in their inaugural exhibition with works from my CONFLICT ZONE series.
This exhibition looks at various ways that people express their feelings about being seen and not being seen and the intersection of the two worlds. Artists include: Lonnie Graham, Susan R. Kirshenbaum, Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen, Samira Shaheen, Angela Tirrell, Mary Graham, Sophia Green, Rell Rushin, Sawyer Rose, John Stone, Christopher M. Tandy and Nancy Willis.
Artroverted Podcast Interview →
I had the pleasure of speaking with Artroverted podcast host Michael Dewberry on September 18th 2020. We spoke about my teaching experience at the CIA, activism with the Yazidi refugee community, and Nourish - an exhibition I curated at the Napa Valley Museum. You can listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and a few more.
