I am so excited to announce that my project, the Artist’s Trellis was awarded a 2023 ACNV Community Fund grant. The Artists’ Trellis is a new series of printmaking sessions with a diverse list of industry and civic leaders and four of my fellow Napa Valley artists. The art-making sessions will provide a unique way to foster exchange and stimulate awareness for the arts. Stay tuned for more details as this project unfolds over the year.
Anti-War 2023 Exhibition at Diversia
I am pleased to announce the inclusion of my piece HOVER/Syria in the exhibition ANTI-War 2023. The exhibition was organized by the Canadian group Diversia to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. There are over 100 pieces included in this online exhibition which you can see here. On view through March 31st.
From This Moment On... September 14th to October 15th Napa Valley College
Curated by Amanda Badgett, Professor of Art History, Napa Valley College
Opening reception Wednesday September 14th 4pm to 6pm
Closing event Saturday October 15 th 12 to 4
Napa Valley College Visual Arts Center
2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa, CA 94558
Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 9am – 4:30pm
“I frequently use my own backyard dinners, the string lights in my trees or the nature that surrounds me as motifs for my paintings. I pull from my own experiences, believing the personal can speak universally. With the 2020 California wildfires, my connection to the landscape as well as to painting became much more profound. Until now, I have never used my process so overtly to work through my own trauma and grief. It weighs with an enormous gravity. I am confronting the security of my own existence as well as the security of the landscape we all share.”
The exhibition is curated by Amanda Badgett, art history professor at Napa Valley College who writes: “Through her paintings and prints, Nancy gives lie to the idea of a static landscape: a grove of redwoods, all blackened and spindly in one canvas, emerges in another bristling with new growth. In a valley whose economic well-being is inextricably tied to agriculture, looking at Nancy’s images reminds us of the fragility of landscape in the face of global warming and the now ever-present threat of fire.”
Big News in the New Year
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.”