Artists-in-Residence

Anke C. Hass Artist-in-Residence

Anke C. Hass

Artist-in-Residence

My six years of academic training at the Bergische University had left me with an awareness for the deeply unsettling tension between the questions of what it means to be a human and where truth comes from and what humans are here for and the training for a specific job market, that requires skills, experience and applicable information. I thought I would never find myself advocating the integration of these two opposing realities of a personal and professional life. It is important to me as an artist and a teacher to understand that where I put my time and resources, where I build up my skills and expertise, I will also find what I value most. And if I discharge the big questions as useless I will limit my usability to a very narrow application. It is my passion to exemplify an integrated human being, where all aspects of a moral, spiritual, intellectual, emotional or esthetic creature is intensely relational and alive. That should be a life of a true homo liber.

It is wonderful when business meets creativity, when provision meets need, when Arts for the Schools meets the students of our community. I am glad to partake in this exciting enterprise for the Arts. Create, inspire, engage - that's my job.

Nancy Lopez Artist-in-Residence

Nancy Lopez

Artist-in-Residence
www.trailsandvistas.org

"My art is about connection ­ to a place, to the earth, to people's lives."

For the past ten years collaborative strategies have played an essential role in my work as a professional artist and art educator. Many of my productions incorporate performance, music, poetry, dance and earthworks. I enjoy working with other artists, teachers, students, and specialists in a diverse range of professional fields to create events that celebrate the environment and strive to reestablish a sense of community and personal connections to nature.

My love for the fine arts and attachment to the landscape stems from early childhood lessons from my mother; a biology teacher and poet, my father; music major and education administrator, and my elementary school teacher, Mrs. Fundas, who saw a creative spark in a young girl struggling with learning disabilities. With encouragement from art teachers and art professionals I went on to receive my Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southwest Texas State University and Masters of Fine Arts from San Jose State University with an emphasis in sculpture and installation art.

Nancy also takes students outside the classroom for cross-disciplinary learning. In 2007 Nancy worked with the Town of Truckee and Sierra Watershed Education Partnership to have her students paint trout silhouettes on stakes and then place them in the river off Donner Pass Road in Truckee. According to Nancy; "In addition to basic art technique, we teach about different cultures, the interconnectedness of humanity and the marriage between art and environment."

Cathee van Rossem St. Clair Artist-in-Residence

Cathee van Rossem St. Clair

Artist-in-Residence
www.catheestclair.com

Cathee studied art in Italy and has earned national and international recognition for her miniature paintings in eggshells. She has won first place in New York City's Women In Design International Competition, has been featured in The Artist's Magazine, a national art publication that referred to her as "one of ten artists we can't forget," and was nominated for American Artist Magazine's Achievement Award for her work as an artist over the years. The Washoe Tribe of California and Nevada honored her in a rare Friendship Ceremony in appreciation of her painting "Remembering the Sacred," celebrating Lake Tahoe's original people, The Washoe. The Tribal Chairman delivered a print of this painting to President Clinton in the White House, which opened the door for the Tribe to meet with the President and Vice President of the United States for the first time in history.

Cathee was one of ten artists selected to participate in collaboration between the California Arts Council and the California Arts Project to teach her art in inner-city schools. She was one of eight California artists invited to a luncheon with the First Lady in the White House after being asked to create a painted egg for the White House Christmas Tree. This egg now lives in the National Archives. Cathee has also been invited to showcase her work in special exhibitions in the California Museum of Art and the Nevada Museum of Art. She and her egg-painting students were featured in a three-month exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art. The Rotary Club of Tahoe City awarded Cathee their highest honor by naming her a Paul Harris Fellow for her artistic service to the community. Her art has been featured in solo exhibits in professional galleries throughout the country, and continues to be commissioned by art collectors in the United States, Europe, and New Zealand. Cathee is also an award-winning poet and storyteller and has been invited several times to teach storytelling at UNR and Sierra Nevada College. In North Tahoe she is simply known as "The Egg Lady."

Through her art of painting on eggshells, miniaturist Cathee vanRossem St. Clair teaches children about caring for the world. Third and fourth grade students produce individually designed and painted eggs and write heartfelt poems about them, including in each a message to the world. In past years students' eggs and poems have been featured in a series of formal exhibits titled "Fragile Art in a Fragile World," at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, the North Tahoe Arts Center and Pogan Gallery in Tahoe City. According to Cathee: "Handling an empty eggshell while painting a personal story around its entire surface requires incredible focus and patience. For a child, this may seem daunting at first. In the right atmosphere, the simple act of holding an egg can bring about a natural transformation of calm, even in the most restless mind. My dream is that, once we see the masterpieces children create with their eggs and poems, we begin to take them more seriously and listen to what they have to say."