Wednesday November 13 2024

Join me at the Nevada Historical Society museum, 5-6.30pm, for wine and cheese and a chat about creating children's stories! I'll talk about my experience of writing and illustrating my story 'What Amatxi whispered'.

Saturday November 9 2024

Join me for a reading of my children's story 'What Amatxi whispered' at Reno's Downtown Public Library!

I am part of an event promoting local authors. I will have a stand with copies of my book and postcards, and will read my story at 1.40pm.

Fall 2024

Thanks to the generosity of a private donor, I am thrilled to be offering more 'Art with Nature' lessons to elementary school children till the end of this year! 

What is 'Art with Nature'? As an artist trained in traditional fine art techniques, I place great emphasis on the basics of art-making, that is, made from natural materials. This logically means engaging in an ecological and no-waste approach - refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order of priority. My 'Art with Nature' lessons are about making art with nature - using solely organic and compostable materials in a way that also engages positively with and does no harm to our environment, and, by extension, ourselves. All my lessons take place outside, in a park or school playground, be it rain, snow, or shine. 

Our first lesson began last week, with a celebration of Fall, by gathering different colored leaves which we arranged as a collage on pieces of re-used cardboard, pasted with homemade glue - the children learnt to make their own by simply mixing wheat flour and water. I encourage children to use their hands and improvise tools with sticks and other objects foraged outside.

As Maria Montessori noted, children are naturally curious and enthusiastic beings and need very little to thrive beyond a simple natural and free environment. My goal with my classes is to show children what endless artistic and aesthetic possibilities there are with basic awareness, knowledge of and interaction with natural matter, simple things and no need to go buy ’stuff’.

I plan to organize an exhibit of the children's artwork at the end of the year, so keep all your senses on alert for more info on that!

And my exhibit at the Nevada Historical Society continues until December 28!  I will be welcoming school trips to the museum with workshops for the children. Come visit!

For more about my practice and approach: https://go-green-locally-northern- nevada.castos.com/episodes/childrens-eco-art-classes-zoe-bray-phd

 Join me for the reception to my exhibit of Portraits and Illustrations currently on at the Nevada Historical Society, on the campus of the University of Nevada Reno.

Wednesday October 2, 5-7pm. Refreshments will be served and I will give a talk at 5.30pm.

 Join me at the Reno Tahoe International Art Show this weekend 13-15 September!

I will be exhibiting artworks as part of a special booth dedicated this year to Basque Art.

Come see me do a live portrait-drawing demo, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11am to noon.

Saturday 4-5pm, I will take part in a panel on Basque Art.

September 14 2024:

solo exhibit of Basque illustrations and portraits at the Nevada Historical Society Museum & Reno Tahoe International Art Show

 

See current works on sale: illustrations + fine art

February - April 2024:

As a teaching artist on the Nevada Arts Council roster, I benefitted of an Arts Learning Project Grant  to teach my ecological art lessons these past months at the High Desert Montessori Charter School.

What a treat to offer these lessons to the children, so enthusiastic to be creative outside working with nature. And I have noted how thirsty they are for more. 

I am committed to finding more funding opportunities in order to offer more free lessons.

In the last class, in tune with the seasons and now embracing Spring, we weaved plants onto cardboard to make natural tableaux vivants. 

In February and March, always working with the natural elements, the children created ephemeral art with materials gathered in the playground, including snow and ice.

Saturday April 20 2024: Reception of my exhibit of drawn and painted portraits of trees!

As of noon, we will have readings, including the poem by Mary Oliver When I am among the trees, and local author Sheila Ledrew-Rammon will read her new children's story: Brazel's Magical Adventures.

There will of course also be art-making with cardboard and charcoal, for all ages!

April 2024: Join me for my exhibit at the Sierra Arts Foundation!

"There are few organisms as important as trees for maintaining Earth's ecology" (Encyclopedia Britannica). Trees are also central to human social life and wellbeing. This exhibit explores and celebrates some of the many ways, shapes and forms in which trees make Reno home.

February - March April: Thanks to an artist's project grant from the Nevada Arts Council, I am teaching ecological art lessons in the playground of High Desert Montessori charter school.

 Happy 2024!

New Year and Re-Newed Discoveries!

Stay tuned for more opportunities to create art together 

that is ecologically-grounded and empowering

for children and grown-ups

 December 16 2023: join me for a reading of my children's book 'What Amatxi Whispered' at the Churchill County Museum in Fallon, NV. I will have signed copies of the book for sale. 

This is also a chance to enjoy the temporary exhibit of Basque tree carvings in the Great Basin, 'Arboglyphs: the art of heritage'.

Support my work on Patreon and benefit of more news and insights on my art!

November 19 2023:

From 9.30am to 2pm, join me at the Idlewild Farmers' Market, in downtown Reno, NV, for a fun time  watercolor painting outside. The event is free for everyone. Art materials are provided, and I will be there to answer questions and give tips on drawing and painting from nature.

November 18 2023:

Join me from 10am to 4pm at the Discovery Museum, Reno, NV, for a fun and creative workshop in making your own mini scarecrow, puppet, doll, superhero or whatever figure, from foraged sticks and leaves, Fall fruit, yarn and scraps of fabric.  Free for all visitors to the museum.

Saturday October 21 2023: I am honored to take part in the upcoming Basque Cultural Day at San Francisco's Basque Cultural Center, organized by the Basque Educational Organization. The theme this year is 'The Impact of Basque Women in America' (Euskal Andreen Egintza Amerikan). I will be a panelist with some impressive Basque American women in one of the afternoon sessions, on 'Today's Basque Women Leaders'. 

Join us for an amazing gathering!

August 15 2023:

I am thrilled to be the recipient of an Artist Project grant from the Nevada Arts Council. This grant will assist me in my creation of a new body of work incorporating both ecological and fine art. This work will be on show in two exhibits, scheduled this coming Winter and in the Spring of 2024. More info soon!

Since Spring, I am working on several projects, including writing and illustrating my second story for children in English, French and Basque (see pic below), developing my eco-art teaching curriculum, and producing a new body of work that incorporates my fine art portraiture, ceramics and ecological thinking. Stay tuned!

June 2023

One of my poems is featured with the Nevada Arts Council's poetry project Nevadan to Nevadan, launched by poet laureate Gailmarie Pahmeier.

June 19 2023

I am doing live portrait painting at the Steen Ranch in Washoe Valley, for a fundraiser for the Sierra Arts Foundation. Come watch the process of creating a fine portrait of the model, from 2 to 5pm.

Other works of mine will be on display and for sale.

Saturday April 22nd, 10.30-11.30am

Join me for story-telling and art-making at the Radical Cat independent bookstore in Reno, NV! 

It's fun and it's FREE!

 Listen to my interview on EcoArt lessons on the podcast GoGreenLocally

Photo by Noa Thauer-Bray, March 2023

Upcoming readings of my story "What Amatxi Whispered":

April 8, 11 am - Sundance Bookstore, on California Avenue, Reno, NV.

April 22, 11 am - Radical Cat Bookstore, Wells Avenue, Reno, NV.

April 29, 11 am - Humboldt Museum, Winnemucca, Reno, NV.

Reading at the Basque Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA, February 2023. Photo by Paul Thauer-Bray

Reading at the members' luncheon with the Basque club Zazpiak Bat, Reno, NV, April 1 2023. Photo by Noa Thauer-Bray

 March 9 2023

Thanks to the Basque Cultural Institute for interviewing me after my writer's residency in the nature reserve of Abbadia, in Hendaye, on the Atlantic coast in the Basque Country. Here it is in French, and in Basque on the website of Euskal Kultur Erakundea, and in English with the website of Euskal Kazeta!

 February 6 2023

My article about the last Basque sheepherding enterprise in the Washoe-Carson valley area is published in French with Mediabask and in English with Euskal Kazeta!

OurTownReno reviews and recommends my children's storybook 'What Amatxi Whispered'

 Happy 2023 to Everyone!

So many exciting news to report, including more eco art lessons, working on my second children's book, and portrait painting! 

To find out more, please follow - and support me on Patreon!

I am grateful to the Elkano Foundation for supporting me with another grant to assist in the completion of my illustrated story for children 'June ta Mundua' - Basque for 'June and the World'. This story is a continuation of my first story 'What Amatxi whispered'. It recounts the adventures of a little Basque American child living in Nevada, learning with her peers to deal with the environmental and social challenges of today.

I am writing this story in Basque and in English, and also illustrating it myself. I plan to have it completed in a few more months time, and then find a publishing house.

In the meantime, a review in French of my preparatory work for it appeared here, thanks to the writer Patrice Martin.

December 14 2022

Join me for a free nature + art lesson in a beautiful public library in south Reno, with Nevada Humanities!

1-2.30 pm

South Valleys Library, 15650A Wedge Parkway Reno, NV.

Thanks to a Project Grant for Artists from the Nevada Arts Council, I am able to focus on creation of an entirely new body of work made from natural material and objects conventionally considered trash to showcase the beauty of our natural surroundings in Northern Nevada and specifically the Truckee watershed.

My first children's book is OUT!

The book is both in English and Basque!

More info, and purchase HERE

 November 5 & 6 2022

Join me for some free nature + art lessons in a beautiful public park in downtown Reno, NV!

More info here:

https://www.nevadahumanities.org/events/2022/11/6/gathering-natural-materials-to-create-autumn-art

and here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gathering-natural-materials-to-create-autumn-art-tickets-443862373307

October 31 2022

I am back home in Reno, Nevada, and hit the ground running to prepare a series of eco art workshops for children and adults. 

Part of me is of course still lulling in the bliss of the artist residency I spent in the Basque Country these past four weeks. Here is some media coverage of it:

Euskal Telebixta-Basque television, (News of October 25 2022, as of 7minutes and 42seconds): https://www.eitb.eus/eu/nahieran/iparraldearen-orena/iparraldearen-orena/osoa/583/201049

 Local e-news: https://baskulture.com/article/hendaye-elkano-et-la-nature-raconts-aux-enfants-par-la-rsidence-dartiste-de-zo-bray-5338 

French regional paper: https://www.sudouest.fr/pyrenees-atlantiques/hendaye/hendaye-en-residence-a-nekatoenea-zoe-bray-a-cree-un-conte-en-euskara-12774531.php

 

Read more about this work and other projects on my Patreon page. Your support is invaluable!

 October 4 - 28 2022

I am doing an artist residency in the amazing nature reserve of the CPIE Littoral Basque in Hendaye (Basque Country, France), thanks to a partnership with this organization together with the Basque Cultural Institute, the Federation of Basque Writers and the Elkano Foundation, which celebrates 500 years since the Basque explorer Juan Sebastian Elkano sailed around the world.

The story of Elkano inspired me to write a contemporary interpretation of his discoveries. During my residency, I aim to write and illustrate a story for small children. It's about a little girl, not dissimilar to my own children, who lives in northern Nevada, an area of high desert and sierras, where wildnerness still abounds, but which is steadily being encroached by urban sprawl. Unlike Elkano, this little girl knows the world is round – her parents explained it to her. Often, at the end of a day typically spent playing by the Truckee river, she likes to contemplate the sun as it sets behind the mountains, receding to the West. She also knows that the world is small – she's already taken the plane high up into the sky and flown some hours, to go visit her mother's family in the Basque Country. And she knows too that many  animals and plants are endangered because of the behavior of human beings. She feels a pinch to her heart every time she thinks about it, and often contemplates what she can do to make a difference.

In my story of this child who discovers her own place and purpose in the world, I evoke the juxtaposition of two public figures- Elkano and Greta Thunberg  - and their contrasting epistemologies. Today, with Greta Thunberg, there is not only the knowledge that the world is round but finite, and fragile. Today is also a secular age, whereby we do not necessarily believe destiny and fate are in the hand of a God – they can be in our own hands – responsibility can lie with the self – the individual and the human collective. 500 years ago, Elkano had no choice but to cross the seas on a wind-propelled ship, while Thunberg, in 2019, made the point of travelling via minimally carbon-emitting modes of transport to attend climate conferences in America and to return to Sweden. The time of Elkano was one of exploration, accomplice to efforts to discover and colonize; our time in the 21^st century, with the inspiring figure of Thunberg and other young people, is one of the urgency to care and fight for social, economic and environmental justice. 

The protagonist in my story is a product of globalization, kickstarted by Elkano's achievement. She is born to parents of different origins, in a different place, has traveled across the globe by plane, feeds comfortably on food and information from all corners of the planet, and is a witness to climate collapse – the radical decrease of biodiversity with pollution and destruction by human beings. How can and how does a child today make sense of its existence and purpose in today's world ? How does it consider its impact and that of its community on the environment ? And what importance should be attached to identity? I want this story to bring up these important philosophical questions for young people growing up today, but also have this story be one of hope and empowerment. It aims to inspire a re-discovery as well as a renewed awe for beauty and adventure that can still exist in the world.