May Your Life Be Your Masterpiece
curated Ruth Chase and Brynn Farwell
Exhibition Dates
August 6 – September 11, 2021
Gallery Hours
Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 4 PM
Art Opening
Friday, August 20, 5 – 7 PM
Artist Talk
Thursday, September 9, 5 – 7 PM
Now in Year Three, Belonging manifests as HOME, and elicits perspectives on cultural identity from our less represented populations. Ideas of “home” are being explored through the lens of art salons, our gold country history, our recovering native population, and our recent immigrants. Critical bridge building tools are emerging through creative practices, as we meet. Saturday Morning Question ran from 2017 – 2020.
Last week Eliza Tudor of Nevada County Arts Council, Tracy Pepper of Color Me Human, Donn K. Harris of California Arts Council, and I were in #Miami for four days joining the #changenetwork of OF/BY/FORALL.
Women are an essential part of any community, yet their sense of belonging is often tied into gender roles, not always satisfying their sense of belonging. Mother, sister, partner, we all have women in our lives. I AM HERe is intended to mirror the voices of how men and women view women’s unique sense of belonging against the backdrop of our rural community. Lead artist Ruth Chase has sought to examine her own sense of belonging over the course of a year by asking questions through social media and taking her personal journey alongside the community. Now, the public is invited to share their own stories about themselves or the women in their lives by participating in the public art installation.
Laura Peterson
Special to The Union
January 15, 2019
In her film, “Belonging” local artist and director, Ruth Chase documents the stories of people living in Nevada County, including Shelly Covert, spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria, Nisenan Tribe.
The film is an initiative of Nevada County Art Council and funded in part by California Arts Council through its Artists in Communities Program. Chase and Covert are scheduled to show the film during this week’s 17th Annual Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to Nevada City and Grass Valley.
The pair are scheduled to participate in activities such as opening reception, art shows, fireside chats, coffee talks, workshops and film panels throughout the five-day environmental and adventure film festival that attracts filmmakers, change-makers, and activists from around the globe.
The two sat down and answered a few questions. Chase had this to say:
What inspired you to make the film, “Belonging?”
“Belonging” is about how people find a sense of belonging through the land, the earth, and the environment. I was initially interested in examining the unique connection people have with the land they were born on and if that connection changes when residing in a place other than their birthplace.
Inspired by Ruth Chase’s ambitious multi-media installation about the land we live on and the notion of belonging, Racial Literacy, Nevada County offers a free, facilitated community conversation in the World Café style at Summer Thyme’s where the BELONGING Community Exhibition, curated by Ruth is on display.
We are collaborating with Chase to expand her artistic intention by creating the opportunity for local residents to experience, as she states, “powerful insights that allow people to find a sense of belonging within their community.” We also welcome Nevada City Rancheria Secretary Shelly Covert.
Join us to talk with each other in a real and candid way about our own sense of belonging along with our relationships with the Nisenan people and this beautiful region that the Nisenan have called “home” for thousands of years.
The BELONGING project is a journey I’m taking with the community of Nevada County. Every week I ask a question on Facebook that explores how we find a sense of belonging. Here is the question I asked most recently.
How do the friendships you had growing up shape your sense of belonging now?
Growing up I felt an incredible pain from feeling like I didn’t belong in my own home while I dreamed of belonging where I wasn’t wanted, with my dad. My dad and I shared the same looks and big personality, I felt comfortable with him because we were alike. As a child my friendships often reflected these same family dynamics, feeling like an outcast in friendships that I perceived I didn’t belong in because I wasn’t enough. Further making me feel incredibly insecure about if I would ever belonging with anyone, anywhere. I think that is why I cried so much on my wedding day, someone wanted me to “belong” with them. To this day I rarely feel like I fit in with most people so I cherish the relationships where I do feel a sense of belonging. After many years of rejection from the art world, I have come to realize that none of it is personal and that I belong to myself first and foremost.
So, how do the friendships you had growing up shape your sense of belonging now?
2017 ongoing
A pop-up installation where Ruth asks people if they want a hug and if she can take an instant photo of passers-byes, then encouraging them to hang the photo where it could be seen as a reminder of their importance and value to their community. The backdrop is a pop up photo booth intended to be a personal encounter with another human, changing the roll of the selfie from an isolated “look at me” photo to a visceral experience that involved contact and purpose.
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