Exhibit at St. Mary’s Art Center Will “Knock Your Socks Off”

*Healthy Communities Coalition adds support to free and public art and culture exhibits, performances, lectures and lessons whenever possible. The Coalition was delighted to add support to “Comstock Wabi-Sabi”, an outstanding exhibit that reflects the past and present of the historic Comstock, a region spanning communities in both Storey and Lyon counties.

Virginia City, Nevada – After seeing Brian Schorn’s art exhibit Comstock Wabi-Sabi, long time Comstock resident Erich Obermayr declared, “Brian’s work knocked my socks off.” Brian’s exhibit at St. Mary’s Art Center opened this weekend with similarly enthusiastic responses from everyone from professors, computer programmers and other artists, to tourists and high school students.

The show includes nearly 2 dozen pieces Brian created in just 2 months as the visiting artist in the Resident Artist Program in Silver City this summer. What’s even more remarkable is that during that short period Brian also offered 3 free workshops on writing, art and sound for adults and teens, designed a fine art exhibit hosted by the Silver City Arts group, and taught 3 art workshops at a Lake Tahoe camp for teens from western Nevada.

Gallery Hours: The Comstock Wabi-Sabi show remains in the George Post Gallery at St. Mary’s Art Center through September 6th, 2015 during open hours (11am-4pm Thursday through Sunday). Brian will also offer gallery talks about his work on both September 5th and September 6th between 11am and 4pm.

Review of the Show: Erich Obermayr’s review, below, captures the reasons behind the warm response visitors are having for Brian’s mixed-media assemblages.

Erich writes, “Brian Schorn’s exhibit at St. Mary’s Art Center comes down at the end of the week, so if you haven’t done so already you need to get up there and see it. Brian is the “resident” in the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, and the 20 pieces on display represent his work since he came to Silver City in July. Simply put, this is high-level work of an artist and craftsman who knows what he is doing.  The show is comprised of “found objects,” which is a risky kind of art, since his medium is the same stuff any of us could find, stick together, and put up on the wall. Brian takes on the challenge and quietly, but effectively, shows us how it’s done. The first thing that strikes you is the craftsmanship.
The pieces are neat and contained, their diverse parts joined invisibly, or held together with small, unobtrusive screws. Pieces of weathered wood form the backing, and background, for the smaller, varied objects, which also serves to focus our attention, and lets us know we are looking at something special. Silver City’s one-hundred fifty year plus history has given Brian much to work with, and his practiced eye has picked out quite a selection—everything from oyster shells imported during the 1860s to pieces of desiccated garden hose, and in between a broken comb, fragments of plates, bowls, and bottles, wood honeycombed with dry-rot, a spoon and fork, the lost head of a plastic toy cowboy. Some pieces, like “Bedroom Doorknob for Julia C. Bulette,” speak to us fairly directly. Others not so much, like “Sunrise: the Artist in Silver City.” But they all tell a story, or even better, they are arranged and given to us so we cannot help but create a story for them.”

Brian Schorn: For more information about multidisciplinary Michigan artist Brian Schorn, see his website at http://brianschorn.com/

Support: The Comstock Wabi-Sabi exhibit is made possible through the Resident Artist Program in Silver City, St. Mary’s Art Center, Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey, and the community of Silver City, with additional and essential support by Fred Swanson.