Artist-in-Residence selected for the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon-Emigrant Trail National Conservation Area

Reno, Nev.— Friends of Black Rock-High Rock, in collaboration with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Winnemucca District Office and the Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative, is pleased to announce the selection of two professional artists for the first Artist-in-Residence program in the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon-Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area (NCA). Each artist will spend two weeks absorbing and experiencing the NCA’s varied landscapes, creating a work of art in response to this experience and then sharing their vision and techniques with the public during summer 2014.

Twenty artists from throughout the West applied for the residencies, and two artists were chosen on the basis of artistic merit and public outreach proposals: Stephen Chandler, a photographer based in Auburn, Calif.; and Judy Hilbish, a painter from Sun Valley, Nev.  The winning artists receive housing accommodations in nearby Gerlach, NV and each artist will donate at least one digital image of completed artwork to the BLM.

The Artist-in-Residence Program promotes awareness of the exceptional places protected within the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System, which includes National Conservation Areas (NCA), National Monuments, National Historic Trails, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas. The Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon-Emigrant Trails NCA contains some of the largest unaltered segments of the historic California trails left in the country, as well as eight designated wildernesses and numerous wilderness study areas.

For more information about the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon-Emigrant Trails NCA, go to http://on.doi.gov/1kuEKMT.
For more information about the Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative go to http://on.doi.gov/1iJUHiO or check us out on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/GreatBasinLandscapeConservationCooperative where we will be following the artists’ progress.