What I Make Of My Space is an online exhibition prompted by global guidance to "shelter in place" at the beginning of the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Our Call to All invited visual and written reflections on spaces that hold meaning for individuals around the world. We asked whether these spaces have been easy to inhabit, or simply places of confinement, and we sought personal perspectives unique to us during this challenging moment in our history.

While our Call to All was still out, we were touched by several submissions responding to themes of racial injustice at a time when the social side of our human nature was already being tested in isolation from each other. We have chosen to include these submissions.

Our exhibition is directed by Nevada County Arts Council Artist in Residence, Ruth Chase. This is Ruth's third curated project with us, and—common to each of her projects—carries a special aim of bringing artists and "non-artists” exhibiting side by side. Ruth believes that well-curated work can take the elitism out of an exhibition and bring quality work, and people, together.

We invite you to explore the work of artists from around the world. Please read their stories, and consider What I Make Of My Space a sort of journey from wherever you might still be sheltering in place.

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The Pushouts

The City that never sleeps is silent
Forced to quarantine like everyone else
No wonder the Major complains 
Dollars were always made here
But now she sleeps

It's hot as hell and hades is awaken
The homeless is visible
Letting flesh burn while laying on dirty streets
We rush to the nearest air conditioned stores hoping
to be the first to let masked
skin get soothed. 

We travelers migrated here
After being pushed out
Not sure if disease of the mind or body is to blame.
War has been here all along.
It slowly creeped in
And the rest of the world is now up to speed.

But in our hearts we hold on to hope
For safe-keeping
For healing
For clarity
For love
For home
Sometimes pushing is needed
So greatness can have a seat on the throne! 

Copyright, April 28, 2020

AQUEILA M. LEWIS-ROSS

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

I've had a love for writing since I was five years old. While in College I saw how effective my words and stories could be as I watched lives become transformed on the road to healing. For over 10 years I have continued to stay dedicated to empower, and encourage others to pursue love, peace, and justice for personal healing and promote positive change in communities all over the world. As a performing artist, I daily practice writing poetry and perform spoken word for healing. Since 2010, I’ve rewritten my thriving survivor story of homelessness, child sexual abuse, physical and sexual violence, and have found positive and powerful life changing outlets within community. Through sharing poems from my book, Stop Hurting and Dance, “From A Victim to a Thriving Survivor: Learning How to Revive the Soul” performance art workshop; readers and participants learn how to heal wounds from the past & present, and create a thriving future with consistent self-care practice, effective counseling, and community resources.

GUILHERME BERGAMINI

Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais - Brazil

“Social Isolation”

Photography

50 x 75cm

Reporter photographic and visual artist, Guilherme Bergamini is Brazilian and graduated in Journalism. For more than two decades, he has developed projects with photography and the various narrative possibilities that art offers. The works of the artist dialogue between memory and social political criticism. He believes in photography as the aesthetic potential and transforming agent of society. Awarded in national and international competitions, Guilherme Bergamini participated in collective exhibitions in 30 countries....More »

FRANCESCO BOI

Rome, Italy

"Cemetery"

Digital Photography

100 x 30"

Cemetery is a Covid19 Quarantine born project and it is an attempt to face the limitation of the artistic expression (During the quarantine time in Rome, Italy, I was forbidden to go out and shoot so I found an idea that could be developed shooting inside my home, using what I had in that moment) as a result of the government's measures during the pandemic. In our no distance no break society, smartphones become our helm that guides us through the world we live in. Our main signal becomes digital, signals are produced by devices and those devices become our talisman through which we transform our pure physical being from carnal to digital. More than a pictorial fresco we are a digital reconstruction. Fingerprints are the only physical traces that are left on our devices' screen. Those are now and likewise will be in the future, the material witness of our digital actions. Our devices turn into a cemetery, sepulchres of our actions. From those conclusions the idea to begin this project and the decision to take pictures of all the smartphones (working and dead) and tablets I had in my apartment. However It is a work in progress project and I will take more pictures of smartphones and prints..... More »

NIKIYA CRISOSTOMO

San Francisco, California, USA

"Say Their Names"

Acrylic on Canvas

20 x 16"

Say Their Names is my mind space through these tumultuous times, honoring the Black Lives Matter movement that has arisen on top of the COVID-19 pandemic. This piece is composed of a non-comprehensive list of names of black people killed by the police in recent years.... More »

JULIETTE MORRIS WILLIAMS

Nevada City, California, USA

"Rise Up"

Photography

5 x 7"

This piece is a photograph of a normal morning for me. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2001, and currently have Primary Progressive MS, which makes walking difficult. A lot of my work centers around the creation of movement and space - going from dancing and being very active - to learning how to express motion and mobility in other ways.

I am a sculptor and painter, and my work really focuses on expressing the motion within emotion. With words, poems and scratches I work my paintings with layers upon layers of color and images to produce a field of motion. So much is packed into each piece that they are like autobiographical pieces that I can release, knowing that I am saying what I can say in the only way I truly know how.... More »

Meditations on Home in a Pandemic

Retreat, safe-haven, dominion,
your anchor in the world,
sharing space with others:
 hundreds of tiny decisions and considerations
close-quarters, 
the tyranny of surfaces,
doors open or closed,
the best place to be,
all of us together in our separate pods,
watching things through glass windows.

DAVID MACK

Truckee, California, USA

Writing has become for me an essential organ; A way to understand, express, feel and share. So much is said in our world, but not always those things that will help make it better.... More »

JOANNA PENNEY

Belfast, Northern Ireland

When Youth and I Lived Together

"Mundane But A Must"

37.2 x 91.4cm

As I get older, I forget that everyone around me is ageing alongside me. I was jolted into reality by my aging father and the life changing event that occurred to him. When Youth and I Lived Together examines the impact of my father’s forced retirement on him but also on my family.

In early 2001, my father was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and was prescribed strong medication to manage the pain of the condition. Over the past 19 years, the medication’s effectiveness has subsided to the point that my father was not able to work any longer due to excruciating pain.

To document this change, I capture the evidence of changes within the household and the gaps that aging presents to my entire family. These gaps come in the form of the negative financial impact of the loss of income as well as the emotional effects of losing the ability to work. I am also looking at the domestic space which is now filled with someone who was absent while working most of his life. This added figure, who is now constant within the domestic setting changes the balance significantly. While this is an autobiographical story about my family, ageing and the feeling of being isolated when becoming retired is a universal reality that touches everyone....More »

ZECORA S.

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

"Quaran-ting"

Digital Illustration. See the video here.

ZeCora’s work seeks to make sense of the world around her through self-expression. Often times carrying themes of black history, culture, her personal life or current events. She uses color and detail to give her work a level of depth that invites her audience in further and encourages them to look closely....More »

JENNIFER RUGGE

Nevada City, California, USA

"Wonder In My Space"

Video

"What were they thinking?" I wonder, the people who painted in caves 15,000-35,000 years ago. Beautiful drawings, etchings and paintings as well as signs decorated their walls. No iPads, iPhones or wireless existed. The entertainment today and feel so necessary didn't exist, yet, people did exist. During the "stay at home" policy, my space is my art studio. Here I spend most of my time. With earth paints, papers, and wood panels I create art inspired by deep ancestral roots and early signs of ancient languages. .... More »

TOMA JELENC

Osijek, Slavonija, Croatia

"WTC • World Tour Circus"

Drypoint, Collage, A la poupée

27 X 35cm

Considering that more than 75% of all the information we receive through visual perception, we cannot ignore how important fine art is for our holistic development. We need to make good use of that small part of the universal that has been given to us for free.... More »

LUBA KUZMINA

Moscow, Russia

"Upside Down"

Digital Photography

63 x 47cm

During the lockdown I felt that everything was turned upside down. My plans, my life, my feelings were topsy-turvy. I tried to render my situation in this photo. The picture shows the usual view from my window which I see every day. This view changes as a mirror appears on the scene. The left low corner of the building is now unstable as it is actually in the sky, not on the ground. The roof of the building becomes its lower part. However, the volume of the building remains solid in spite of the games of mind.... More »

DONN K. HARRIS

Nevada City, California, USA

"The Fire Burns Within the Space"

I-Phone 11 with internal editing feature

More »

A History in the Succulents 

Held inside of their own succulent bodies
is a history - 
not of theirs but of my own

I enter my home 
this new world in an isolated cocoon 

Small succulents in place in their red-colored pots 
their yellow-green foundation 
facing the front window to keep an eye 
on the lack of motion outside 

Socially distant from the usual 
they are not isolating from me 
or the sweet dog-heart keeping me company 

These gifts must have been brought to me to prepare for disaster 
one for death, for fire 
another for a pandemic, or a surprise obituary for my father 

Perhaps these plants were prepared by a god's hands to sit 
on my living room banister to serve as tiny lights 
quiet whispers of life 

I am not alone in this sheltered home 
they send ions into my space as I walk 
from my big chair to the kitchen to the backyard 
back to my big chair to the kitchen to the backyard 

Moving in circles, ovals, squares 
covering the square footage of this home 
as I make sure each room is cleaned 
each room has a book on display 
each room is still empty of company 

Something is growing here 
a resilience, who knows 
a tolerance, it doesn't feel like it 
a tiredness, it seems so 

This new world begins each morning on end tables 
standing next to my sofa which fits four or more 
and yet only I am here looking to the succulents as if to ask 
"why aren't you speaking yet?" 

This new world opens like a wide mouth 
wanting to sigh or exhale or bellow 
the way a dying tulip in dried-out soil waits for hydration 

I am here sighing, waiting, hydrating with poems 
waiting out the isolation 
as the household plants swallow my daily history 
tasting on their tongue a trembling worry 
a nectar of solitude

GEORGINA MARIE 

Lake County Poet Laureate 2020-2022

Lakeport, California, USA

My poetry can be described as lyrical free-verse and it carries my life experiences, my love and respect for nature, and my heartaches. This year I'm mostly working on new poems and organizing virtual events as Poet Laureate in my home county. Some days, in the time of COVID-19, I may choose not to write but instead read the work of some of my favorite poets or new writers I come across or take comfort in my home by doing nothing at all. In difficult times, rest can also be poetry.... More »

KIM OWENS

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

“In A World Of Uncertainty, A Light Beams Down As A Dream Takes Shape”

Photograph

“In a world of uncertainty, a light beams down as a dream takes shape" is the phrase that strikes me as I look at the future during these unsettling times. Realizing the dream of owning a restaurant after years of planning is finally coming to fruition.

H. MERVE GUC

Istanbul-Turkey

"Counterpoint Life"

Digital Art

30 x 37cm

I am a visual artist currently pursuing my multidisciplinary insight of art with a PhD degree in Art and Design. I continue to research different media channels offered by the new media technology and to improve myself in this field. During my art education, I participated in many national and international mixed exhibitions and art festivals. I also work as a lecturer in graphic design. Time-space, memory problems are the subjects I study theoretically and practically. Exaggerated impossible spaces, haptic images, parological illusions and articulating music are the media that I often prefer in my narrative language in digital media.... More »

MONIQUE PETERSON

Grass Valley, California, USA

"storybook no. 1"

Video

I work with found and recycled materials, from the handmade and nostalgic varieties to the inconsequential and common varieties. I like introducing the familiar in unexpected ways-or when unexpected juxtapositions introduce the familiar. There is a chemistry that occurs when combining elements; in the chaos, patterns emerge, a story forms. Scraps become the mosaic of a larger story that is brewing elsewhere, and emerges unexpected in different mediums or different dimensions. The subconscious is a storyteller too, delivering whimsy, awareness, the strange, and the unexpected.... More »

GARY DUEHR

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

"Luminance 01"

Pigment Print

16 x 20"

In these images taken out the kitchen window, the luminosity of glasses, water, silverware and flower petals is revealed.

The mesh of the screen forms an abstract pattern, as do the nearby houses glimpsed out the side yard. Here and there, the transparent wing of an insect can be seen. The domestic still lifes evoke a timeless summer.... More »

SARA VISVADER

Grass Valley, California, USA

"Quarantine Corde Lisse"

Video
Music: 'Kofton' by Michalis Kouloumis

During this initial time of quarantine, I have been lucky enough to have more time to reflect, to cocoon, to withdraw and reassess. Internally and collectively, new seeds have sprouted - deeper connections with stillness - with nature, and moving with more intention through the world. ... More »