Virga Opening Reception

Opening Reception for Virga: the Hunt for Water begins at 5pm with an artist talk from Shawn Skabelund. The reception continues 6-8pm with live music and refreshments.

Two exhibitions are on display at the Coconino Center for the Arts. In the Main Gallery is Virga: The Hunt for Water, a new exhibition of installations by artist Shawn Skabelund. Each installation is its own large scale work of art using found objects; Skabelund uses materials such as 45 garbage bags of Quetta pine needles collected at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, hundreds of charred ponderosa pine logs from burnt slash pines on the Coconino National Forest, and hundreds of thousands of squirrel sticks (peeled twigs dropped by Abert squirrels). Each of the installations in Virga explore Skabelund’s relationship to specific local ecosystems within Northern Arizona. His hope is that viewers will come away seeing a form of art that they rarely get to see in this area. In the Jewel Gallery, Standing Still and Moving through the Wilderness, is an exhibition of mixed media illustrations by Idaho artist Kirsten Furlong.