Windspire Becomes Functional Community Art

The most colorful Windspire to date was installed in downtown Reno on top of a parking gallery. Many members of the community, including Reno mayor Bob Cashell, came out to celebrate Reno’s commitment to art and renewable energy. In 2001 Nevada made a significant commitment to developing renewable resources by passing the country’s largest renewable portfolio standard. Nevada has pledged that 15% of the state’s electricity will be generated from renewable resources by 2013.

Reno’s Wind Energy Demonstration Program will include the installation of nine different wind turbines around the Northern Nevada area in order to show wind power at work, more information on this project can be found  here.

The base pole of the Windspire was painted by two local artists, Naomi Ferrall and Katie Packham, and was a part of the month long Artown events. Both artists are well known in the Reno community and have multiple public art installations around the area, more of Katie’s work can be seen at www.katiesmurals.com. Artown is a month long event that takes place every July in Reno, NV. It features more than 400 events, from over 100 presenters, with 350,000 attendees annually. Acording to the Artown website, “Artown captures the imagination and brings with it a celebration of distinguished artists from around the world, across the country, and those that live in the Northern Nevada community all for the sake of cultural diversity and artistic innovation”.

To view more about Artown please visit www.renoisartown.com/.

Click on the photos below to view the art.