New Art at Truckee Springs

Wander along the new stretch of the Truckee River Legacy Trail at Truckee Springs, and you might notice a unique art installation tucked back in a stand of trees.

“Water is Life” is a collaboration between Nancy Tieken Lopez, the sculptor and stone carver, Sue Coleman, a member of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California and master basket weaver, and Ira Kessey, a stone monument artist.

John Svahn (Truckee Donner Land Trust), Carol Sesko, Joan Duffield (Spirit Burns), Danielle Williams (Truckee Donner Land Trust), Sue Coleman, and Nancy Tieken Lopez at the installation. Photo by Scott Thompson.

Featuring bronze castings of traditional Washoe baskets on basalt pillars, “Water is Life” “strives to create an experience in the environment that provides a glimpse into the culture and heritage of the Washoe Tribe,” Lopez said. “The ‘Water is Life’ art installation creates community through the gathering of people and connection to place.”

Lopez used Coleman’s basket work to cast the bronze baskets and placed them on basalt columns from Kessey.

Coleman was awarded the Nevada Governor’s Award for Excellence in Folk Arts, is a featured basket weaver at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. and showcased her cradle boards at the "Remarkable Women" exhibit in the California State History Museum in Sacramento. Coleman’s baskets are also featured in a permanent collection at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno.

Lopez created artwork inspired by what she learned from Coleman and Herman Fillmore of the Washoe Tribe. Grinding stones are vitally important sites where women gathered to share news and grind nuts for cooking ingredients. Children and grandchildren would also be around the grinding stone to help grind the nuts into flour using a mortar and a bowl-shaped cavity in the granite stone.

The installation was commissioned by the Spirit Burns Fund through the Truckee Donner Land Trust in support of local artists. Special thanks to The Rock Garden, Carol Sesko, and ArtWorks Foundry in Berkeley.

We hope you take the time to visit this installation the next time you’re enjoying Truckee Springs!