Fallen Leaf Lake: Anita Baldwin hosts Maynard Dixon

Maynard Dixon’s longtime friend and patron Anita Baldwin hosted the artist and his photographer-wife Dorothea Lange, and their twin-boys, at her 2,000-acre estate at Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe in 1932. Anita was the daughter of E. J. “Lucky” Baldwin, who made his fortune on the Comstock Lode in the 1870s. Join Marilyn Long, a longtime volunteer at the Lake Tahoe Historical Society and Tallac Historic Site, as she shares photographs and stories of Anita Baldwin and her Fallen Leaf Lake estate.

Writing the Western Landscape: A Poetry Reading and Discussion

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Nevada Poet Laureate Emerita Gailmarie Pahmeier, longtime Nevada poet Shaun Griffin, and UNR professor and poet-scholar Ann Keniston for a reading and conversation about the challenges and rewards of writing about the U.S. West in the context of Maynard Dixon’s seldom-discussed landscape poems.

About the Poets:

Shaun T. Griffin co-founded and directed Community Chest, a rural social justice agency for twenty-seven years. His new book of poems, No Charity in the Wilderness, is forthcoming from the University of Nevada Press in 2024. Southern Utah University Press released Anthem for a Burnished Land, a memoir, in 2016. For thirty years he taught a poetry workshop at Northern Nevada Correctional Center.

Ann Keniston is a poet, essayist, and critic interested in the relation of the creative to the scholarly. She is the author of several poetry collections, including, most recently, Somatic (Terrapin 2020), as well as several scholarly studies of contemporary American poetry, including most recently Economies of Scale: Financialization and Contemporary North American Poetry (Palgrave 2023). Recent poems and essays have appeared in Gettysburg Review, Fourth Genre, and Five Points. A professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she teaches poetry workshops and literature classes, she lives in Reno.

Gailmarie Pahmeier, now Emeritus faculty, taught creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno. Widely published, she’s the author of three chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, the most recent being Of Bone, Of Ash, Of Ordinary Saints (WSC Press, 2020) which was nominated for the High Plains Book Award. In 2015, she was appointed Reno’s first Poet Laureate, in 2016 she was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2017, she was selected as Outstanding Teacher in the Humanities. In 2021, the governor of Nevada appointed her Poet Laureate, State of Nevada. In 2022, she was selected as a Laureate Fellow, Academy of American Poets.

Image Credit:

Maynard Dixon, Lonesome Hills of Nevada, 1935, Oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches. Private Collection. Image courtesy Mark Sublette, Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ

Richard Louv and the Impact of Nature

Join Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, for an engaging presentation on how nature influences developmental psychology, the learning process and mental health.

*Book signing and cash bar to follow presentation.

Richard Louv is a journalist and author of ten books, including Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder; The Nature Principle; Vitamin N; and most recently, Our Wild Calling: How Connecting With Animals Can Transform Our Lives — and Save Theirs. Translated in 24 languages, his books have helped launch an international movement to connect families and communities to nature. In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society. Prior recipients included Rachel Carson, E. O. Wilson and President Jimmy Carter. Among other awards, Louv is also the recipient of the Cox Award for 2007, Clemson University’s highest honor, for “sustained achievement in public service.” He speaks frequently around the world, including keynote addresses at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference, the first White House Summit on Environmental Education, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and the Friends of Nature Conference in Beijing, China. He is a co-founder of the nonprofit Children & Nature Network, which supports the international movement. He would rather hike than write.

Sunday Brunch

Sunday Brunch at the Café is the perfect precursor to an afternoon exploring our galleries. Chef Colin Smith has updated the menu to include an eclectic array of options from traditional breakfast fare to lunch options–both of which pair nicely with juice, coffee, champagne or a mimosa. Doors open at 10:30 am and service continues until 2:30 pm. Reservations are required for parties of five or more, but encouraged for all as space is limited. Museum members receive 10% savings as a benefit of membership. Call the Café at 775.284.2921 for more information.