Elko’s 42nd Art In The Park will take place July 8-9 in the Main City Park on Idaho Street. The Elko County Art Club brings this fun summer art event to locals and visitors every July. This year will be the largest festival ever, with 115 vendor booths, a stage for live performances including poetry, music, dance, and theater. There will also be food trucks, a children’s play area, kids’ craft with the California Trail Interpretive Center and live art demonstrations.
We’d like to introduce to you three of this year’s artists.
Monica Milldrum has been the President of the Elko County Art Club for the last three years. She recently took on the additional role of gallery director at the ECAC gallery in downtown Elko.
Monica has been interested in the arts since early childhood. For years she helped others promote their artwork, comparing art promotion to putting a puzzle together, and believes “promoting art is as important as doing art.” She recently discovered her own work is marketable and turned a passion into a profession.
When asked what is her medium, it would be easier to list what she doesn’t do. Monica uses photography to help capture subject matter. Then creates works using pen & ink, gouache, watercolor, and recently added ceramic art to her body of work. She also works with digital media including designing professional logos.
She describes her work as “not mainstream.” The subject matter is as diverse as her mediums. “A good artist has to be a little mentally compromised,” she said. “Your brain just wants to do the art and ignore everything else. I enjoy being that focused on it.”
Hannah York has a degree in geophysical engineering and works in the Elko mining industry. In her spare time, she is a member, gallery host, and volunteer at the Elko County Art Club.
Hannah made the connection between geophysics and art in 2019 when she expanded her study of natural elements to include the healing power of earth’s sub-surface materials and started making jewelry. Each piece of jewelry has stones or crystals specifically selected for the new owner to help bring awareness and healing to any issue in their life.
Hannah also paints and recently included paintings as part of a new holistic healing business. Her paintings are abstract and created to help clients set a positive intention. She has turned many of the paintings into printed Sacred Image card decks, similar in size to a deck of playing cards and similar in purpose to oracle cards. A person is encouraged to select a card each day. Hannah gives them the tools to understand the meaning of the specific card’s artwork selected and how to use that as a tool in personal health and wellbeing.
Holistic Healing by Hannah has clients all over the world. She will be giving away card samples and taking pre-orders for Sacred Images decks and jewelry at the ECAC members booth at Art In The Park.
Tess King is a full-time artist, native to the Elko area. In the past she has served as ECAC President, Gallery Director, and Art In The Park Coordinator until her growing family forced her to step aside from those roles, temporarily.
She is helping with AITP and still makes time for her own artwork that will be for sale in the ECAC members booth. Tess started her art career at Spring Creek High School and has always focused on painting with acrylic. Recently she changed her focus from detailed subjects to pour painting. “I like to let the paint do what it wants,” she said. “It’s so much more freeing than detail painting. It’s really relaxing to me.” A nice break for the mom of three.
Besides paint pouring on canvas, she also paints and sells ceramic tiles for kitchens and bathrooms. Tess has recently started adding three-dimensional objects, such as crystals or beads, as she is pouring paint to give it a texture and a multi-medium designation.
Elko Art In the Park will be in the Main City Park July 8-9 from 9 am-4 pm.
Cover photo courtesy Elko County Art Club. All other photos courtesy of the artists.
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