Hands ON! Second Saturday

Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation Hands ON! Second Saturdays offers monthly free admission, hands-on art activities, storytelling, a docent-guided tour, live performances, and community collaborations. “Art Adventures” provides children the opportunity to engage with Museum staff and take a closer look at current work on view. New exhibitions, community collaborations, guest performances and monthly themes rotate in this engaging series of monthly programs.

This month’s theme is “Unifying the Unknown” inspired by Richard T. Walker’s artwork on view.

SCHEDULE

Title sponsorship for Hands ON! Second Saturdays is provided by the Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation.

Hands ON! Second Saturday

This month’s “Perspectives from the Playa” theme is inspired by Sacred Transformations: The Art of David Best.

SCHEDULE

Title sponsorship for Hands ON! Second Saturdays is provided by the Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation.

Hands ON! Second Saturday

Get in the holiday spirit at this special Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation Hands ON! Second Saturday. This fun-filled community day offers free admission, hands-on art activities, a special rendition of ‘The Grinch’ and ‘The Nutcracker’ as well as storytelling, and docent-guided tours. Art Adventures provides children the opportunity to engage with Museum staff and take a closer look at current works on view.

This is also our annual Museum School Open House, and the Museum School is offering a 20% discount on upcoming class registrations for this day only!

SCHEDULE

Title sponsorship for Hands ON! Second Saturdays is provided by the Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation.

Hands ON! Second Saturday

Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation Hands ON! Second Saturdays offers monthly free admission, hands-on art activities, storytelling, a docent-guided tour, live performances, and community collaborations. “Art Adventures provides children the opportunity to engage with Museum staff and take a closer look at current work on view. New exhibitions, community collaborations, guest performances and monthly themes rotate in this engaging series of monthly programs.

This month’s theme, “Sketching and Etching” is inspired by on view exhibition, From the Sierra to the Sea: The Etchings of Roi Partridge.

SCHEDULE

Title sponsorship for Hands ON! Second Saturdays is provided by the Estelle J. Kelsey Foundation.

Powwow People with Director Sky Hopinka

Director Sky Hopinka offers exclusive introduction and Q&A for Powwow People. This momentous film is a vérité-style documentary grounded in the rhythms, relationships, and lived experience of a contemporary Native gathering. Rather than entering as observers, the filmmakers organized the powwow, and invited dancers, singers, vendors, and community members to participate in the making of this film.

Reversing Ecological Loss with Walker Basin Conservancy

The Great Basin of the United States has many lakes without an outflow. These terminal lakes and their watersheds play critical roles in supporting Great Basin biological diversity, Indigenous culture, and local economies. After water diversions to support agriculture and rural development that date back to the 1800s, Walker Lake has declined in surface area. The changes have reduced habitat and water quality for fish and birds which once had robust populations in the lake. Join an enlightening conversation on the current efforts of the Walker Basin Conservancy with CEO Peter Stanton and Board President, Dr. Sudeep Chandra, who present a compelling case for restoring Walker Lake and its watershed while supporting the needs of local Indigenous tribes and preserving the agricultural and natural heritage of the basin through science informed water transactions, ecological conservation and restoration, cultivating native plants and encouraging recreation.

This is part of a series featuring local conservation and sustainability organizations, which complements Into the Time Horizon.

Artist Talk: Questioning Conventions and Reframing Ideas about Nature with Mark Dion

Artist Mark Dion leads a conversation about his interdisciplinary practice and the ways he borrows from scientific methods to explore how we collect, interpret, and display the natural world. By examining how knowledge about nature is constructed, Dion challenges the objectivity and authoritative role of science in contemporary society, and shows how pseudo-science, social agendas and ideology creep into public discourse and knowledge production.

Dion’s work, Cabinet of Extinction is on view in The Sixth Extinction section of Into the Time Horizon.

Photo credit: Rebecca Kiger, New York Times

OLLI Art at the Museum: Exhibition Tour

As Into the Time Horizon prepares to close, our trained Museum docents lead an interactive conversation in the galleries about the artworks from around the world that illustrate possibilities for a better collective future.

This program is presented in partnership with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) and is hosted every third Wednesday of the month. Support for the 2026 series provided by CJ Christenson.

Through an Artist’s Eyes: Biodiversity with Isabella Kirkland

Artist Isabella Kirkland creates works that bridge fine art and taxonomy, capturing the vibrant complexity of the natural world with hyper-realistic precision. Her meticulously researched compositions are both a joyful celebration of biodiversity and a scientifically rigorous visual archive. Meet the artist and learn about her detailed process in this special artist talk. Her work, Nova: Forest Floor, is part of the Interspecies Relationships section of Into the Time Horizon.

Image credit: Christopher Michel

Artist Talk: Intersections in the Everyday Landscape with Rodney McMillian

Join artist Rodney McMillian for a conversation about the histories, experiences, and systems that shape everyday life. Through painting, sculpture, installation, video, and performance, McMillian explores the intersections of power, race, class, and culture in America. His recent landscape paintings are portals to imagined realms, with skies, stars, and foliage floating between worlds. His works invite both escape and confrontation, offering glimpses of fantastical possibilities elsewhere.

McMillian’s work Untitled (Orange Hills) is in the Nevada Museum of Art permanent collection and is currently on view in the Strange Weather section of Into the Time Horizon.