Spire of Fire is the Black Rock Arts Foundation’s fourth installation at our public art venue in Reno, Nevada, and will be on display June 20 – Nov. 15, 2011, on the corner of Sierra Street and Island Avenue, on the bank of the Truckee River in downtown Reno.  Previously exhibited at Burning Man in 2010, Spire of Fire, by artists Steve Atkins and Eric Smith, is unique in its materials, (stainless steel and propane fueled fire) scale (48’ tall x 30’) and artistic vision.

Join us to celebrate this ongoing collaboration with the Reno community!

Friday, June 24, 2011

The River Walk
Sierra St. at Island Ave
Reno, NV
5:00 pm – 10:00 pm

- Dj’s spinning from 5:00 – 10:00 pm

- Hula Hoop Jam from 5:00 – 8:00 pm

- Controlled Burn and Friends spin fire 8:30 – 10:00

- Artwork’s fire effects alight! 8:30 – 10:00

- Wine and Beer will be sold as a BRAF fundraiser, courtesy of Wild River Grill

- and be sure to catch all the activities on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings during Artown in Reno

. Free fun for the family!

To Read More about the Spire of Fire CLICK HERE

photo: Leo Sauerman

The Black Rock Arts Foundation helped Levi Strauss & Co. with their May 5th Community Day, during which Levi’s employees in San Francisco leave their regular office responsibilities behind and volunteer at Bay Area non-profits.  BRAF was given a special role this year, supporting the company’s efforts to be better caretakers of the planet and reduce both water consumption and material waste in their manufacturing and ordering processes.

Over a dozen BRAF volunteers sculpted a literal “mountain” out of samples and scraps of Levi’s and Dockers that are produced each year to help demonstrate the scale of waste, the importance of reducing and re-using such items and

BRAF Executive Director Tomas McCabe photo: Eli Peterson

to encourage recycling usable samples vs. throwing them away. The mountain, which was installed at Levi’s Plaza was impressive, but represented just 10% of the some 71,000 articles of clothing samples generated each year that are otherwise unusable for Levi’s but perfectly good for other uses. BRAF was thrilled to be part of a project that is helping a major manufacturer in America to use creativity and art to inspire its employees to reduce, reuse and recycle. Everyone was so inspired and an absolute pleasure to work with!

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When our group got together to start FIGMENT in 2007, we never had any idea that it could ever grow this much, this fast. In 2010, our three-day NYC event had nearly 25,000 participants, and our Boston event, just in its first year, had something like 10,000 participants. It’s really amazing to see how quickly the community around FIGMENT has grown, and it’s exciting to see where it can go next.

Welcome to FIGMENT! (Image (c) 2010 NY_Man)

FIGMENT began in New York in 2007 as a way to bring three important resources together: first, Governors Island, a former Army and then Coast Guard base in New York Harbor that had just been turned over to New York City; second, the creative energy of artists in New York, often creating work without ample resources, often desperately in need of space; and third, the ethos that many of the founders of FIGMENT had learned from Burning Man, expressed in the ten principles—basically, teaching us how to work collaboratively together to make great things happen in a way that is participatory, generous, and free from commoditization.

The idea took off immediately, and, while we expected 500 people or so at our first one-day event, we had over 2,600 people, with thousands more turned away at the ferries. We haven’t stopped since. The New York event has grown exponentially each year, increasing how much art we cram onto the island’s 172 acres, growing in participation as art projects become more ambitious, growing in duration as we add increasingly successful summer-long projects every year, and growing in stability as we build a team that believes in this event and can keep it going.

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