The Homebodies series explores the personal spaces of community members, the artworks and interesting objects they’ve collected through the years, and how those pieces live with them every day. For a few posts, we’ve asked members of our gallery committee for a tour. Now up – Hanna Kaplan! Hanna is a longtime friend of Holland and a talented artist and photographer. They recently just moved, so this arrangement of the collection is totally fresh and showcases some extremely rad pieces by local artists.

1. Alek and I moved into a little brick duplex in July, merging both of our art collections. We have multiple pieces from the same artists, so it’s almost like we have a mini gallery for each person in our home. We have a mixture of thrift store nick nacks and art, pieces from Reno artists, and a few from some folks we’ve found on Instagram. Nothing in our collection/house in general matches, so we tried to create themed walls based on color or medium to tie the rooms together. From left to right: Lack of Human Knowledge by Nathaniel Benjamin I purchased from High Desert Art+Craft one year, (top) a print from Fiona McElhany’s exhibition “Party” at window mine, (bottom) another print by Nathaniel titled Camera Phone that he gifted to me after showing it at a Brushfire AMPS event, and lastly a print I made for an intro to printmaking class. In the right corner is a thrift store painting signed “Quasar”.

2. Zines were the first art-type things I began collecting when I first got involved at Holland in about 2015/16. Some I have bought at the various Zine Fest events, some from friends, others from exhibitions, but most of them I snagged from Record St. Bibo’s counter. Here are some of our favorites: Still Water by Summer Orr, To Think Nothing at All by HT MacDiarmid, Home is a Horizon by Em Jiang, Fussy by Tara Littlefield, You Want it Darker by Denali Lowder, and Banging a Dead Drum by Omar Pierce and Nick Larsen.

3. My favorite things to collect are functional pottery pieces, mostly mugs or pots for plants. Here are some of my favorite mugs. From left to right: a little cup by Summer Orr, mug by Aaron Becker, another one by Summer, and two mug friends by Denali Lowder.

4. Some more pottery by Summer, Denali, and one booby pot I made when I was 15 in a high school ceramics class.

5. Here are some of my most treasured pieces and knick knacks. The shining star on this shelf is the vessel by Michelle Laxalt from the 2019 “All In” exhibition. It is now the home for this ZZ plant. To the right is a photo taken by HT MacDiarmid. Below is a piece from Ray Mueller’s exhibition “Ties that Bind” at window mine in May 2020 (not sure what the title of the piece is).

6. These pieces hang above a red western style rug we got from some guy on Craigslist. The outer two pieces are prints by Bridget Conway, and the middle is a print by Bree McGee.

7. This shadow box piece is titled Saying “I Think” as a Statement of Not Knowing by HT MacDiarmid that Alek got from the 2019 “All In” exhibition. On the shelf below are a couple of bowls made by Denali Lowder that currently hold rocks we have found.

8. Here is one of my favorite pieces in our collection, a photo by Denali Lowder from the “Tree of Heaven” show in 2017 next to some thrift store finds.

9. From right to left: A pot made by Summer Orr around 2016/17(?), a painting by Nate Clark I got from his Cuddleworks studio sale in 2016, and two more pieces by Ray Muellers from “Ties that Bind” at window mine in May 2020.

10. This is the “fun frames” section of our wall. Top left is a piece I got from an artist on instagram I can no longer remember who it’s by, under that is an embroidery piece by Payton Williams I got from a 2016 Art Walk event at Bad Apple Vntg. The long piece in the middle was thrifted by Alek. Top right is a little embroidered rat made by my mom, and below is a print by Ally Messer.

11. These are works we don’t have frames for that hang in the back bedroom that acts as Alek’s music space. From left to right: Show poster made by Ana McKay that never happened due to COVID (rip), a print by Aaron Billings, two watercolors by Ana Mckay, a print by Sean (?) from intro to printmaking class, poster by Summer Orr, handkerchief by Hannah Huntley, and lastly, possibly the worst thing I’ve ever made, a print from printmaking class.

12. Here’s a fun Greg Allen painting made March 1999 that we found at the Salvation Army.