Jan 19, 2016
People at Lake Tahoe are working together like never before to restore our environment, revitalize our economy, and improve our communities. We saw significant progress all around the lake this year. And our progress is sustainable with continued partnership and collaboration, so critical to tackle the many challenges and important decisions on our horizon.
We are making significant progress at all levels and on all fronts and we have much to be proud of at Tahoe. But we have much more to do and continued partnership and “epic collaboration” will be critical to sustain our progress to restore our environment, revitalize our economy, and improve our communities. By working together we are making a real and meaningful difference.
-Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Executive Director Joanne S. Marchetta
Take a look back at significant moments from 2015.
March 2015: Heavenly Vote
TRPA Approves Heavenly Epic Discovery Project “The Epic Discovery Project represents an exciting, collaborative model for sustainable recreation that successfully balances environmental preservation and education with economic revitalization and improved outdoor recreational opportunities, all consistent with TRPA’s Regional Plan,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, Executive Director of TRPA.
April 2015: Clarity Report
Lake Tahoe water clarity in 2014 the best in more than a decade. “Despite the impact of reduced runoff from the drought in 2014, these findings underscore that our collaborative efforts to reduce erosion and stormwater pollution in the Lake Tahoe Basin are working and have halted the decline in mid-lake water clarity,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
April 2015: Take Care Launched
Take Care campaign launched. “We heard loud and clear that a unified stewardship brand was needed to bring the region together to elevate our messages and see the biggest impact,” said Amy Berry, Executive Director of the Tahoe Fund. “We are thrilled to finally make the materials available to our regional partners for use in their outreach efforts.”
May 2015: Fanny Bridge Approved
TRPA Governing Board Approves Fanny Bridge Project. “The Fanny Bridge project for Tahoe City is a major step forward in carrying out the Regional Plan’s goal to make our communities at Lake Tahoe more walkable and bikeable while supporting community revitalization,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, Executive Director of TRPA.
June 2015: Lake Spirit Award Winners
TRPA Recognizes Lake Spirit Award Winners. “This year’s winners have shown amazing commitment by going above and beyond to protect Lake Tahoe,” said TRPA environmental education specialist Devin Middlebrook. “When it comes to creating environmental improvements on the ground, everyone has a role to play.”
July 2015: Restoration Act Introduced
Congress Introduces Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. “Lake Tahoe is a unique national treasure with a strong, broad partnership of people working together every day toward its restoration, with funding coming from all sectors, federal, state, local, and private,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, Executive Director of TRPA. “We are making significant progress, but we must remain vigilant in our pursuit of Lake Tahoe’s restoration and its conservation for future generations to enjoy.”
July 2015: Tahoe Valley Area Plan Adopted
TRPA Approves Tahoe Valley Area Plan “Today marks another important step in implementing the Regional Plan. We look forward to seeing this comprehensive vision for one of our most visible gateways at Tahoe carried out for the benefit of our community, environment, and economy,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, Executive Director of TRPA.
August 2015: Lake Tahoe Summit
Lake Tahoe Summit focuses on Wildfire, Invasive Species Threats. “By working together we can secure a healthy and prosperous future for the entire Tahoe Basin,” said U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-Nevada), who hosted the event at the Round Hill Pines Beach Resort in Zephyr Cove.
September 2015: Bijou Bike Park Opens
Bijou Bike Park opens in South Lake Tahoe. “the Bijou Bike Park is a celebrated example of a project that was made possible through a partnership between the city, Tahoe Area Mountain Bike Association, and South Lake Tahoe BMX,” said Mayor Hal Cole.
September 2015: Invasive Species News
Meeting The Aquatic Invasive Species Challenge at Tahoe Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are one of the most serious challenges facing Lake Tahoe. They continuously threaten to damage its unique environment and famed water clarity and degrade the world-class recreational experiences residents and millions of visitors enjoy each year.
September 2015: Best In Basin Awards
TRPA announces 2015 Best In Basin Award winners. This is the 25th year for the Best in the Basin program. TRPA created the program to recognize and showcase projects that demonstrate exceptional planning, design, and compatibility with Lake Tahoe’s environment and communities.
October 2015: Tahoe Yellow Cress Conservation
Tahoe Yellow Cress: Tahoe’s Conservation Success Story. Our region’s proactive, collaborative strategy to protect Tahoe yellow cress, begun almost 15 years ago, is working so well that the plant does not need additional protections under the federal Endangered Species Act.
December 2015: Project Tracker Launched
Environmental Improvement Program Tracker Offers Window to Tahoe’s Restoration. A new website puts comprehensive information about the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program at everyone’s fingertips, allowing people to easily learn more about “Lake-Saving Projects” completed in their own neighborhoods and all around Lake Tahoe.
December 2015: Tahoe Art Exhibit on Display
Nevada Museum of Art features Tahoe art exhibit. “Fine art and art history in many ways define people’s understanding of place and cultural identity. This exhibition filled a significant gap in our regional knowledge and our understanding of ourself and what this region has contributed to our nation’s art history,” said Ann Wolfe, senior curator and deputy director at Nevada Museum of Art.
Jan 7, 2016
Design Guidelines Public Workshop
WHAT: Design Guidelines Public Workshop
WHO: All community members
WHERE: City of South Lake Tahoe City Council Chambers
1901 Airport Rd., South Lake Tahoe
WHEN: Thursday, January 21st, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
WHY: Join the City for a Design Guidelines Public Workshop and discuss how to improve South Lake Tahoe’s visual character. The Design Guidelines Public Workshop is hosted by the South Lake Tahoe Planning Commission on Thursday, January 21st, 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm at the City of South Lake Tahoe City Council Chambers located at 1901 Airport Rd., South Lake Tahoe. This is a free workshop open to all community members.
Jan 6, 2016
This story originally ran in the Winter 2015 issue of Tahoe In Depth. Click here to read more stories and view past issues.
John Ross Key, View of Lake Tahoe, not dated, Oil on canvas, 16 ¼ x 30 ¾ inches, Collection of Oakland Museum of California, Oakland Museum Kahn Collection
200 years of Tahoe art
Museum showcases 400 pieces of art and artifacts from lake’s rich history
By Tom Lotshaw
Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
From handwoven baskets to sculptures, paintings, photographs, and modern art, an exhibition at Nevada Museum of Art in downtown Reno explores 200 years of art history inspired by Lake Tahoe, Donner Pass, and the surrounding Sierra, one of America’s most inspiring and beloved landscapes.
“TAHOE: A Visual History” showcases more than 400 pieces of art and artifacts the Nevada Museum of Art worked for five years to assemble from museums, libraries, archives, and private collections around the country.
The museum-wide exhibition opened in August and is on display through Jan. 10, 2016. Fifteen- thousand people visited the first two months.
“This is a very comprehensive and foundational project for our region,” said Ann Wolfe, senior curator and deputy director at Nevada Museum of Art. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for people because these objects will likely never be together in one place again.”
The exhibition is organized around sections and themes. They include native basketry, life, and legends; first European American views and historical mapping and sketches; 19th century painting; 150 years of Tahoe photography; Tahoe timber; architecture and the rise of the resort and leisure; and contemporary art. Together, they show how Tahoe has inspired artists and influenced art and culture for more than two centuries, and how it continues to do so today.
“Fine art and art history in many ways define people’s understanding of place and cultural identity. This exhibition filled a significant gap in our regional knowledge and our understanding of ourself and what this region has contributed to our nation’s art history,” Wolfe said.
Photographer unknown, Louisa Keyser marketing photograph with LK 44 and LK 59, commissioned by A. Cohn, circa 1916, Gelatin silver print, 8. x 6. inches, Courtesy of Nevada State Museum, Carson City
Native Basketry
The exhibition opens with some of Tahoe’s earliest art, and the largest collection of Washoe baskets ever assembled in one place. For generations, the Washoe wove to meet their needs, creating various baskets and tools and tending willow groves to raise the best possible withes for their weaving.
The Washoe wove “burden” baskets that were used to carry heavy loads between Washoe Valley and their sacred mountain lake; cradles to carry infants; baskets to store and serve food; “beaters” used to harvest seeds; scoops and trays; and traps to catch fish in streams.
The Washoe wove especially tight containers to hold water, making large ones for storage at their camps and small ones to carry along for travel. When filled, the containers’ willow fibers swelled to make them nearly watertight, and a coating of pitch enhanced that seal and flavored the water.
Woven snowshoes allowed the Washoe to travel over the snow, “skimming along like birds,” according to one account by 19th century explorer John Charles Fremont.
The exhibition includes many of these functional examples of Washoe basketry. But it also features the highly decorative, fine art baskets created by Louisa Keyser (Datsolalee) and other well-known Washoe weavers. Washoe baskets were highly sought after during an arts and crafts movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, when middle-class households around the country were collecting baskets and other handmade Americana to decorate their homes.
Mapping a Lake in the Sky
The exhibition’s section on mapping and sketches highlights the imaginations and the discoveries of early mapmakers and explorers, and the gradual appearance of the lake that has been variously known as Mountain Lake, Lake Bonpland, Lake Bigler, and, finally, Lake Tahoe, on maps of the vast American West.
John Charles Fremont was the first European American to spot Lake Tahoe. Standing on a peak near Carson Pass with scout Kit Carson in 1844, Fremont reported, “a beautiful view of a mountain lake at our feet, about 15 miles in length, and so entirely surrounded by mountains that we could not discover an outlet.”
Exhibit sections on painting and photography showcase the beauty of Tahoe’s natural landscapes and the allure they have had on artists. But they also show the arrival of mining and the railroad, and how those activities left the Tahoe Basin clear cut of trees, denuded and unrecognizable within decades of Fremont’s first glimpse of the lake.
That rapid environmental degradation left famed Sierra naturalist John Muir and many others distraught. Muir worked to have Tahoe set aside as a national park, but the effort fell a few votes short in Congress in 1889.
A contemporary art section at the exhibit brings together the works of modern-day artists who continue to draw inspiration from the Tahoe region and, like Muir and many others in the past, remain concerned about its environmental health and future.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Lodge Type Cabin, Lake Tahoe Summer Colony, California: Perspective and Plan, 1923, Graphite and colored pencil on Japanese paper, 21 x 13 ¾ inches, Collection Centre Canadien d ’Architecture/Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal, Gift of George Jacobsen and of the CCA Founders Circle in his memory, 1994, © 2014 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona/Artists Rights Society (ARS)), NY
Summer Colony at Emerald Bay
The exhibition’s section on Tahoe architecture ranges from the conical pole shelters and floating fishing platforms of the Washoe Tribe to the cabins and stores of early settlers and the appearance of hotels, resorts, lodges, and magnificent Tahoe estates.
Coupled with the rise of recreation and resort life at Tahoe, one display focuses on designs that famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright developed for a Summer Colony at iconic Emerald Bay.
Drawn up in 1923 for Jessie Armstrong, whose family owned 500 acres of land in Emerald Bay, the designs proposed a collection of terrestrial cabins along the shoreline and a fleet of floating cabins that could be towed out and moored in the bay, as well as a country club and clubhouse built on a pier extending out to Fannette Island.
Inspired by Emerald Bay’s natural beauty, Wright proposed an “architecture of place” that used native building materials and designs to complement the landscape. Armstrong was never convinced of the project’s feasibility, however, and sold the property to Lora Josephine Knight, who in 1928 and 1929 built Vikingsholm, the magnificent castle of stone and hewn timber that today graces the shoreline in Emerald Bay State Park.
The Book
Nevada Museum of Art has published, “Tahoe: A Visual History.” The 488-page book is available for purchase at the museum store, at select area bookstores, and online at www.amazon.com.
For More Information
http://www.nevadaart.org/exhibition/tahoe-the-art-of-the-lake-tahoe-region/
