Western Nevada College faculty members Jayna Conkey and Rachel Stiff presented separate exhibitions at the McKinley Art Center in Reno this fall.

Conkey's "Grounded" book is displayed in Gallery East as part of the "Black Rock Press Community Exhibition." She photographed historical plumb bobs from her collection, incorporating them moving and then still.

“The book structure is long in length and the plumb bobs move from side to side,” Conkey said about her 25-page book exhibit.

Stiff's "Indefinite State" exhibit stems from her artist residency with the Friends of Black Rock-High Rock and the Nevada Bureau of Land Management. Her exhibit appears in Gallery West.

"The work made for Indefinite State builds upon a practice of immersion, movement and observation,” she said. “The semi-arid region of lava beds and playa known as the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada is under a constant state of change while feeling indelible in relation to the human experience. From the playa, there is a sense that time is compressed, ever expanding and possibly overlapping — that time is circular. The Earth's orbit around the sun marks each day, year, century and eventually an epoch.”

Stiff said that Lost Tide is a collection of monoprints that reflects upon the fact that once the cycles of the moon encouraged water to rise and to fall in perfect order.

“Visual evidence of this elemental force can be seen in the ancient shorelines found around the dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan,” she said. “Using these horizontal bands as a focal point, one can narrow the scope through which to view this vast space. From the dark skies of the National Conservation Area to the old shores, one can almost hear water lapping at the dark bluffs through the piercing silence of the desert."

Learn more about their exhibitions, which showed at the McKinley Art Center through Dec. 1 at https://ow.ly/kx3K50QazfA.