A Virginia City venue to discover
The one art venue in the region that people most often tell me they’ve never visited is St. Mary’s Art Center in Virginia City. It’s that big, brick building from 1875 with the wide, two-story porch that you can see if you stand on the town’s main drag, C Street, and look downhill.
During the Comstock Lode boomtown days, it was St. Mary Louise Hospital. Today, the old patient rooms are guest rooms for retreat-goers, and five gallery spaces with ancient wood floors and modern track lights showcase works of many kinds. A gift shop stocks locally made works like pottery and textiles, and the place boasts one of the best views in the region—through lace curtains and wavy glass at 6,000 feet in elevation, all the way down to Sugarloaf Mountain, Dayton and the farmlands of Yerington.
Spring and summer bring a few more good reasons to drop by. The Spring Art Reception features light refreshments and watercolor landscape paintings by New Mexico’s Dale Laitinen from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, May 16. (His show runs through July 8.) On Saturday and Sunday, June 13-14, the Summer Artisan Faire will feature works for sale by photographers, writers, “culinary artists” and others from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Also this summer, St. Mary’s will host its first-ever Artown events, including a needle-felting class with Lisa Shea on July 16, and a Japanese woodblock-printing workshop with Carol Brown on July 19.
St. Mary is open Wednesday through Sunday. Visitors may wander in announced, but on some days, when a retreat or other event is in progress, access can be limited, so the staffers recommend making a reservation at www.stmarysartcenter.org/book-online. Admission is $8, or $6 for veterans, seniors and kids.
A heads-up for visitors with mobility issues: There’s an ADA ramp to the first floor, where the printmaking studio and some of the exhibitions are, but the other floors are accessible only by stairs.
If, by chance, when you read, “19th-century hospital,” your mind went more toward creepy attics and ghost sightings than landscape paintings, well, I have good news for you. The Paranormal Painting Pajama Party takes place July 30-Aug. 1—and, naturally, on Halloween weekend.
Artown’s summer lineup
Artown has announced its 2026 lineup—more than 600 events in more than 100 venues between July 1 and 31.
Smash Mouth will bring its late-’90s rock energy to opening night at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park on Wednesday, July 1. A Fourth of July show at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Mackay Stadium will feature the Reno Philharmonic and a drone show. Headliners playing ticketed shows at Bartley Ranch Regional Park include Direct From Sweden: The Music of Abba on July 2, Kronos Quartet on July 9, and Wynton Marsalis on July 10.
There will also be hundreds of local and national acts playing shows—many of them free—at restaurants, bars, parks, libraries and music venues in and near Reno, along with workshops, history events, art exhibitions and more.
For the full calendar of events, visit artown.org, or pick up the Artown Little Book from grocery stores, libraries and other locales once it’s released on June 1.