A new mural in the city of Reno honors the Basque presence in Northern Nevada. It was created by artist Leire Urbeltz and Jaione Inda, two women from the Basque Country who received a grant for the project from the government of the Basque province of Nafarroa, Spain.
The mural, at Barbara Bennett Park, was painted last month. It is part of the downtown park area along the Truckee River.
The subjects to be included in the mural were decided after a couple of workshops where local Basque-Americans were asked for their feedback, said Urbeltz, who is currently still working in the Reno area. Urbeltz proposed a mural that reflects the duality of being Basque and being a Nevadan.
In the mural, she said, the Basque culture is represented by a sheepherder, dancers, a sign of the local Louis’ Basque Corner restaurant, the table as a place of social gathering, a sheep wagon and the jai alai court, she said.The Nevada identity is reflected in the skyline of Reno, the sagebrush, a banjo player, gambling casinos and Paiute stone carvings.
Urbeltz said color blocks were first created outlining the subjects and 15 to 20 volunteers helped paint the mural. It was inaugurated by the city of Reno on Oct. 30. Two traditional Basque singers known as bertsolaris, Jesus Goñi and Asier Barandiaran, sang at the celebration.
Urbeltz and Inda came to Reno in September and Urbeltz said the project was already well along in the planning states, thanks to the work of Stephanie Gibson, director of the University of Reno’s Lilley Museum of Art. The women had reached out to Gibson from the Basque Country, and Gibson proposed the mural idea to city officials and the Center for Basque Studies at UNR. Xabier Irujo, director of the Center for Basque Studies, organized workshops to bring together the local Basque community, while Reno’s Arts and Culture Manager Megan Berner handled the project for the city.
“Everything happened really fast,” said Urbeltz. “It was almost magical.” Urbeltz and Inda are only in Reno for a total of three months.
In an interview with Euskal Kazeta, Urbeltz explained that the idea started when Inda, who works as a humanist, contacted Urbeltz in order to illustrate a children’s book on the Basque diaspora. Urbeltz prompted her to dig deeper into the topic, and the two applied for a visual art grant from the Huarte Center of Art in in the city of Pamplona, where they are from. The grant, funded by the provincial government, allowed them to travel to Reno for three months. They are currently working on a children’s picture book about the Basque diaspora.
Urbeltz, who described her art work as “expanded illustration,” has illustrated numerous works and painted several murals in the Basque Country. She has carried out art residencies in Mexico, South Korea and China, where she has also exhibited her work. She said she is interested in the topics of geopolitics, feminism and human rights. Urbeltz is on Instagram, where you can see her work at @leireurbeltz.
Inda is researching the immigration of Basques from the Nafarroa province to the U.S.
Here are some Basque men singing bertsos at the mural’s inauguration.
