Hearts on Fire: Art for Wildfire Resilience

Wildfire Ready Coalition of Nevada County is seeking artwork that helps our community understand what it truly means to live with wildfire - and to do it with courage, creativity, and responsibility.

Hearts on Fire is a countywide art showcase about the transformation happening in Nevada County: how we move from fear to action, from overwhelm to resilience, from “fire is coming” to “we are ready.”

This exhibit invites artists to illuminate that shift - the mindset, the work, the love for place, and the fire-adapted future we’re building together.

ABOUT THE EVENT

An immersive, art-forward evening celebrating love for Nevada City, Firewise Communities, and wildfire resilience—featuring visual art, live music, interactive installations, glass blowing demonstration, a live auction, food and inspirational talks. Featured speakers will be fire scientist and ecologist Jo Ann Fites-Kaufman on “Why I Love Fire”, and Shelly Covert and Saxon Thomas of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan on the importance of fire to their culture.

WHAT WE WANT THE ART TO EXPRESS

Your work should engage with at least one of these five themes:

  • Love as a Verb: Protecting What We Cherish
    Art that shows why we prepare - love of home, land, people, and place. Emotional connection, devotion, meaning, motivation.

  • Living With Fire: Honesty, Adaptation, Acceptance
    Art that looks directly at wildfire as part of our environment. Cultural burning, prescribed fire, fire adapted plants and ecosystems, fire adapted wildlife, fire adapted communities, fire behavior and cycles, complexity, truth-telling.

  • Do the Work: Preparedness, Action, Responsibility
    Art that visualizes readiness – wildfire ready homes, wildfire ready and resilient landscaping
    and lands, wildfire ready evacuation routes. (Home hardening, defensible space, roadside clearing, evacuation planning). Urgency without panic. Personal responsibility. Action as empowerment.

  • Stronger Together: Fire-Adapted Communities
    Art that celebrates neighbors helping neighbors – alerts, teamwork, communication, shared responsibility. Community as resilience.

  • Renewal & Resilience: What Comes After Fire
    Art that expresses regrowth, recovery, regeneration, and hope. Landscapes that survive and thrive. Landscapes healed. People transformed. Futures reimagined.

These themes are invitations, not limits. Interpret them literally, symbolically, abstractly, playfully, emotionally, or conceptually - just make the work honest and meaningful.

WHAT YOU CAN SUBMIT

  • Up to 3 pieces

  • All mediums welcome: painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, digital art, textiles, wood, ceramics, youth work, etc.

  • Youth submissions strongly encouraged

  • Choose from three options:

    • Exhibit Only, showing your work at the event

    • Auction Donation, 100% of proceeds going to WRCNC with minimum bid set

    • Sell at your asking price, 30% commission going to WRCNC, 70% to you

KEY DATES

  • Submission Deadline: Monday, January 26, 2026

  • Artist Notifications Sent: Friday, February 6

  • Artwork Drop-Off: February 10–11

  • Installation: February 12

  • Event & Showcase: Friday, February 13, 2026 at the Miners Foundry

WHY THIS MATTERS

Nevada County’s risk is real - but so is our capacity to adapt.

This first-of-its-kind art show helps residents see wildfire resilience not as fear, but as love in action: stewardship, preparedness, creativity, and community care. Your art becomes part of the cultural shift toward a truly fire-adapted Nevada County.

Thank you for showing your love for Nevada County and lending your voice, vision, and creativity to

submit your work
Michaelyn Logue