Exhibition - A Picture's Worth: NEA Big Read

A Picture’s Worth: NEA Big Read at the Gallery, Arts and Culture El Dorado’s latest exhibition at Switchboard Gallery, located at 525 Main Street in Placerville. A Picture’s Worth is an exhibition of illustrator Gavin Sellers-Norman’s original work, featuring illustrations inspired by community-sourced oral histories and original audio recordings by personal historian Mariah Padilla.

The exhibition is the culmination of NEA Big Read in El Dorado County, a collaboration between Arts and Culture El Dorado and the El Dorado County Library. NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our neighbors, and ourselves through the power of a shared reading experience. El Dorado County is participating in NEA Big Read by sharing in the experience of reading “Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” by Roz Chast, a graphic memoir that approaches themes of aging, caregiving, and loss with generosity, sharp insight, and Chast’s signature sense of humor.

The illustrations in the exhibition are drawn from an original publication, produced by Arts and Culture El Dorado, entitled “As Long As You Want: Real Stories of Aging, Caring, and Loss in El Dorado County”. The true stories in the publication, which can also be experienced by visitors as audio recordings, were collected from El Dorado County residents by personal historian Mariah Padilla and adapted into illustrated narratives by Gavin-Sellers Norman. Copies of the publication will be made available to the public during the exhibition.

“Mariah Padilla’s practical skill set and personal sensitivity lent themselves perfectly to this recording project,” notes curator Marya Osucha. “We ended up collecting twelve honest and brave retellings of caregiving, aging, and loss-but also of joy and gratitude and hilarity. Gavin Sellers-Norman’s visual style and sense of humor was a perfect match for our subject matter.”