- Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan and welcome to "Arteffects."

For our first segment, let's meet Reno artist Steve Nighthawk.

With a combination of pencils, charcoal and paint, Steve creates beautiful, lifelike art based on the people and animals native to our region.

Steve is also the Artown poster artist for 2024, and his work has resulted in a unique representation of the many different art forms featured during this month-long arts festival.

(soft acoustic music) - [Steve] My name is Steve Nighthawk, and I do artwork.

I am part of the Washoe, Shoshone, and Paiute.

I can remember drawing birds in elementary school.

And you jump ahead, what, 40, 50 years, I'm still drawing birds.

I do coyotes, I do wolves, I do hummingbirds, Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake.

I mean, it just goes on and on.

There's no schedule or list.

As well as doing artwork, I collect art, and as I look around, I'm seeing six different artists here in my living room art gallery.

I pretty much grew up in Reno.

I moved away about 20, 22 years ago to do some archeology work in Oregon.

And I thought, okay, I'm gonna go home.

I didn't really realize what Artown was, but I knew I liked art.

So I got involved doing art shows, going to see other artists, different venues.

And to actually have a poster of Reno, it brings it all home.

The Artown poster is the art piece that's connected to our mountains, our lakes, our rivers, the centerpiece being not just a basket, but the outline of Reno woven into the basket.

The basket is very important to Native people.

The basket is based on a Paiute design.

They've been making baskets for thousands of years and they're world renowned for their work.

And from there I worked out incorporating music notes, a movie reel, piano keys coming from behind, all the way down to dance, Hollywood, ballerina.

And last but not least, the Earth on the bottom.

Some pictures I have to do research of the background, of the main subject.

And that's always fun because when you do that, you learn something that you really never knew before.

This particular picture is a decoy, duck decoy.

The photo is from actual decoys that were discovered in a cave that date back 9,000 years.

So that's the main subject that I used.

And then I also try to use landmarks, In this particular piece, I use Pyramid Lake as the backdrop, the mountain line, part of the beach, and the sky, light to dark sunset.

The picture is always complete once I actually do step back and take a look at it.

I'll just go over it once.

And if it's good, it's good.

And this one is good.

I'm happy, I'm glad.

More than once after I do finish a picture, I'll look at it and I'll think, that is very good.

I can't say that someone else is doing it, I'm doing it, but I'm just amazed at it.

I think as long as I have that, I will be able to continue.

- [Narrator] Funding for "Arteffects" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors, Meg and Dillard Myers, in memory of Sue McDowell, the Carol Franc Buck Foundation, Chris and Parky May, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(upbeat jazz music)