60th National Mother Lode Art Exhibition

Nov. 5 thru 21, 2026

at The MACC
Mills Station Arts & Culture Center

10191 Mills Station Road
Rancho Cordova, CA

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Gallery Hours:

Thursday & Friday 2 pm - 7 pm

Saturday 11 am - 4 pm

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Juror and Judge -  Debra Kreck Harnish

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2026 Prospectus >>

Download Postcard >>​​

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CALL TO ARTISTS OPENS

June 8, 2026

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Direct link to CallForEntry.org to enter show >>

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  BIO...

Debra Kreck Harnish

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​Debra Kreck-Harnish is a Northern California artist who has lived, worked, and traveled throughout the United States and Europe. She attended the Institut für Europäische Studien in Vienna, Austria, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science from Alfred University in New York.
Debra kick-started her art career by taking classes at community college. Originally these classes focused on software and how to design websites, and she has worked as a web designer and a publisher’s representative. But
once Debra discovered the ART side of the campus she never looked back. She explored a variety of art forms but assemblage felt like home. She is a lifelong creative recycler. She’ll tell you, “There’s something special about
working with objects that have a prior life. Most of the materials she uses come with a previous life and their own energy. It’s like making a cake: all the ingredients combine to make something new and completely different. An
earring becomes a hat or purse. A dented Jell-O mold becomes a skirt. I love figuring out how the discarded can be reused.” “Trash,” she says, “is simply a failure of imagination.” Over the past fifteen years, Debra has built complex
and eloquent mixed-media assemblages out of discarded objects. At university, she studied science. It was Environmental Science, so she had a re-use things even back then.
“I don’t set out to create a particular piece of art. Rather, it evolves over time and, on occasion, will completely surprise me. I am by nature an experimenter and tinkerer who always asks, 'What if I did this to that?'

Major ingredients in my art are humor and whimsy, although I do have a serious side. When they look at my work, I want people

to smile, but also to reflect.”

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 <<Visit her website >>

 

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View the 2024 & 2025 show online at www.paa.gallery

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View last year's show presentation of awards and slide show of all accepted pieces

on our YouTube page >>

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