Loved ones remembered, celebrated

Zoe Daly, 10, decorated a sugar skull in remembrance of her grandmother on Saturday.“She loved sugar skulls,” Daly said.Daly was one of many who attended the Da de los Muertos celebration at the Nevada State Museum. The Latino holiday is focuses on remembering friends and family members who have died. Daly said she will take the skull to her grandfather to put on her grandmother’s grave in California.Her decorations are delicate and tasteful — a purple cross on the forehead, a blue band with pink flowers with green dots in the middle. The skull’s eye sockets are filled with blue sugar coating, around them orange, because grandmother wore glasses over her azure eyes.A green, cross-hatched mouth rounded out the grandmother’s skull. “The sugar skulls sweeten the idea of death for a child,” said Deborah Stevenson, the curator of education at the museum. The museum, which held a day of the dead celebration, was turned into a “sanctuary of peace” for the community, especially those in the Latino community in Carson City, she said. “It’s a chance for them to feel welcome.”In addition to sugar skulls, children created clay skeletons, had their faces painted, made paper flowers and colored paper skeletons. Multiple dance groups performed at the museum as well, including the Dayton traditional Mexican folk dance group Metzonali.