Stone Blind Interactive Installation

Vicky Kapo and I have been friends for decades, but it wasn't until she visited Las Vegas in early May 2016, that we took the opportunity to collaborate on a project. Although Vicky's background is in dance and choreography and mine in photography and collage, we have each incorporated community interaction in previous projects.

We visited a couple of sites in the Las Vegas 18b Arts District, home to the monthly First Friday Arts Festival. A boarded up home covered in graffiti art spoke to us of transience. This once solid site designed for occupation, has become unhinged, adrift from its mooring due to its lack of function. There are also homeless people in this neighborhood whom many choose not to see. In this context, the stones we found at the site, suggested the title for the work: Stone Blind.

Having first 'tied down' the house, we invite First Friday visitors to respond to the question "Where - or what - is home to you?". Some answer in specifics: "New Jersey", "Sin City", "Mexico", "Germany"... and others are descriptive: "Where my found family are", "Wherever love is reciprocated", "The location of my car".

The responses reflect the diverse cultural mix of First Friday visitors - locals, national and international visitors, toddlers in strollers and grandparents with walking sticks. Although the installation itself was transient, the messages live on as a poignant reminder of the importance of a safe, loving home that in reality, not everyone experiences.

Las Vegas 18b Arts District, May 6, 2016. 

Vicky Kapo ties down the house with stones found on the site.

Collaged "Seeing Stones" are interspersed with the stones on site.

First Friday visitors write or draw their interpretation of "home".

A project participant adds his messages of "home" to the temporary installation.

Participants add their messages of "home" to the temporary installation.

Participants' contributions festoon the ties at the conclusion of the project.

The Traveling Miracle Show @ Momas N Dadas

There was a great response to The Traveling Miracle Show at Momas N Dadas New Genres Project House in the Las Vegas Arts District. The First Friday festival brought in an audience who enjoyed the installations, unicorn rides and a Sin Eating feast. Seen here is Nathan Coté's, 'Self Watering Suspended Lawn' and Brent Holmes' 'Sin Eater' also featuring Yasmina Chavez and Ashanti McGee. DJ Cyril Noir and burlesque performer Ella Mental rounded off the evening in style. For further coverage, see the article and footage by Sonya Padgett and Chase Stevens of the Las Vegas Review Journal.

some shows seen recently...

The London Biennale in Nevada exhibition opened at the Contemporary Arts Center, showing works by the individual artists and the documentary of the July performance event by film maker Jakob McCarthy. Documentary DVDs and the catalog of the event are available at the CAC.
Blackbird Studios are featuring great shows from Enrique Nevarez, Joel Spencer and Eva Steil. And around the corner on Imperial, Photo Bang Bang showcase the photography which has earned them an enviable reputation.
Last, but definitely not least, Matthew Couper's one-night preview 'Skins & Teeth" at Alios gallery space, along with the publication launch of the catalog Thirty-Three.

as seen on recent gallery and First Friday rounds...

Preview Thursday is still the best opportunity to meet exhibiting artists and view the work. Sin City Gallery hosted a Q&A session with Los Angeles photographer Steve Diet Goedde who has based his new series around girlfriend and muse Yee, who also attended the opening. Known for his erotic and fetish work, Diet Goedde also photographs street scenes, with a book on Paris soon to be published. Image top right shows Steve Diet Goedde with visiting models wearing Mina Kahn designs.
The Contemporary Arts Center is showing 'The Garden of Forking Paths' - an installation by three Philadelphia artists, Katie Baldwin, Nichola Kinch and Katie Murken. The show is titled after the Jorge Luis Borges short story, but the artists have used materials rather than words to explore the concept of diverging paths. And in the CAC's window space, local artist Joseph Watson is showing a multi-panel city scape titled 'Theatrical Occurrences'.
Artist Michael Barrett projected his digital graffiti work 'Trigger Happy' beside Boulder Plaza, Jska Priebe premiered 'Stellar: The Women of Science Fiction' at 303 North Studio inside the Arts Factory, and Blackbird Studios presented 'Atomic 51', a group show looking at the impact of the Atomic Age on Las Vegas, complete with an eerie recreation of a 'test site house".
And I finally got to see Rory Devine and Carter Potter's show 'CA/NV/NY' which just ended at the award-winning Pop Up Art House in Henderson. Although Devine's works immediately caught the eye, Potter's were more of a slow burn, revealing a whole lot more with close inspection...

First Friday April

The street festival around Charleston and Casino Center was packed for April First Friday, so Preview Thursday is the best time to see exhibitions and meet the artists. Top right are KD Matheson and Alexander Sky giving a talk at their current show at Sin City Gallery. Clay Arts Vegas is now open for classes at 1511 S. Main St with regular exhibitions scheduled in the Victor F. Keen gallery space.
First Friday Fremont East is less crowded and visitors can also check out the adjacent Emergency Arts - the destination for artist Jevijoe Vitug (at right) who was performing at 5th Wall Gallery, which also featured prints by UNLV MFA student Fred Mitchell. "Fabulous Downtown" in the central exhibition space gives a glimpse into the past courtesy curator Brian Paco Alvarez and the Las Vegas News Bureau.
Tasty Space was showing works by Minneapolis artist and designer Doug Pedersen and Kleven Contemporary hosted an interactive audio installation by mixed media artist and musician David Sanchez Burr.

the evolving Emergency Arts center...

Since being reinvented as a creative hub and opening in early 2010, the medical center now known as Emergency Arts has gone through some changes. The Beat Coffeehouse remains as an anchoring meeting spot, but many of the artist's studios on the first and second floors have been replaced by offices for non-profits and creative businesses.
Many of the gallery spaces have also changed, with 5th Wall Gallery, an artist-owned space, being one of the most recent arrivals. Currently showing is an installation by Luis Brennan 'Tell the other side how you feel' where viewers are invited to post personal messages into the work itself.
Kleven Contemporary is one of the more established galleries in the building and is showing "Bitch Betta Have My Money" - lithographs by UNLV graduate Bekah Just which are a contemporary remix of rap and vintage pulp fiction.
Counterspace is dedicated to photography, but is not afraid to explore the boundaries of the medium. The show 'Same River Twice' curated by Tony Flanagan and Michael Monson, features QR codes which have a strong graphic presence and also operate as conduits to selected websites and online galleries.
One of the new creative businesses which have taken up residence is peanutbutterfish who offer web and logo design, and more. Photographed at work in what was once an x-ray room is designer Bijan Damavandi.

First Friday Fremont East

There was a somewhat spooky ambience in 'Getback Alley' - the new venue for First Friday Fremont East. It felt like we were walking into a film set with the giant figures at the entrance and clouds of colored vapor wafting across desolate canvas scenery ... a gritty, urban film with a loose storyline, allowing plenty of room for improvisation.
We discovered skateboarders, live painting, arts vendors, a fire spinner, and at the very far end a stage, where local band Von Kin were creating the perfect moody, dark soundtrack.
Image top left courtesy Matthew Couper.

a freaky First Friday...

With Halloween and Dia de los Muertos looming, October's First Friday event was suitably gothic. There were cupcake-eating zombies and snake-draped fortune tellers outside Theatre 7 where the PollyGrind underground film festival is underway this weekend. The upcoming Life in Death festival was also represented and local creative venues displayed their decorated Halloween pumpkins.
Blackbird Studios featured a zombie exhibition, and 222 Imperial put on '10,000 Skeletons'. Joel from 222 worked with photo bang bang to create a horror set where visitors could be photographed enacting their own scarey scenarios and around the corner on Main St, the Las Vegas Suspension Syndicate demonstrated the art of body suspension.
With First Friday hours now extended to midnight and the street festival around Casino Center again underway, the crowds were out in force enjoying the stands of art and crafts, food, and live performance such as local pop-punk band Air Drifter.