Art breaks out of the studio

ZAP program taps local talents to bring beauty to the streets

SE/SRLas Vegas painterErin Stellmon works on her historic train painting on a Desert Inn utility box Tuesday, May 17, 2005. ---View Photo Ronda Churchill SE/SRLas Vegas painter Marty Walsh works on her toaster series, painting on a utility box outside RiteAid on Lamb and Desert Inn Tuesday, May 17, 2005. Artists' work will appear on a series of utility boxes in the Winchester Arts Neighborhood.---View Photo Ronda Churchill Advertisement

Utility boxes owned by Clark County Water Reclamation District, Nevada Power Company and the Las Vegas Valley Water District are being zapped with color and creativity in the Winchester Neighborhood. Under the ZAP project, 10 artists are painting their own creations on the boxes on roughly five neighborhood blocks near the Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Drive.

ZAP creator Patrick Gaffey, Clark County cultural program supervisor, said the program was at first given a much more bureaucratic name but when he told his wife, she thought his idea for a name was boring. She said he should call it ZAP.

"And it's perfect. You can just imagine these artists zapping these ordinary pieces of street furniture and making them into something," Gaffey said.

Gaffey thought of the idea as a way to get the public to interact with art.

"It came to me and I started thinking I'd like to do it and then later I found out it's been done in many cities throughout the country," Gaffey said.

It's been done in San Diego and Santa Cruz, for instance, but there were different results each time.

"Santa Cruz used some really good artists but it looked to me like they tended to treat the boxes as canvasses, and in a lot of cases just used one side of the box and took a painting that they had already done in the studio and put it on there," Gaffey said. "I think it should be more three dimensional."

ZAP artists are thinking three dimensionally, transforming their boxes and in many cases using all sides of a box, including the top, in their designs.

Artist Erin Stellmon was busy beginning the painting process on the morning of May 17. Her painting on the largest utility box at her site is of the first train that came into Las Vegas, based on a historic photograph she found of the event.

The train will wrap around the larger utility box with steam from the train on the top of the box.

The two smaller boxes also will be related to the train theme. One will have a train schedule from early Las Vegas painted on it and the other a map from when Lincoln County and Clark County were on the verge of separation, complete with the phrase "two new counties soon, the only sensible way."

Although the project includes the Las Vegas Centennial Committee's City of 100 Murals Project as a sponsor in addition to Clark County Parks and Community Services, artists were not expected to adhere to a centennial theme, or any theme.

Stellmon said she has been interested in painting trains lately and would likely have painted a train anyway, even without the centennial aspect of ZAP.

Gaffey said artist Delores Nast initially said she would not enter the contest because she said she only paints fruits and vegetables. She knew ZAP was also a project of the Centennial and was not sure her paintings would fit in.

Gaffey assured her that produce grown by early settlers using natural springs has plenty to do with the city's history but that connection was not necessary to make it into the project. Nast then applied for ZAP and was selected. Her paintings of carrots, radishes and other produce will appear on a set of utility boxes near the Winchester Cultural Center.

Artists were not selected based on specific proposals for the utility boxes. They had to turn in several samples of their work. Proposals for the specific boxes came later. A committee that included members of the community, art experts and representatives from the county selected the 10 artists from 60 applicants.

"We turned down some great artists, which was hard, but on the other hand it put us in a really great position because we had a really great pool to choose from, Gaffey said.

Artist Marty Walsh decided to paint portraits of appliances from the 50s and 60s on her set of utility boxes across the street from the Winchester Cultural Center. The utility box pieces are a continuation of her successful series on canvas of toasters, percolators and other appliances. She thought the toaster portrait would fit in particularly well in the heat of the desert, especially since she researched and found out her boxes are located on the former site of an appliance store.

Walsh said she looks forward to the impact that all the boxes will have on the public.

"They're going to begin to realize that everyone can interact with art," Walsh said.

Gaffey too said he hopes people will really get a taste for art through ZAP.

"I think a lot of times people are intimidated by art and more than anything I'd like people to see there's nothing to be afraid of in art; that above all it ought to be fun," Gaffey said.

Gaffey said he was pleased there are men and women and different races and age groups represented among the artists. They also each represent very different styles of art.

Aside from the appliance portraits, historic train, and vegetables, there will be a rather abstract piece by Jorge Catoni, K.D. Matheson's visions of distant future or past, surreal cartoons by Shan Michael Evans, Anthony Johnson's portraits of people like Wayne Newton and other well-known Vegas figures as well as the paintings of Suzanne Forestieri, Jose Bellver and Suzanne Hackett-Morgan.

Hackett-Morgan is making her utility boxes into television sets from different eras, complete with images from Vegas television past and present painted on the "screens." She will include an image from old local television staples like "The Cinderella Show" and the former local late night movie host Count Cool Rider.

The potential for graffiti does not seem to bother the artists much.

"We'll just roll with it," Walsh said."

Gaffey said most people who put graffiti in public places consider themselves artists and actually have a reputation for leaving artwork alone.

He used the example of a mural painted years ago on what was considered the tougher side of Las Vegas. The mural was directly above a sidewalk for 10 years. In those 10 years there was only one case of graffiti, and it was small and in the corner.

"Art can protect itself," Gaffey said.

Stellmon agreed. She said she had friends in high school who did graffiti. They would not generally touch anything that others had put effort into.

And the county will apply a protective coating to all the paintings. Once the coating is in place any graffiti would attach itself to the coating, not the actual artwork. The clear coating can be blasted off with hot water, along with any graffiti. Then a new protective coating can be applied.

The light and heat are not really a concern either. The paintings will likely fade in the desert heat but the artists expect that.

"A mural is not a permanent thing," Gaffey said.

Stellmon said she is actually looking forward to that. The fading will enhance the look of her work, she said.

Being co-sponsored by Clark County Parks and Community Services and the Las Vegas Centennial Commission means artists do get some compensation for their efforts -- $2,000 plus $250 for supplies.

"When you figure out how much time they had to put in planning for this and actually doing it and sweating out in the sun, it's probably not worth the money but they love the idea and at least there's some kind of money in it," Gaffey said.

Organizers would like to keep working with the city and expand ZAP to other neighborhoods. They started in Winchester due to the organization of the residents in the area and their interest.

"There we had a big, already-organized part of the community and so that gives you a real good chance for success and it was very important that this first part of it succeeds," Gaffey said.

Success in this case would be helping people appreciate art.

"I think for a long time this town has had the feeling 'we don't have very much art in this town and we've done fine without it,' and I want to change that," Gaffey said.

The goal is to have a walking tour brochure available at the Winchester Center so future visitors can get to know the artists behind each piece. The unveiling party will be at 10:30 a.m. on June 18 at the Winchester Center. For more information, log on to www.accessclarkcounty.com and choose ZAP.