The Art Box

The Art Box - Episode 122 - Pop Iconography - Meet Mark Brandvik

Linda and Steve were honored to host Las Vegas artist and College of Southern Nevada art professor Mark Brandvik at our Mesquite Works STEAM Center studio. 
Mark graduated from UNLV with a BFA in 1996, then from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a MFA in 1998. In his artist statement he writes: “The figure/ground and palette of most the architectural landscape works reflect my take on the elusiveness and temporality of the dreamlike cityscape of Las Vegas and the Western landscape.“ Place, he says, is an important component of his practice. Born and raised in Las Vegas, he often includes identifiable elements of the city in his work. The building in Morocco II is the El Morocco, a motel and café that once occupied a spot between the Peppermill Restaurant and La Concha on the Las Vegas Strip. Designed by the architect Paul Revere Williams, it opened in 1964 and was demolished in 2008.
A new art installation created for the grounds of the Overton Community Center is largely complete. Las Vegas artist Mark Brandvik has spent the last couple of weeks on site completing the final assembly of the sculpture.
Called “Earth Rise,” the sculpture portrays a “dynamite blast” of rock which also doubles as a dynamic rocket exhaust plume. At the top of the 17-foot-tall sculpture appears a representation of a Saturn 5 rocket blasting off.
Brandvik’s work was the finalist selected for the space in a project called “Gateway to Double Negative.” It is the result of $231,000 in public funding that was set aside by the Clark County Commissioners in 2016 for a public artwork at the location.
The project called for artists to create an piece that would interpret and point toward the famous “Double Negative” earth artwork completed in 1969 by Michael Heizer.
Heizer’s work is located in a remote spot on the east edge of the Mormon Mesa and is accessed by passing through the Moapa Valley.
 

The Art Box - Episode 121 - Stumbling Blocks into Stepping Stones - Meet Jane Tolar

Jane Tolar creates baskets inspired by Gullah sweetgrass and Native American pine needle baskets, both ancient traditions of coiled and stitched natural materials.  Jane uses pine needles and grasses, the coils bound with thread or cord.
Jane urges you to touch her art, saying “I would like everyone to pick up a basket, then feel its textures and inhale its scent. I want people to look at my work and see thread and straw brought together by my love of the materials and my excitement to create something beautiful and useful. Every piece is a lesson in something to me: shape and color to start, to pattern and texture, then the bringing of it all together into a finished piece.”
Steve met Jane in the mid-80's playing adult ice hockey in Easton, Maryland. It is through Face Book we rekindled a friendship with Steve's wife Gwen falling in love with Jane's beautiful baskets. 
 

The Art Box - Episode 123 - Batman, Stomp65, Uncles, Cousins - Meet Skip Anderson

Getting our musical art on last week, we invited Skip Anderson (Batman) and Julie (a.k.a. Robin) into our STEAM Center studio for an ultra fun chat about all things growing up music. Skip is the lead guitarist for the Terry Wayne Project, quite often playing at the Casablanca. We laughed and learned alot about the ins and outs of this amazing lifelong musician. 
Click here to visit Skip on his Instagram page. 
Click here for the Terry Wayne Project.

The Art Box - Episode 118 - Wolf Creek, Kids For Sports, Be a Champion - Meet Cory Clemetson

Linda and Steve were over the moon recently when Cory Clemetson dropped by the studio for an interview. Cory and his brother Chad are owners of one of the top golf courses in the world, Wolf Creek in Mesquite, Nevada.
Besides golf Cory is the newly named head basketball coach at Wardlaw+Hartridge School located in Edison, New Jersey, 
Cory and Chad founded Kids For Sports, a 501C3 organization that provides financial assistance to families in need who want their kids to participate in youth sports. Our organization is located in Mesquite Nevada. Since the creation of our Foundation in The Kids For Sports Foundation has raised approximately $300,000 dollars and has given over 700 grants to kids that have enabled them to participate in various sports such as youth soccer, basketball, baseball, football, wrestling, swimming and golf. Those interested in supporting Kids for Sports can attend a 1920's fundraiser on September 22. Click here for info: https://www.kidsforsportsfoundation.org/post/10th-annual-winefest-fundraiser-2023
 

The Art Box - Episode 115 - Enjoying Everyday - Meet Mayor Litman.

Enjoy a recent sit-down Linda and Steve had with Mesquite, Nevada mayor Allan Litman. We talk Lahaina, local disaster preparedness, housing, loving your job and of course Trader Joe's. 
The emergency alert app the mayor discussed. NIXLE
https://www.nixle.com/

The Art Box - Episode 114 - Night Sky Tourists - Meet Vicky Derksen

Steve's new favorite podcast "Night Sky Tourist" host Vickey Derksen graciously was our guest for a super-duper interview chatting about dark skies, home schooling, US Rt. 89, light polution and of course podcasting.
Vicky Derksen
Night Sky Tourist
Bio
Vicky Derksen fell in love with the night sky while teaching naked-eye astronomy to local students in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Her passion for stargazing and cultural astronomy brought her face-to-face with light pollution, leading her to become a dark sky advocate. She’s the President of the Fountain Hills Dark Sky Association, helping her community gain certification as an International Dark Sky Community in 2018 and hosting an annual Dark Sky Festival. She serves on the board for the International Dark Sky Discovery Center, a 23,000-square-foot facility in Fountain Hills that is in its final stretch of fundraising before construction begins. She’s also an Advocate with the International Dark Sky Association.
 
In 2019, Vicky launched Night Sky Tourist, where she blogs, hosts a podcast, leads stargazing events, and is writing a book about night sky experiences on Highway 89 from Mexico to Canada. She focuses on outstanding night sky destinations, stargazing experiences, cultural astronomy, and dark sky preservation. You can find her at NightSkyTourist.com.

The Art Box - Episode 119 - Meet nicolas b. jacobson - MDM

It was Linda and Steve's extreme pleasure to interview nic recently to chat about their art career, passions and work included in the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at University of Nevada Las Vegas, Modern Desert Markings exhibition sponsored by Nevadans for Cultural Preservation.
nicholas b jacobsen is a seventh-generation Utah-Mormon, trans-nonbinary settler raised in Nuwu homelands. As a creative historian, culture critic, & visual artist, their work addresses their personal and ancestral connections to the U.S. & Mormon settler-colonial-imperialist project. Through this, they work to disassimilate from the myths of white-supremacy and settler-innocence central to Mormon & U.S. cultures. jacobsen completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico & a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ceramics from Southern Utah University. They’ve have won many awards & have been published, podcasted, exhibited, and collected throughout the U.S.
This art was mentioned by nic and we thought a link to it would be interesting for our listeners.
https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2009-10/bat_2010/mt.html
You can see more of nic's work at:
http://nicholasbjacobsen.com
http://unsettlingmormonism.com
@Unsettling_Mormonism on Instagram

The Art Box - Episode 109 - ”Be Brave, Be Kind, Be You” - Meet Bethany, Lex and Sasha

Bethany Overland-Green our Art Box episode 50 guest brings two of her daughters in to talk all things creativity and just in case you cannot tell, we had fun.
Also, you will meet the VVAA's newest member Sasha Green. Sasha has an exhibition in the Mesa gallery during August 2023. Make sure you get by the Mesquite Fine Arts Campus at 15 W. Mesquite Blvd and see it.
 

The Art Box - Episode 107 - Making a STEAM Center - Meet Lizz Larson

There is not enough room to say how much we love Lizz Larson. She put the STEAM in the STEAM Center, she made it possible for our little podcast to have a professional studio, allowed us to host a Podcasting 101 class, is our cheerleader, makes things happen and like I said there is not enough room. Linda and Steve had the pleasure of interviewing Lizz and could have talked for hours. Lizz ozzes heart, intelect and caring. Please enjoy this episode.
For more on the Mesquite Works STEAM Center click here.
The STEAM Center in the News
Visit Lizz on Facebook. 

The Art Box - Episode 113 - Talking Art & Buoyancy @ Lulu - Meet Adriana Chavez

Adriana Chavez (they/them/she/her) - Performance and Visual Artist
Linda and Steve on a field trip to an opening in Las Vegas happened upon the Lulu Gallery, we ran into Adriana Chavez and our lives might never be the same. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G human and we could have talked to her for days. Let Adriana explain:
Adriana is a Queer, Latinx clown with Spanish, Portuguese, and Indigenous Mexican roots. They were born and raised in California and are based in Las Vegas, Nevada. They perform a character named Juan Chico, inspired by their family's tender and messy men: the drinkers, the dreamers, the cheaters, and mustached karaoke singers. Through Juan Chico they find their culture and connect to family. Through Juan Chico, their identity forms, and while using the lens of play, they find belonging. Nostalgia, myth, metaphor, magical realism, the ridiculous, the sacred, and the profane inspire them. Most of all, they make performances and digital media that encourage empathy, compassion, imagination, and connection.
Adriana has performed and exhibited in multiple spaces locally, nationally and internationally. They have been an artist in residence at the Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas, Nevada, The Mystery Ranch in Searchlight, Nevada, the Lookout Arts Quarry in Bellingham, Washington, and Z-Forge in Hudson, New York. Adriana has worked as a Teaching Artist for the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, as well as the Sprat Program in partnership with Core Academy.  Adriana holds a Master of Fine Arts from Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre.
Find out more at: http://www.adrianachavezphotography.com/
We hope you enjoy this podcast as much as we did recording it.