The Historic Westside is the recipient of more large-scale murals, thanks to the city of Las Vegas, the Mayor’s Fund for Las Vegas Life and local artist Chase McCurdy. The mural project was the idea of one of the board members of the Mayor’s Fund, which is the philanthropic arm for the city of Las Vegas.
After conducting a competitive process, Chase McCurdy, a local artist with deep roots in the Las Vegas art community and someone with ties to the Historic Westside, was selected to lead the effort.
Community building at the center of Public Art
Chase McCurdy gave up his suit and corporate strategic planning job to go to work wearing paint-stained jeans and t-shirt in his art studio located in the Historic Westside of Las Vegas.
“I followed my intuition instead of my rational mind,” Chase said. “I read a lot and realized if I respect my life and the people I care about, I should be home where my presence can be useful to my community.”
His studies, travel and experiences guided him to a different path, a path of service.
“I’m not the artist who wanted to be an artist” Chase said. “Artwork is a form of expression of freedom and an opportunity to be part of something bigger.”
Chase now serves his community as the public art coordinator for the City of Las Vegas—the Mayor’s Fund Public Art Initiative. This public art project involves funding and installing four large-scale murals in Historic Westside in Las Vegas. Three murals are being painted at the West Las Vegas Arts Center/Kianga Isoke Palacio Park.
After growing up in the Historic Westside, McCurdy attended the University of Arizona and graduated with a degree in communications. He landed a corporate job as a strategic planner at MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas. It didn’t take long for him to tire of the corporate world. He wanted something more personal, so he moved to Los Angles to be a professional photographer.
“I discovered the music and fashion world was like a Hollywood kind of world, it felt weird and wrong, not to be judgmental of others, but for me a lot of it felt shallow,” McCurdy said. “So there was a real struggle for me, coming to understand myself as this person that is using art as a tool to express oneself and make imagery when words cannot communicate.”
He eventually left for France to study art for nine months at the Paris College of Art. While studying art and spending time in museums and libraries, he read and researched various disciplines, including history, gender, revolutionary movements and slavery in United States. This made him wonder what he could to be a part of something bigger.
“It’s like you got to serve,” McCurdy said. “You learn something and you got opportunities to go places and experience new things. Now it’s my duty to take that home and do something positive there with it, so I decided to go back home [Historic Westside in Las Vegas].”.
From this principle to serve, Chase thirsted for freedom and saw his artwork “as a byproduct of trying to live in a better and different kind of way as a form of expression of freedom.”
After he came back home, he was asked to join the Clark County Public Art Committee and discovered that it was a great space in which he could get more involved in the community.
Through working with the committee, he created Living Black Pillars, one of his most prized public art pieces. Living Black Pillars aims to honor the legacy and spirit of ancestors. He also painted his first public mural, the interior mural at a community organization, the Nevada Partners. The Nevada Partners have a room called Kids Caucus, a waiting area for kids while families are receiving services. Chase did a full room, three or four murals called Westside New Dawn.
Later, multiple people sent me the application to head the Las Vegas City Public Mural Project. By the third or fourth person who suggested he apply, he felt “called to this.”
Chase believes public art is here to stay. He describes a lot of online art and messages as digital junk because it is easily seen and then easily forgotten. But public art is special because it stays on the public walls and within the community for years and helps to express community voices and create involvement among community members. It is a powerful form of representation of the community’s identity and honors the multi-generations, including his 98-year-old grandfather who lived in Historic Westside all his life and raised his children and grandchildren there.
Taking time to listen to community members, he said, is at the core of the community identity. Thus, in March 2022, Chase collaborated with Mary Sabo, Visual Arts Specialist in Public Art for the City’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, to create a survey to get ideas from community members about the type of art, suggested artists and location for the art. They received more than 30 responses. Based on that input, they identified the concepts and then McCurdy started reaching out to artists and NGOs to make the public art project a reality.
The project consists of four murals. The first, by artist Iandry Randriamandroso, is based on the concept “I Rise” and will spell out the “Historic Westside” in sign language and feature large brightly colored hands celebrating the history, strength, beauty, and resilience of the community. Another mural by artist X.Darvi will feature two beautiful portraits of Black women on a vibrant orange background. The third mural by artist Michelle Grave will portray interspersed words in red and black text that represents the Historic Westside community.
The fourth and last mural is separately located at OBODO Collective, a non-profit organization and community garden, and will be painted by artists Malachi Williams and Dyron Boyd. It will feature a portrait of the community figure “Ruby Duncan,” an activist fighting for the poor in Las Vegas with a bright sun behind it.
“Public art can have an impact on us, but it is up to the person to make a change,” Chase said.
McCurdy recalled a quote left in the guestbook left at his 2019 exhibition titled "EXPLORATION" at the West Las Vegas Library Art Gallery. The exhibition was open to the general public to come and interact with the work for free. One of his pieces at the exhibition was titled “Imminent Change is Coming.”
“The quote says, ‘I was having a rough day and your lovely art has made me seriously realize I deal with nothing but first world problems. I'm 18 and one day away from being homeless. I wish I could jump into one of your space pictures and escape all my irrelevant problems. IMMINENT CHANGE IS COMING.’”
Chase said public art can make a difference and have a positive impact because it speaks to you, influence you with words or colors, change your mood and maybe create a spark. What comes after the spark is up to the community and the individuals to make a difference.
“The possibilities are endless,” McCurdy said. “It [public art] could inspire someone who is having a bad day to have a better day. It could inspire someone to go paint, it could inspire someone to go draw, it could inspire someone to take a photograph. It can inspire someone to learn something. It can literally, do things that we couldn't fathom. It creates possibilities for people. And I think that's why it's a good investment by public institutions because it could bring lasting impact.”
Chase described working on the Las Vegas public art mural project as an example of building partnerships across the community and establishing collaborations between the city, artists, community and NGOs.
“I really enjoy working on behalf of the community, being a curator because I’m able to think about where murals are, what subjects matter, and how they all relate”.
So his decision to return and serve turned out to be rational as well as intuitive.