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Past Projects

Eight artists worked with youth at 16 Clark County recreation and cultural facilities to create and educate youth about temporary public art.

The FY24 artist roster was Karen Castaneda, Hue Chen, Brent Holmes, Joan Paye, Emily Relf, Emily Robinson, Shereen Sun, and Ross Takahashi.

Karen Castaneda

Melvin Ennis Recreation Center and Parkdale Recreation Center

Karen Castaneda is a visual artist with a purpose for community engagement. Her mission is to encourage communities in their creativity. She intends to use her art as an invitation for dialogue surrounding the connection between us and the divine.

Blooming Through the Desert is a collaborative sculpture created by children and teenagers of Melvin Ennis Recreation Center. Students were guided through a paper flower making workshop, resulting in the sculptures main feature. The chandelier of desert flowers is a reminder that joy, hope, and resilience prevail even in harsh conditions.

Field of Dreams is a jumbo-sized sculpture of a dandelion field, each seed holding the several dreams, desires and wishes of the children in our community. Parkdale students were encouraged to dream big! and then illustrate their desires on paper using markers and crayons. The sculpture serves as a home for our biggest wildest dreams. At first keeping them safe and sacred while still in their growth stage - but once they're ready, we blow out the seeds and watch them spread in the wind.

Huilin “Hue” Chen

Wetlands Nature Center &
Winchester-Dondero Cultural Center

Hue is a cultural worker and artist making fiber sculptures, performances, and building spaces for the home of the soul in Las Vegas, NV. They earned a BFA in Fashion Design from the Parsons School of Design, and have received grants from the NV Arts Council.

Window of Compassionate Curiosity incorporates questions written on fabric asked by children, teens, and adults about the sometimes fantastical, and sometimes philosophical, ponderings we don't often ask in the everyday. The cardboard elements of the sculpture were created during art workshops where participants came up with visual answers to the questions they generated. In its final form, the trifold standing piece becomes an interactive display. The pockets on the window panels allow viewers to insert their own questions of compassionate curiosity.

Brent Holmes

Whitney Recreation Center &
Moapa Community Center

Brent Holmes describes themselves as a creative roustabout. They have had a hand in developing the arts in southern Nevada, through community engagement and social practice for two decades. Their recent work grapples with Blackness in isolation, throughout the arid West and its relationship to the elegiac legacy of Western expansion.

Artist Brent Holmes led a workshop teaching about the traditions and mask making of the peoples in Burkina Faso, a country in West Africa. Neon Duho is a facsimile of a traditional Duho (Hawk) mask made by the Bwa people of Burkina Faso. Youth at Whitney collaborated with the artist to create a community mask contemporary take on age-old cultural practices.

Joan Paye

Helen Meyer Community Center
& Bob Price Community Center

Joan Paye is a social practice artist and Certified Interpretive Guide. She facilitates moments of human connection where participants are encouraged to trust the gifts of each person’s creativity through the entire process. The focus of her art is to celebrate the result as a community.

The Rainbow Connection is a mixed media collage paper hearts created with youth by Joan Paye, invited participants to examine how we youth see the world. Inspired by the rare occasion of rainbow sighting, this workshop explores how rainbows allow us to see the colors of sunlight.

Emily Relf
Cambridge Recreation Center
& Clark County Museum

Emily Relf is an artist and art educator focusing on incorporating contemporary art into the classroom. As an artist, she currently practices cyanotype - an antique photography technique and use film photography as a starting point.Emily has exhibited collage, site specific installation, and photography as she traveled the world, now finding Las Vegas as her current inspiration.

For Community Tent, Emily Relf led participants to create cyanotypes based on family stories, which the children illustrate. They shared special family memories with each other while engaging in conversation. Illustrations were used to create transparent sheets to illustrate their family memory.

At the Museum, participants collaged transparencies of vintage magazines and historic Las Vegas photos obtained through the Clark County Museum archives. Youth created unique cyanotype prints using the collages which were then enlarged as panels for the sculpture.

Emily Robinson (Emenro)

Desert Breeze Recreation Center
& Paradise Recreation Center

Emenro is a 20-year-old self-taught stop motion animator. Working with clay, wire, and everyday household items, Emenro creates tiny film sets, theatrical puppets, and short films.

For Tiny Village at Desert Breeze Recreation Center, Emily Robinson led children in creating tiny fairy houses using milk cartons and natural materials. Students works were then turned into a tiny village.

Youth at Paradise Recreation Center’s spring break camp were instructed in how to create buildings and structures from cardboard by artist Emily Robinson. Their works were then painted and constructed by the artist into Cardboard City, a towering village of boxes complete with tiny roads and neighborhoods.

Shereen Sun

Walnut Recreation Center
& Hollywood Recreation Center

Throughout history, quiltmakers have utilized quilts to pass stories and messages. For Community Empowerment Quilt, participants were encouraged to write messages on squares of the quilt to share encouraging and empowering messages to their peers who would see it in this communal space.

Ross Takahashi

Pearson Community Center
& Spirit Mountain Community Center

Ross Takahashi is a US based sculptor and award-winning art educator. His work focuses on human cognition, ecological impacts, and the current climate crisis. Emergence, growth, preservation, death, and decay are harmonious elements of nature that humanity attempts to control.

Drawing inspiration from the artist’s time as an art educator, Fluttering Emergence from Collective Branches showcases a narrative of youthful emergence, growth, and development, as well as the supportive role played by communities. The artwork consists of origami cicadas and butterflies created by children and teenagers in afterschool programs. The repetitive practice involved in creating these origami pieces mirrors our own growth process as we strive to better ourselves and navigate the journey toward adulthood.

Previous artists in the Youth Temporary Public Arts program include:

2024
Karen Castaneda
Hue (Cloud House)
Brent Holmes
Joan Paye (Art Barn)
Emily Relf
Emily Robinson (Emenro)
Ross Takahashi
Shereen Sun

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2023
Bug Universe
Alexander Sky
Bella Sanabria
Daisy Sanchez
Jesus Orozco
Michelle Beardsley
Ronnie Quiambao
Tracy Martin

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2022
Abigail Woodward
Homero Hidalgo
Kendall Sudduth
Lanelle Christman
Tree Hill
Holly Lay
Ashley Fox

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2021
Debbie Lambin
Vanessa Maciel
Mila May
Bonnie Kelso
Gail Schomisch
Alison Johnston
Murbina Urbina
Jamari Rodriguez
Rebecca Shullinger
Shan Michael Evans
Adam “Pretty Done” Rella

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2020
Nancy Good
Jamari Rodriguez
Lisa Clark
Vanessa M Napoles
Anna Arphan
Caitlin Sparks
Adam Rellah

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2019
Sierra Slentz
Vanessa Maciel

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2018
Andrew Schoultz
Bobbie Ann Howell
Kim Johnson