St. Jude’s Ranch for Children opens the Children’s Art Museum of Nevada

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 9:40 a.m.

What: St. Jude's Children's Art Museum of Nevada.

Where: St. Jude's Ranch for Children, Boulder City.

When: Grand opening 5-7 p.m. Saturday; regular hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-Saturday; for Sunday hours, call the museum at 294-7100.

Cost: Donations accepted.

BOULDER CITY -- The Ogorek Exhibition Hall at St. Jude's Ranch for Children once housed a wide assortment of model cars.

As eye-catching exhibits, model cars are fine. But they don't have much to do with spirituality, hope, sense of self-worth or anything else St. Jude's stands for.

But artwork by, for and about kids, that's different. That fits St. Jude's just fine.

"What could make more sense than that?" St. Jude's public relations director Toni Kizzia said during a recent walking tour of the property. "We want to encourage artistic expression that deals with children."

Scheduled for an open-to-the-public grand opening Saturday from 5-7 p.m., the St. Jude's Children's Art Museum of Nevada is a celebration of artwork primarily conceived by Nevada school children.

"There's hardly any limit to what we can have here," Kizzia said. "The only limit is one's imagination."

Also on display are a few pieces donated by local professional artists, including work by longtime Southern Nevada etching specialist and muralist Roy Purcell, and a portrait crafted specifically for the Children's Art Museum by talented Henderson artist Matt Ealy.

Within the first few months selected pieces will be offered for auction, with the proceeds benefiting St. Jude's, which has survived for more than 30 years almost exclusively through private donations.

The ranch is a haven for abused, abandoned, and neglected children between the ages of 6 and 18 (although in many cases victims are even younger). A total of 45 currently live on the property and are evaluated and rehabilitated through several St. Jude's programs. One of them is the Expressive Arts Therapy Program, through which St. Jude's children are encouraged to use art as a means of personal expression and healing.

"I've been around this area since 1970 and I've always been interested in the promotion of art, particularly among younger kids. It can be a great release and form of expression," said Purcell, who has donated to the museum a dozen handcrafted etchings and a large mural of dozens of children representing all ethnicities.

"I think the mural represents the spirit of the ranch," Purcell said. "It's all-inclusive."

A few months ago the St. Judes Board of Directors decided to park the model cars and revamp the Ogorek Hall with new exhibits and voted to include children both from the ranch and from around the state in the museum's newest phase. Kizzia was enlisted to contact, via fax, every school in the state offering floor space for artwork created by Nevada school children.

Response thus far has been relatively slow, but volunteer museum director and curator Frank Carroll says he's confident the museum will have a wide representation within a few months.

"We want a lot of variety, a lot of different styles of pieces," said Carroll, a semiretired businessman from Texas who has lived in Boulder City for two years. "I could see us rotating pieces in and out, giving people a chance to make repeated visits and check on our progress."

For now, the museum features works in pen and ink, linoleum, acrylic, water colors, construction paper cutouts, pottery, charcoal, cloth weavings and papier mache. St. Judes students have already provided several pieces, most of them paintings. Students from Durango High School in Las Vegas, Carlin Middle School in Carlin, and and Martha P. King School in Boulder City have also contributed.

Carlin students donated what might be the most impressive piece, mostly for its size -- a giant map of Nevada made up of around 100 clay tiles, each of which bears the hand print of a Carlin student.

As expected, area art teachers relish the chance to display their students' handiwork.

"When we first heard about it, I'm not sure anyone knew exactly what it was about, but after realizing what it meant, I gave a note to each of my students for their parents describing what was going on," Martha P. King art teacher Mignon Wall said. "It's a beautiful room, and a lot of artists would like to have one-man shows there."

Giving students a chance to showcase their art makes for a more inspired piece of work, Wall said.

"You can imagine what it can mean to a fourth-grader to know something they've painted might end up in a frame in an art museum instead of on a refrigerator under a magnet," Wall said. "A lot of pretty meaningful pieces of children's art is big and it doesn't save well in a scrapbook.

"I think art should be framed and it should hang and be discussed."

Carroll has been discussing art -- but with art aficionados who might assist the museum in a tangible (meaning financial) way.

"I've been talking with various art groups, visiting different organizations, trying to drum up support," said Carroll, who also serves as president-elect of the Boulder City Rotary Club, one of the oldest clubs in the state. "What we need is financial support, and volunteers of course. You can never have enough of either."

Early on, donations have come from artists themselves. Carroll would like to see more collectors donate pieces for regular silent auction to help benefit St. Judes.

Also, the organization is hoping for more foot traffic. It maddens Kizzia to see tourism buses roar by St. Judes Ranch en route to Lake Mead without halting to take a swift tour of the property.

"They whiz by and I'm just waving at them," said Mizzia, who is still considering options for arranging regular bus tours. "We've got to become more involved with tour packages and make ourselves a stop-off point for the groups who are heading out to the lake."

There's plenty to see, and plenty of reminders of the rewards of volunteerism. Across from the Children's Art Museum is the St. Judes gift store, filled with angel-shaped mementos. A thrift store is down the street, and the ornately designed chapel is worth at least a peek.

The museum is merely the latest means of attracting funding to St. Judes. The organization holds drives to collect hundreds of thousands of Campbell's Soup labels, which are turned into the company for vans (St. Judes has earned three vans thanks to Campbell's drives). The Born Again Card recycling program, in which volunteers team with students to restore and sell used greeting cards, is a primary means of drawing funding.

But the most significant change lies at the very top. Moving on after 30 years of service as president and chief executive officer of St. Jude's Ranch is Father Herbert Ward, stepping into a new position in the recently formed St. Judes Foundation. He will largely be responsible for finding new ways to promote the organization.

Taking over day-to-day duties is Father William Cantrell, who has a long history of theology instruction and volunteer service from around the world.

"These are exciting times at St. Judes," Kizzia said. "There are so many things going on."

A lot of change and evolution, to be sure. Like a work of art in progress.

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