Art of the matter: New association hopes gallery brings life to downtown Henderson

Jeffrey Libby

Thursday, Oct. 24, 2002 | 8:42 a.m.

Kitty Boeddeker was standing next to a coffee pot and a stack of fluorescent lights Monday night, explaining how all artists are emerging, it's just that some are more emerging than others. As she spoke, the phone rang.

"Answer it, 'Henderson ... Old ... Town ... Gallery,'" she called out.

Boeddeker, founding president of the Henderson Art Association, wants no doubts about the milieu old, downtown Henderson.

Because Boeddeker, like city redevelopment staffers, is betting that despite the backwater, lackluster address, the downtown gallery will emerge in its own right, as a unique draw in a city rife with retail stores.

"There's no reason the downtown can't be an art center," she said. "The people are hungry for it and the city is ready for it."

They say the art, priced anywhere from $200 to $3,000, will bring new shoppers with more money to the struggling downtown area. Eventually, they say, the art itself will multiply, demanding more gallery space for display among the bail-bond shops, ethnic restaurants, empty storefronts and real estate offices.

"Henderson does not lack for retail draws," Cody Walker, a planner for the redevelopment agency, said. "So art is something that will give the downtown its own signature."

The gallery opens Friday with a show of artwork by 28 members juried last month. Works include paintings, sculpture, photography and jewelry.

"I'll tell you what, this gallery will be good for the city," painter Carl Partridge said. "The downtown area needs some jazzing up, because Henderson is an old town, but now it's a growing city and all those homes being built need paintings on the wall."

Nabila Khanam, a retired textile trader and amateur photographer, chose three groups of paired photographs focusing on sky, nectar and water for the show. She was hesitant to put prices on them.

"I am very new," Khanam, 65, said. "I have been doing this just two years. But it is good for the locals to have some outlet to show their work."

Rod Beasley, another Henderson artist in the show, is younger, at 51. But he has been creating art for years to pay his bills. His oil paintings bring $2,000 or more at Strip casinos, he said.

Beasley also draws quick $5 portraits at the downtown Henderson farmer's market and on the Strip.

"I give them a choice, funny or flattering," Beasley, a recent candidate for sheriff, said. "Most people go with flattering."

Green Valley gallery owner and artist Joe Palermo, also an association board member and former director of Las Vegas Art Museum, is going with flattering for downtown. Palermo is negotiating a lease for a gallery on nearby Water Street. He hopes to establish scheduled nights where art collectors are invited to visit the galleries, dine and stroll the area.

"The downtown lends itself to a cultural district. It's just laid out right," Palermo said. "People will come from all over the valley."

On Monday Palermo helped supervise the hanging of the art, directing the artists who had brought hammers and handfuls of nails from home.

As the night wore on and the crowd thinned, Boeddeker sat down in the front window for a break. The hanging of art at the association's downtown home meant the near success of an effort she began more than two years ago.

"Art can be sitting on the floor and that's fine," she said. "But when it's hung on the walls, it's dramatic."