Frankly, Scarlett, it’s just ‘A’ mural

Dan Kulin

Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005 | 8:20 a.m.

Painting Sin City with the scarlet letter has some people seeing red.

A mural commissioned by the Las Vegas Centennial Commission that features a large red "A" on top of an upside-down woman sparked a debate this week about the propriety of the work, its connection to Las Vegas and adultery.

Centennial commissioner Steve Schorr, vice president of Cox Communications, argued Monday against the mural during a meeting in which the mural passed muster on a 10-6 vote.

" 'A' stands for adultery and we have worked so very hard to clean up that image, and now we're paying for that image," Schorr said.

The commission is paying Los Angeles artist Alexis Smith, who is well known in contemporary art circles, $25,000 for the work, titled "Scarlet Letter." The more than 30-foot-tall mural is to be displayed early next year outside the Sahara West Library.

Commissioners Sheila Moulton, a member of the Clark County School Board, and Mike Varney, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce's vice president of marketing and communications, expressed concerns that the mural did not represent the centennial celebration.

"There's the depiction of the scarlet letter, in which a woman is designated as adulterous, and I can't see the line to the centennial," Moulton said.

But the majority of the commissioners disagreed, some quite strongly.

"If we're going to debate public art, I'm going to get up and leave," said Bob Stoldal, vice president of news operations of KLAS Channel 8.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who chairs the commission, said the mural "does represent Las Vegas."

The mural shows that Las Vegas is "different than any place else and (we're) not afraid to express ourselves," he said.

Goodman noted that the commission removed itself from the position of approving specific murals -- there are 175 in all -- when it turned that job over to a special task force. The centennial commission vote was to authorize the mural's location, not the artwork's merits.

"Whatever they picked is OK with me," Goodman said. "As long as it doesn't go over the line and become pornography. It wasn't supposed to be symbolic of the centennial, it was supposed to be art."

Both the mural's title and the giant red "A" in the piece are a reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel "The Scarlet Letter," in which a woman is forced to wear a red "A" on her clothing to identify her as a suspected adulterer.

In the mural, the figure under the red "A" is a stylized rendition of "Pinky," a famous 18th century portrait by Thomas Lawrence.

Smith said she was "weirdly gratified" by the debate over what she thought was an "artistic but innocuous piece."

"The image is not scandalous in any way and maybe some people will read 'The Scarlet Letter' because of it," Smith said.

In addition to an allusion to the book, Smith said, the red "A" also could stand for her name, Alexis, or "art with a capital 'A.' "

Dan Kulin can be reached at 259-8826 or at dan@lasvegassun.com.