Artist-in-residence program, education among goals of The Window
The Window, a multipurpose space with an artist-in-residence program, opened May 12 in the northwest corner space of The Ogden, 150 Las Vegas Blvd. North.
The space is used for education, meetings, co-working and performances. It’s also the starting point for Downtown Project tours. It functions as the nexus of the Downtown Project and the neighborhood.
Aside from curated evening events, The Window is set to be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
David Gould, an Iowa-based educator, runs the operation for Downtown Project. When Tony Hsieh spoke at one of Gould’s classes in 2010, he was so struck by Hsieh that he followed his career and last summer came west to work with him, hoping to expand on his classroom work.
“I came here in August with the idea of trying to push what I was doing in the classroom into a city,” Gould said. “The overwhelming question for me was, ‘How does a city learn?’ It’s a big question and one I don’t presume to have the answer to.”
Before he moved to Las Vegas in August, Gould met with Hsieh to hash out how his skills and a space such as The Window could be used as a force of positive change. Gould believes that there is a disconnect between academic study and real-world issues and he hopes to bridge that gap.
“There are scholars and researchers studying things that are incredibly important for us to know about,” Gould said. “Unfortunately, through no fault of their own, they’re not plugged into the city or real life. They’re not connecting to the people on the ground, doing the work. If you can shake that up, I believe we can begin to do some good things.”
The Window hosted a faculty institute on Wednesday to address that issue.
It brought in about 10 faculty members from several disciplines and a few from the University of Iowa, he said.
“We’re hoping to really explore how research and teaching can plug in and benefit a city.”
The institute was planned as an immersion experience with the Downtown Project and the city at large, he said.
Gould said the group would be looking at the social challenges, both universal to all cities and unique to Las Vegas.
That project is typical of the work Gould wants to accomplish at The Window. He hopes that by opening the space, with its indirect natural lighting, open-space floor plan, comfortable seating and soothing design aesthetic, to like-minded groups and individuals working to make a difference, they can.
“We want to facilitate co-learning opportunities that enrich the city,” Gould said. “Tony (Hsieh) has charged me with curating the space to do just that.”
A future project is bringing together organizers from multiple entities that deal with issues surrounding the city’s homeless population for an informal meet and greet.
“It will give them an opportunity to talk about how they can collectively work on that social challenge, Gould said.
The facility can be used as a performance space for curated evening events, such as a recent spoken word performance by members who took a storytelling seminar with Peter Aguero, a storySLAM host with The Moth, a New York City-based nonprofit group dedicated to storytelling.
Promotion of the arts is set to be one focus, Gould said, and the plan is for Las Vegas artists to work out of The Window for three-month residencies.
“We’re looking for someone who wants to connect with the city in a personal way,” Gould said. “We want someone who can talk about his or her work and do some kind of city-connected piece.”
Las Vegas artist Donovan Fitzgerald took on the role of The Window’s first artist-in-residence. The internationally known classically figurative painter rarely shows his work in town, but several pieces are set to be on display at The Window through July.
“I’ve sort of avoided the whole Arts District in general,” Fitzgerald said. “I’ve got several collectors in town, but I deal directly with them. This seemed to be a really interesting way to make that connection with the larger community, rather than being stuck in my studio. I want to get in on the ground level of the downtown revitalization and see where that goes.”
Fitzgerald doesn’t need the exposure. The native Las Vegan travels to the East and West Coasts to promote his work, but a discussion with an artist friend in Brooklyn, N.Y., convinced him that he should be more connected with his community.
“I had been chatting with my friend in Brooklyn about the lack of traditional figurative painting here,” Fitzgerald said. “We wanted to see if we could get some excitement going about traditional painting and find a place for it in the larger Las Vegas community. The timing (for the residency) was right.”
School groups have visited The Window to watch Fitzgerald work, creating elegant chalk drawings on the tops of the room’s pillars. He hopes to meet with Las Vegas students from several grades and cater his interaction with them to their ability and interest. A group of elementary students is set to present Fitzgerald with their own drawings of concepts of what a city could be. The artist hopes to host a life drawing session or two during his residency.
Gould calls the first residency “North Star,” a term he has steeped in meaning.
“What we’re looking at is an idealistic, idyllic view of the revitalization effort,” he said. “It’s not about the Downtown Project or downtown but about that higher ideal of what an American city can look like. That’s our North Star, our better selves.”
