Arts District artist’s plywood mural stolen from storefront

Since several small businesses in downtown Las Vegas have shuttered and boarded up their storefronts, Izaac Zevalking, who works under the name Recycled Propaganda, has donated his time and talents to designing nine murals for local shops and restaurants.

Over the weekend, the plywood mural he created for his own gallery was stolen.

In a surveillance video taken just after midnight Saturday morning from the Recycled Propaganda gallery, a man and woman can be seen examining the collage of images the artist pasted on his storefront and then using a crowbar to pry one of the boards off the building.

“In the video, you can hear them Googling ‘Recycled Propaganda’ and looking it up,” Zevalking says. “She says ‘I want this one; this one’s for me,’ like she’s window-shopping. Which is kind of amusing.”

Zevalking was one of dozens of artists who volunteered to turn the Arts District’s boarded-up windows into murals, through a community project driven by ReBar owner Derek Stonebarger.

The murals on nearby businesses including Las Vegas Mercantile, ReBar and Retro Vegas will be auctioned off when businesses reopen, with the proceeds being donated to the needs of community members.

“What saddens me more is, a lot of other arts districts haven’t taken the route Las Vegas has and they’re just boarded up,” Zevalking says. “The crisis has shown togetherness and heart. To see people in the community who don’t consider how hard this is for some people and want to add to the chaos is the most upsetting.”

Abby Stroot, president of the Arts District Association, says that the theft is the first since community members increased protective measures such as boarding up windows and launching an unofficial neighborhood watch.

Two break-ins first night

“That first night, Esther’s Kitchen and Ninja Karaoke were both broken into, and that was enough to scare everyone into boarding up,” says Stroot, who owns the sewing shop Pincushion. “We had an e-meeting where we discussed what we could do as business owners.”

Stroot launched a message board and schedule where business owners signed up for one-hour shifts to monitor one another’s properties.

“We’re not Crime Stoppers. But we’re keeping a closer eye on people and have turned away a few ne’er-do-wells,” Stroot says.

Zevalking has not yet filed a police report. Rather, he’s hoping that the close-knit art community will put him in touch with the “window-shoppers” and he will be able to ask for the artwork back.

He has since paneled and pasted a new mural, which he still intends to donate when the coronavirus-imposed lockdown is lifted.

Zevalking hesitated before sharing the surveillance footage on his social media accounts. As a street artist, he says he is used to his artworks being defaced or stolen. But he is concerned about the community of artists and small-business owners in the Arts District.

“I think it devalues the Arts District to have everything boarded up. Boards are just blank canvases. It makes sense to paint them,” Zevalking says. “Seeing how much everyone cares about it being stolen shows how much people care about that community.”

Contact Janna Karel at jkarel@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3835. Follow @jannainprogress on Twitter.