Interview with Alex Huerta Of “Three Baaad Sheep”

Coming back and forth to visit my family in Las Vegas, I have always held out the hope that one day, when I would waltz into town, there would be an artist’s community.  A REAL, LIVE community.  Thank God one has sprung up and stays vibrant – for over 20 years now.  It’s the Arts Factory, 107 East Charleston, located in the old part of downtown Las Vegas.  The old, homeless peopled and deserted business part of Las Vegas.  The ArtsFactory also shares the block with another art building, the Art Square.  It’s a vibrant,happening section of town, apart from the better-known glitz of the Strip.

I remember in the 80’s, being home on Spring Break from college, taking my sister around the valley in search of “art”.  What we would find would be mom-and-pop art supply stores that would feature local artwork.  The themes were always the same — cowboys, Indians, desert scenes.  Disappointed, my sister and I would adjourn to Sam’s Town to bowl.  Going lowbrow, staying lowbrow.

Upon my most recent visit to Vegas, I had the good fortune to be able to speak, at length, with one of the artists who has a studio in the Arts Factory, Alex Huerta, with his colleagues, Alexander “Skye” Carranza, and Eddie Canumay, who form the artist group, 3 Baaad Sheep.

Alex Huerta explained how he met the other members of this collaborative artist process: “I met Skye  in February 2010 at an outdoor event.  He was showing work, I was showing work.  I met Eddie at a First Friday fundraiser in June of 2010.  Eddie started painting at the Saturday event that I started, which brings in the creativity of painters and poets.”  One day in August Eddie brought his friend Skye along when he was meeting with Alex to create art, and the three of them struck up this connection to do a collaborative piece.  As Alex explains, “It was incredible.  I have never seen anything like it.  Even the part I participated on, it stretched me immediately, because Skye put 3 prostitutes from those flyers distributed on the Strip on this piece.  I had never used conceptual connotation before in my work at that point — ever.  I was forced to use it, I couldn’t tell him ‘no, dude, you can’t put that on there.’  I couldn’t say that.  Either be a part of it or move on, my friend.  So I worked with it.   I never thought that I could ever take my art, my thought processes, there.  We all share techniques that we’ve learned from each other.  It’s really magic.”

Huerta began his art calling in 1996 when he journeyed to a paint store, bought paint and started painting. “I didn’t have anyone around me to tell me about art – I just picked it.”  For 5 years he painted in his room, giving away his oils to family and friends. “Before I was an artist, I had a stereotypical view of what an artist was, and what it might be, what it should be.  And it’s NOTHING like I thought.  I thought, ‘Oh, you’re not an artist until you get your art into galleries in New York. OK, that’s when you’re an artist.’ 

“Now,” Alex muses, “I live every day as an artist and the success that I feel is judged by me only.   In Vegas, you’re allowed to fulfill yourself as an artist.  There’s so many open doors here — take the opportunities, present yourself like artists have to do.  They don’t know what you do until you show them what you do.  I learned that early.” Huerta became involved in the First Friday events three months into its inception, and it took off from there. 

While Huerta acknowledges the opportunistic qualities of the city of Vegas, he advises those who want to get into the field:    “If you want your art to pay for cars, and girls, and dancing and parties — well, you’re going to be mad at your art because it’s not going to support that.  I don’t ask my art to support any of that.  I ask it to support this room, and it does that. If you give an honest, true, consistent effort like I have for 4 years, you can make your mark like I have.  I’ve got 10 murals on buildings around here, people know my studio, and I started the Saturday event for painters and poets.”

Having seen the changes in landscape to this older part of town, Huerta, who has been at the Arts Factory for 4-1/2 years, gave me the low-down on what transpired to developing this area.  “About 10 years ago, there was a real nice momentum building up, right around 2002.  All of a sudden there was this talk of putting in a stadium right there kitty-corner from us.   And everybody starts to panic.  All the developers came in and started buying up lots.  Knocking shit down, because there was 7 to 10 towers slated.  Just 2 of them were built. Now there are empty lots, people holding onto their spaces because they think that someone’s coming along to make them mega-rich.  But it was a nice dynamic when this (the Arts Factory) happened.  It really is so organic…so organic.”

“So the gentrification is going to happen, it’s happening now.  I don’t know enough to say too much about it but I know what it is and I know they’re talking about the change…the ‘hipster’ or whatever, is going to happen.  I know if my art is bad-ass, and if I’m bad-ass as an artist, I’ll be able to stay.  I don’t have to become a ‘gentrification artist’, I don’t have to become a hipster, I can just run around in my paint clothes all day anyway.  If my art can keep me here I’ll stay, and if it can’t, then on to the next adventure whatever that will be.  And if my rent happens to go up and my art cannot support that, well, I’m not going to blame it on the development over here, I’m going to blame it on ‘your art sucked’. Your art just can’t support you at this level.  Cool..no big deal, don’t tell me what I am as an artist, that will never happen.”

Alex Huerta, and the other members of 3 Baaad Sheep, can be found on Facebook.  Check out their amazing collaborative pieces, filled with all sorts of dialogue, imagery, symbolism, color.  It is amazing work that will have you pondering the layers of memory, modern iconography, dreams and nightmares blended all together.