Drought and a doctor shortage, these are just some of the issues she addresses through art.

Sapira Cheuk is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Born in Hong Kong, she moved to Honolulu at 10 years old.

An ink painter and self-described Las Vegas transplant, her experience relocating here inspired an art installation at Las Vegas City Hall.

Sapira Cheuk, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Sapira Cheuk) Thank you for having me.

-And thank you for welcoming us into your home and studio.

You moved here in 2018, you told me, from Southern California.

It was your husband's job that brought you here.

He's an English professor at CSN.

Now, prior to moving, what were you hearing about what it was like to live in Las Vegas?

-I was hearing stories like, it's very dry.

It's a desert, and not just a desert, but a cultural desert.

And it's definitely not true, once I moved here.

It's a harsh climate with harsh people, and that's also not true.

The climate is harsh, but that is not my experience.

-And what was your experience, and how did it inspire friends-- -It's Kindness, Neighbors, Art.

-Kindness, Neighbors, Art.

-Yeah, so I have never been happier and thriving, like as an artist, since I moved here.

I've been giving so-- I've been given so much opportunities and support in my art practice by the folks that have been here.

And I've been able to make art my full-time job in all the roles that I do, and it is through the support of the community.

-Why do you think here versus anywhere else?

So I think, historically, there hasn't been like, a serious focus on the art community here.

So the folks, in order for them to really continue to do what they do, they really need to look out for each other.

And that support, that generosity was just so natural for the folks that, that lives here.

So for example, if I go into a big gallery in LA, you know, you would be lucky if you were acknowledged by the receptionist.

But here, I can go into any space and talk with the folks that work there.

I can talk with the gallery owner.

I can talk with the exhibition artists.

They're so friendly and so welcoming and so willing to share their art and not only their art, but their resources.

-That's really neat.

And so that inspired "Kindness, Neighbors, Art," that installation that was at Las Vegas City Hall, which we have pictures of.

Now, you are an ink artist.

Why that form of art?

-Yeah, so I learned how to paint through traditional Chinese brush painting that I developed when I would go back to Hong Kong to visit my family.

And I have developed a specific style in grad school where I blend multiple types of ink, one is water soluble and one isn't.

So the soluble ink is a Chinese Sumi ink.

And the nonsoluble is a Indian ink, which is what you would use to learn pen and ink drawing in your traditional Western art education.

So blending that and using that as my primary medium, that really represents me as a person, as an artist, as an immigrant to this place.

And in addition, it has like a very Rorschach quality of the ink.

So it's a reminder that even though I am the artist, I am making something from my perspective.

It also invites the viewer to interpret and create meaning through the medium together.

-What was the word you used that I couldn't understand?

It was a quality of [indistinct] quality?

Rorschach quality?

-Yes.

You have to explain what that is.

-So the Rorschach Inkblot Test.

So you have a bowl of ink and you mush it and then you see what you see.

It's really abstract, and it's not very representational.

And in psychology, this is back in the day, would like then tell you what you are actually thinking, because you interpret a specific image from the ink.

-Wow.

Okay.

All right.

So that's also part of the gradation and abrupt fractures that you described to Bold Journey magazine that you say represent your experience, your dual experience, negotiating two different cultures.

And I wonder, is there a moment in your life, a time in your life when that has become so apparent to you that, Wow, I am really operating from this perspective and being confronted with a new perspective, and how do I blend the two?

-Yeah.

So I think that really inspired the series Family Tides.

I had to go through genetic counseling because I have a history of cancer.

And what happened is the doctor will give you a series of questions about your family history, and I had no idea.

I don't have any clue because I had moved away.

I wasn't living in the same space.

I wasn't sharing stories.

And I think, in the way I was brought up, that wasn't really something that my family did, like, share the stories of struggle.

So when I had to find answers, I thought nothing had happened, because I haven't heard.

But it was because I was expecting that I would be told or those stories would be shared.

And that wasn't the case.

So through this experience, I was negotiating, like, my internalized way of operating to my culture.

So that was very interesting.

And processing all of that really suddenly, because that information was just kind of given to me instead of like, learning about it throughout my life or my childhood.

And that, in a way, I was able to connect with my family, even though we're very far apart, in a way that I did not expect.

And that's what resulted in the work.

-Initially, when you learned that you had this in your history and you had never known about it, did you feel resentful?

Betrayed?

-No.

I think I was surprised.

And I think for many artists, our way of processing our thoughts is-- this is in my artist statement-- I feel it in my body, it comes out as the work, and then I have to really contextualize it.

Like, why did I make this?

What was I thinking?

What were the themes that were going through my head?

-While we're on the topic of medical issues, how did you become aware of the doctor shortage in Nevada?

-Yeah.

So I developed an illness while I was an adjunct at UNLV.

So I taught part time, and I had-- this is a story to be shared, it's kind of long, I apologize.

So I had, when I was an adjunct, I didn't get consistent care, because I would lose my insurance during the summer.

And I would have to go on to the marketplace and then get insured.

It takes about a month.

You have to find a doctor.

So I couldn't-- I couldn't make an appointment in time to receive quality care.

And every time I change doctors, they would want new tests.

And so I was misdiagnosed for a year and a half.

And somebody that was close to me, who was a doctor and I shared all my symptoms, they're like, Well, that's not the diagnosis you should be receiving.

You should, you should really go and find out more and get more tests.

But it was really hard to advocate for myself (A), and I couldn't get consistent care (B).

So I found-- I was able to find a community and help online outside of, you know, the medical care system that I was in.

And that really influenced, and that actually created A Line Parallel, the series of art where I explore fibroblasts, which is scar tissue.

And I can talk more about that.

But when I share the story of my struggle with people in the valley, mostly women and women of color, and just folks in general would have a very similar story of how they really struggle with care.

-Can art make a difference in this aspect of a social issue, like a doctor shortage?

-Absolutely.

-How?

-100%.

So I will use Along the Colorado as an example.

So I curated an exhibition about the Colorado River water shortage.

There's a drought.

And when I did research, I was really inspired by how we had mandated that we had to remove all the decorative grass, decorative nonfunctional grass.

-This issue you became inspired by, by moving to Nevada?

-Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

-Okay.

-And when we, when I hear "nonfunctional" and "decorative," I sometimes get triggered because a lot of people would describe art as like decorative and nonfunctional, but that's not the case.

And so, when I started researching for this exhibition, I met Dr. Tom Minckley, who is a professor of geology at the University of Wyoming.

And he organized a three-months river rafting expedition down the Colorado River to document the state of that river.

And his primary partner is Patrick Kikut, who is an artist that was teaching at the university at the time.

And they invited artists to raft with them as the scientists did their science thing, you know, document the state, and the artists visually documented the river.

And I asked him why was art core to this expedition, this very sciency expedition.

And he told me art can do what science can't.

It fills that gap.

So for example, I don't remember what the parameters are with the federal government, the specific number to declare that there's a water shortage, but I clearly remember those bathtub rings in Lake Mead.

Those images are seared in my mind.

And that's the power of art.

It grabs you, it keeps you, and then if you're really interested and you care, then you can find out more.

-When you explain this to your parents, what do they think?

Because we spoke off camera about how you didn't even tell them that you were studying art in college.

Your dad thought you were studying to become an accountant.

-Mm-hmm.

-Why did you keep that from them?

-I really thought that they would disown me.

-Is that a cultural thing?

-Yes, yeah.

Especially when I was growing up.

That was very-- that was very much an idea that you at least have to be financially sustained.

Like, you have to financially sustain yourself.

They did not have examples of where artists could do that.

And that's totally not the case, especially in Nevada.

-That's really neat.

So do they understand when you elevate, that it's not just art for art's sake for the viewing pleasure of it, but it has a purpose, sometimes impacting people's knowledge of certain social issues?

-Yes, absolutely.

And like they are starting to understand that, you know, art has an intrinsic value, it has a social value, and they see it as a way to connect, rather than a product as decoration.

-Now, your full-time job is as Artist Services Specialist at the Nevada Arts Council, which is a division of a state agency.

This involves grants and artists.

How do you make the argument when someone says, How do you justify public funding for art versus, let's say, a food bank or a homeless shelter?

-Sure, yeah.

Those are great questions.

I think we should fund all of those things, first of all, but specifically for art.

And if you don't already see the intrinsic inherent value, the social value, the value of advocating for a cause that's really important or raising awareness or, you know, inspiring action, here's the argument I would make: We in Nevada really depend on our tourism industry.

It's like 42% of our GDP.

And think about the, let's just say, Las Vegas experience.

Like how do we represent that globally?

What is our image?

What does that look like?

Now imagine-- and who created that experience, right?

Now imagine the Strip without any art, without any architecture.

The font is all the same.

The building is white.

You go into a casino, there's no pattern under the carpet.

It's just concrete.

The slot machine doesn't have any image.

It's just text.

It would look so different, right?

It wouldn't be the Las Vegas that we know.

And folks want to come visit.

So art is really essential to us.

And how do we continue to be competitive globally in order to do that?

Art and culture is like $10.9 billion annually in our GDP.

So we need to ensure that we have a healthy pipeline of creatives and cultural workers to innovate and continue to be competitive.

We need to ensure that we're nurturing our creative in order for us to have a prosperous future.

-Sapira Cheuk, thanks so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

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