There are no talented women designers in Las Vegas.
That’s
what Amy Finchem was told by her male peers in the architecture and
design field when they heard she was planning an exhibit showcasing the
work of local female designers.
She proved them wrong Thursday
night with the opening of “Women in Design,” a blind juried exhibition
featuring work by such women in the fields of architecture, interior
design and landscape architecture. Six designers were ultimately
selected from a total of 15 submissions.
“I was pleased with the
overall quality of the submissions that we got, especially for the first
time out. It was really, really difficult to pick just six,” she says.
The
exhibit is the latest effort by COLAB, the local design nonprofit and
gallery at Art Square that Finchem founded and directs, to further
community dialogue about Las Vegas’ architectural landscape. Finchem,
along with judges Alex Epstein of El Cortez, Quentin Abramo of Faciliteq
Architectural Interiors and Art Square developer Brett Sperry, provide
well-rounded looks at both built and unbuilt work that showcase
designers’ overall capability and aesthetics, rather than the details of
a single project.
“Women in Design” is not the first time
Finchem’s efforts have been met with raised eyebrows: She faced similar
skepticism when she founded COLAB earlier this spring.
“People
said, well we hire outside of the city [for architecture and design
work] because we don’t have any local talented designers,” she says, a
sentiment COLAB disproved with “Young Guns,” a curated exhibit of work
by UNLV School of Architecture graduates who were subsequently hired by
the city of Las Vegas to design Project Neon’s gateway to downtown. COLAB’s Downtown Backyard Project,
an effort to design and construct parks and gardens in downtown’s Arts
District, is also gaining attention and momentum among locals.
“For
this show I think it’s the same as ‘Young Guns,’ where there’s a
perception that we don’t have local talent here, period, and certainly
not women designers. So this has really given the platform to show that
we have really great, talented women in this city,” Finchem, 35, says.
While
visibility and local employment opportunities are issues faced by Las
Vegas’ design community at large, the struggle is particularly
challenging for women, who often must juggle the fast-paced fieldwork
and round-the-clock schedule that architecture demands with raising a
family. While working at a large firm, where meetings often ran late at
the end of the day, Finchem began noticing that women were the only
ones who got up to leave when time went over.
“They had to go
pick up their kids,” says Finchem, a single mother of three. “It truly
does impact the perception of those women in their ability to fulfill
their jobs — that they’re distracted, or they’re not reliable. Those are
misconceptions because any woman that I’ve worked with in this field
works harder and is more persistent, constantly trying to prove
themselves to live up to the standards. They don’t automatically get
that respect when they walk in the door — you know you’re going to be
doubted from the get-go, so you have to be on your game all the time.”
Finchem
hopes that exhibits like “Women in Design,” which is open through
February, will help shed light on those challenges and catalyze more
open discussion about them in both the workplace and the community. In
the coming months, she plans to incorporate events such as a film
screening about women in design, guest lectures and panel discussions
with women in related fields including construction and engineering.
“What
it looks like to be an employee for somebody doesn’t have to look the
same [from person to person],” she says. “We really want to get in the
habit of these exhibit launches being a start to dialogue about whatever
the topic is.”
Women in design features the work of local
designers Lindzay Green, landscape architecture; Gina Grillo,
architecture; Renee Smith, architecture; Alice O’Keefe, interior design;
Kim Daoust, interior design; Briana Tiberti, interior design.
COLAB Las Vegas is open Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and also available by appointment.
source: lasvegassun.com
