Valley artists use Easter eggs as creative canvas

Decorating eggs wasn't always kids' stuff. Even before the Easter tradition, Old World artisans colored bird orbs to celebrate spring and its attendant fertility.

We asked six Las Vegas artists to hatch some fresh ideas for this ancient tradition. Their only restriction was using an egg-shaped canvas. Here's what they laid on us

"Knowledge is Power"

Artist: Alex Huerta, 44

For this painter -- who has his own studio at the Arts Factory -- the egg is the message. (Call him an eggs-istentialist.)

Huerta drew "THINK," "ACT" and "BE" over a Styrofoam base collaged with thesaurus pages.

These three words pervade Huerta's work because, he says, they have led him to happiness. They empowered him to transition from bet-taking at Harrah's Las Vegas to chance-taking with a brush in 1996.

"I thought about being an artist for two years," Huerta says . "Then I went to the store, bought paint, and now I'm an artist."

"Happiest Sumo in the World"

Artist: Martin Kreloff, 66

Japanese Sumo wrestlers have been this pop artist's obsession for most of the past decade.

"I just love these fat little guys," Kreloff says.

But they were not his first choice for this assignment. Kreloff, a seven-year valley resident who first established himself during the '80s revival of South Beach, set out to paint a chicken on a plastic egg. (His title: "Which Came First?")

Then his friends cleaned, emptied and donated a real ostrich egg.

"I knew one of my Sumos would be perfect," Kreloff says, explaining that the shape lends itself, as do pores nearly identical to those of a human face.

"Plus," Kreloff adds, "this Sumo is a good egg."

"Easter"

Artist: Peter Mengert, 44

Art imitates death for this mixed-media artist, although he denies being obsessed with the Grim Reaper.

"I'm obsessed with life," he says, "and death is a part of that."

Certainly, both themes are central to Easter.

Mengert -- a Southern California transplant who has spent 11 of his 17 Las Vegas years as an artist -- collaged and sanded newsprint, atop which he charcoaled a human skull.

"I like the distortion produced by the plastic egg," says Mengert, who purchased it in a supermarket.

"Sunny Side Up"

Artist: Jerry Misko, 38

Sin is the thread running through the murals of this valley painter, known for juxtaposing religious and casino iconography.

"Growing up Catholic with a pit-boss father, I had a little conflicted thing going on there," says Misko, who has his own space at Emergency Arts.

Misko's egg -- abstracted from the flame of the old Aladdin's lamp -- is foam glossed with acrylic.

"I grew up seeing no real division between Sin City and going to church," he explains.

"Looking for the Easter Bunny"

Artist: Gina Quaranto, 32

Nine times out of 10, the female form in this mixed-media artist's work will be represented by this same sad and inquisitive little girl.

"She wants to think that things like the Easter Bunny still exist," says Quaranto, a Brooklyn, N.Y., transplant whose work hangs at Blackbird Studios.

This egg, plastic, was decoupaged with 100-year-old paper, then coated with acrylic paint.

A psychologist might say that we're observing the artist's own inner child. Not Quaranto.

"It's everygirl," she insists.

"Merry Go Round"

Artist: Roberto Rico, 57

This Las Vegas painter is bemused by America's commercialism of religious holidays -- especially after he observes one in his native Mexico.

"Easter is actually a religious, almost mystic holiday over there," he says. "A merry-go-round is how I feel when I go back and forth between the two cultures."

To Rico -- whose work hangs at the City of the World and Dinosaurs and Roses galleries -- the wild horse also seems a more fitting expression of that mysticism. He painted a string of them around a plastic egg in acrylic paint.

"I don't know, I could have painted bunny rabbits hopping around," he says. "But I just think it's too cute for a tough guy like me."