Boys and girls, now that the sun has lain down to rest on the opposite side of town, now that the painting and playing has come to a halt for the day, now that the mural is complete, its final stroke dried and permanent upon the lobby of your club, settle down for a moment and let me tell about this traveling artist who just stopped by, this man with dreads and sailor's skin with whom you all here, on Wednesday, August 9, just painted this impressive mural.
Lionel Milton is a painter of exceeding talent, and in essence he is just like you. He grew up and acquired the art of colors and cartoons—just like you see here, on your Boys & Girls Club wall—in a place just like your city of North Las Vegas: the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. (Yes, that's right, the city that drowned in Hurricane Katrina.) Lionel himself said that as soon as he stepped foot in North Las Vegas, he felt at home. He said he saw people with familiar faces, skin tones, habits, hopes and struggles, and people who don't sweat in the heat—even on a day like this, 106 degrees and even a bit hotter in the club, it seemed—because they've grown used to it in their lives.
"People from my neighborhood, and neighborhoods like it, is all that ever interested me," Lionel told me. "So that's all I'm interested in painting." Which is why, under the nickname Elleone, he started out practicing graffiti, the art of urban images, urban expressions, and urban themes most seen in urban neighborhoods. His experience and observations in New Orleans—where art and sports and hip-hop culture are not just hobbies but a way of life—taught Lionel that people are colorful and flamboyant, full of soul and exaggerated characteristics, and that's why cartoons like the one you all see here in the entrance of the B&G club became his way of articulating people in paint.
Then Lionel got good. So good, in fact, that people from all around—people like NBA star (and former New Orleans Hornet) Baron Davis, former New Orleans Saints running back Ricky Williams, P. Diddy himself, producers from shows on MTV and BET and FOX and art-gallery owners in Europe—wanted Lionel's work on their walls. And so the kid became a man and began to travel—a lot—painting the only thing that throttled his engine, the only thing he knew, and that is neighborhoods like these in North Las Vegas, and the people like you who comprise them.
He was doing just this in New York last year, in April, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, leaving his hometown submerged in shambles and sadness. Lionel returned to help his people, to help restore the neighborhoods that provided him with the raw materials for his artistic vision, and in late May of this year, he opened up a new gallery in New Orleans dedicated to one idea: that of rebirth.
But that wasn't enough, you see. He wanted still to experience, observe and then paint more neighborhoods. And so Lionel hooked up with Hugo Boss, a famous fashion and accessories company whose name I'm sure you've often seen around here, and they sent Lionel painting in neighborhoods all across the country, starting right here in scorching North Las Vegas, with you all, the boys and girls who make up this club.
And that's how we came to have this mural here: a cartoon rendering of a young, black hip-hop head, not unlike many you see among yourselves; the city and its lights, both natural and man-made; and Lionel's signature moon, cool and smiling in the corner. While some of you turned your shirts inside-out and helped Lionel paint—like Jorge over there, who's been coming to the club for 10 years now, and Tra, who's just 10 years old—and some of you talked to Lionel about rap music and soul food and other similar interests, and others played basketball in the gymnasium, you all provided the traveling artist with added inspiration. This is what he told me, as he looked around at you all:
"Man, this is as real as it gets. This is what I like: real, regular people—people who'll go and eat Popeye's Chicken with me afterward, you know?"
And then he said that maybe one day—someday soon, perhaps—there will be an artist of the first class to rise up from you all here, in North Las Vegas, and you too will do such a good job of capturing and expressing with paint your town, your people, that folks from all over the United States, and even places like Europe, will want you to come paint in their neighborhoods. That's what makes traveling from his neighborhood worth it, he said.