(Amber Renee Dixon) She has a deep relationship with art and now has a big way to help the Las Vegas community connect with it.

Heather Harmon, Executive Director of the Las Vegas Museum of Art, is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

A fourth-generation Nevadan, she grew up in Las Vegas without access to an art museum.

That left a lasting impression.

And after years spent studying art outside the Silver State, she's now on a mission to make sure the children growing up in Southern Nevada today and for generations to come have something she didn't.

Heather Harmon, Executive Director of the Las Vegas Museum of Art, welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you, Amber.

-And we should clarify, this museum is not yet in existence.

You're going to break ground on it in 2027.

(Heather Harmon) Yes.

And we will open in 2029.

-And how big of a deal do you think that will be for Southern Nevada?

-I think it will be an extraordinary accomplishment for Southern Nevada, among the many accomplishments that we have achieved as a city and as a state, by and large.

-And so you have talked about not having access to a stand-alone art museum as you grew up in Las Vegas.

When did you become aware of that?

-I really became aware of that when I was studying at UNLV.

And like a good Harmon-- I was studying Political Science, and everyone in my family on both my mother and my father's side were all public servants.

And we had a very, very strong sense in our households that you didn't just live in a community, but you participated in it.

And that was part of your responsibility as a good citizen, to look at the place that you lived and find your way to supporting a community.

I was studying Political Science, and I took an elective at night.

I had several jobs at this point in time.

And it was called Art Since 1945, and it was taught by Professor Dave Hickey.

And I remember sitting in the front row of class, and he started talking about art.

And he just lit up.

And I didn't know what he was.

So I stayed after a class, and I asked him what he did, and he said, Oh, well, I'm an art critic.

And I didn't even know what that meant at the time.

And I signed up for every class that he taught and became his teaching assistant, and I really just devoured the stories that he would tell about art and museums and working with artists.

And I really, because I didn't have access, I didn't even know that a career path in art or art history was even possible at the time.

But it was really through my experience at UNLV, my alma mater, which I'm really close to and still participate as volunteer faculty in the Art Department that shaped me.

-And I had to ask this off camera, but you can have a career in art without being an actual artist yourself.

-Yes, that's true.

So I am trained as a writer and an art historian.

And there are many pathways to art.

I think one of the great opportunities for the museum is to foster careers in arts administration, of which there are many avenues you can choose, whether it's development, communications, facilities, marketing, operations, and we're so excited to strengthen that offering in our local community for the first time and really give that training and that grounding.

I learned it on my many adventures nationally and internationally.

And it's a great, great pleasure to bring that home and to offer that here.

-And before you left Nevada, you had gone to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts, for example, which Steve Wynn helped bring here.

I think that was in the late '90s.

Why is that different?

-I did.

I was an intern there as part of my curriculum.

Dave Hickey's extraordinary wife, Libby Lumpkin, had worked with the Bellagio gallery, and she, too, unbelievable art historian, brilliant writer, educator went on to work on a museum project here at the West Sahara Library.

You know, they really had incredible impact on our community and the young people.

And the Bellagio gallery was extraordinary.

To be able to go-- It was certainly the first time I ever saw a Monet or a Miro or a Rubens, or one of my favorite paintings in the collection was the most beautiful Monet portrait.

-Did you have any idea at the time that you would later go on to work with Elaine Wynn in starting this first stand-alone museum?

-At the time it was hard to imagine because I knew that I wanted to advance my education.

And that was a big part also in our family.

There was a lot of prioritization of education and school and being really invested and having that tool to help you grow and having that ability of agency to choose your career path.

However, in order to advance my education, I went to school, graduate school in California and then went on a whirlwind of wild adventures, of which the through line is Las Vegas.

My first big international job at an art gallery called Regen Projects, when I was going through the interview process, Shaun Regen, one of the two founders, said to me, Oh, I noticed on your resume you're from Las Vegas.

And I've always been extremely proud of being from Las Vegas.

And she proceeded to tell me this beautiful story about how she got married in Las Vegas and how it was her husband's lifelong dream to make the movie Leaving Las Vegas.

And so even in that introduction to my first job in the art world, Las Vegas was a connective thread.

And so for me, even though at the time I didn't know I would find my way back here in that way, I knew I would very intentionally come back here because it's really important to serve the place that shaped you.

-Let's talk about two very important women in the history of Las Vegas.

First, Elaine Wynn, who you met when you were in LA, and she was on the board of the LA County Museum, right?

-LA County Museum of Art, which is the Las Vegas Museum of Art's extraordinary partner.

And Elaine had an amazing leadership role there as the co-chair of their board.

-And that is where the museum will be getting its art from, correct?

-Yes.

-She played a huge role in that.

What was her influence on you?

-She was an amazing mentor.

She really had a leadership style that was unparalleled.

And you could tell, by her very sense of being, how much community meant to her.

And you could feel how people-forward it was in her very nature.

The beautiful thing about being graced with her presence and looking around at the other women she mentored and the other organizations that she fostered and how much education meant her, you could see how incredible it was to be in her presence and to learn how to put community first, how to put people first, how to be not only a great leader, but a great listener, too.

-You told me off camera about Jan Jones Blackhurst, the former mayor of Las Vegas, and you saw-- Tell me about when you saw her in the Helldorado Days Parade.

-I was just a teenager at this point, and I saw this image of her on horseback on Fremont Street just shining so brightly.

And I remember thinking at the time, as a really young woman, for me that broke the glass ceiling.

It made me feel like anything is possible.

And we're so fortunate to be touched by these really dynamic leaders in our community.

And I would say former Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Mayor Shelley Berkeley, among them, that these women in leadership who not only give their support but give their time and give their expertise and keep investing in our community and really pave the way for future leaders.

-How important was it for you to have left Las Vegas, though, and get experience abroad and in New York in order to do what you're doing now do you think?

-I think it was essential, because you need to really learn the mechanics of an institution.

You need to understand, most importantly, the financial components of creating a space of wellness, and you need to understand the foundation of running an institution.

And not having a museum here to be able to learn that career development, it really helped support my development in the field as a young woman and as a person that really is excited about bringing this amenity to our community, to go and to watch and to watch other museum directors and other museums and to see programming and to see a style, but also to see service and to understand what about our institution--we'll learn from other institutions--and what about our institution that will be completely unique to Las Vegas.

You know, we have a spirit.

We have a pioneering spirit.

We have a can-do spirit.

But we also are very welcoming, and we're deeply hospitable.

And when people come and visit Las Vegas, there is that deep, deep, deep connection of those who live and work in the community that make this an incredible place to visit and run the quiet mechanics of having, I think we're now towards 50 million visitors a year, and we make that magic happen.

-Do you think that your, it was great-grandfather, that he had that pioneering spirit you're talking about?

-I definitely think he did.

He moved here in the early 1900s, and he was working with the railroad, but then in 1909 became the first county clerk of Clark County.

And he, too, really felt that to be in a place was to give back to it and to participate in its growth and to support it as it grew.

-And that railroad is very near the site of where this museum will be in Symphony Park.

What is important to you?

You also told me about this off camera.

It's important to you to be near the construction site, and you have your offices near that area.

Why?

-We have our offices close to the construction site, and I think good stewardship often really goes back to care.

And I love working on projects where you're close to a building site, because you really get to know a project, and you get to know everyone working on it.

And with a project like a museum, a civic project that isn't intentionally for a community that it serves, being able to have a strong relationship with the building of the building and watching the foundation go down and watching the building grow will be such a great pleasure for us as a team, but also for those that are working on the building.

And right now, our offices are geographically very close, but we're about to be even closer, because we'll be opening offices and exhibition space in Symphony Park towards the end of the year.

-So you have a hard hat, and you're going down there?

-I have a hard hat.

We're going down there.

-What do you talk about?

-Hard hats for everyone!

No.

Right now, we don't have to have hard hats yet because we haven't broken ground yet.

But we do take people to the site, and we do ground you in why we're in Symphony Park and what that means to be adjacent to the Children's Museum and what it means to be right next to The Smith Center and the Philharmonic and close to the ballet and to be a support structure for other cultural partners, and they've really led the way.

The Smith Center has made so much possible for all of us.

And their leadership and what they've done and what they've accomplished is extraordinary.

And so just being right there, being close to our cultural neighbors, being right by City Hall--the City has been an unbelievable partner in the project--is really a joy for us.

-And we have had so much joy having you here on Nevada Week In Person.

Heather Harmon, Executive Director of the Las Vegas Museum of Art, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.