As the temperature climbs in the wood-fired furnace in front of him, Las Vegas glass blower Larry Domsky wipes the sweat off his forehead. “This is brutal,” he says, referencing the heat inside the workshop of Domsky Glass. It’s taxing enough to have to work with such a fragile medium, let alone in these conditions. But in a surprising twist, Domsky turns to me and admits, “I’m never gonna give this up.”
For hundreds, if not thousands of years, people have dedicated themselves to using old-world methods and techniques in transforming materials into art and objects for practical purposes. From the neon benders who light up the city to the blacksmiths who design set pieces for our Strip shows, these are the local craftspeople who use their trades to handcraft Las Vegas’ identity.
The Man of Steel
Enzo Cinquegrana, blacksmith at LV Iron & Steel
Enzo Cinquegrana has swung his share of hammers. As we tour the outdoor forge of LV Iron & Steel, we pause at a huge rack of them.
“If you go into a forge in Europe, this would take up an entire wall,” he says, motioning to the collection of tools. “We have a lot to work up to, but this has gotten me through 20 years of forging on my own.”
Cinquegrana, with his barrel chest and black overalls, looks the part of a craftsman you’d entrust your weapons to in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The self-proclaimed video game nerd knows it well. But in Cinquegrana’s mind, why play as the blacksmith, when you could become him?
That’s precisely what he did after discovering his love for sculpture and three-dimensional mediums. Cinquegrana grew up in New Jersey as the son of Italian immigrants. His relatives in Italy were stonemasons, so the urge to create by hand was “always around me.” Initially he tried to become a graphic designer, but desk life took a toll.
“After being miserable there, what I ended up doing was taking blacksmithing classes,” he says. “I was always kind of a nerd—blacksmiths, swords and all that stuff was interesting to me. So I would drive two hours into South Jersey, three days a week after work, and just learn from these old guys in a bar.”
He soon started working for the Les Métalliers Champenois, a French firm that redid the Statue of Liberty’s famed torch in 1986. Cinquegrana says he also had a hand in restoring parts of Lady Liberty and owes much of his work to the French and the craftsmanship that machines simply can’t replicate.
Moving to Las Vegas after his wife, burlesque performer Raquel Reed, landed a role in Absinthe, Cinquegrana broadened his architectural work,creating the show’s iconic Green Fairy Garden gate and sets for Reed’s Sin City Burlesque Festival. At LV Iron & Steel, he teaches skilled metal workers and aspiring blacksmiths about the craft and the culture attached.
“One of the cool things is culture didn’t get eradicated from globalization; it just got passed down. So you can be like, ‘A French guy made that. A Portuguese guy made that. I know the girl who made that, she’s from Spain.’ You can literally see the technique and the culture in the work itself. It breathes,” Cinquegrana says. “It’s this hard, difficult material that fights you and kicks and screams and it’s cold, and at the end, it’s organic. That traditional work, it’s held at a high standard, because it’s been polished by hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
Jack of all Trades
Mike Martin, head of productions, construction and special projects at Spiegelworld
Mike Martin is a maker in the most literal sense. His workshop is a portrait of power tools and planks of wood, books on 3D printing and an LED Christmas cactus that he says his homeowners association hates.
“I like the medium that mixes them all together,” says Martin. “I’m not nearly as good at any particular skill set as I want to be. But the one thing I have going for me is I’m not necessarily limited to woodworking or to metal fabrication or to resin or to CNC [computer numerical control].
I will throw it all together.”
Martin joined Spiegelworld 13 years ago as a production manager for Absinthe. He’s since bounced between projects across the whole company. Some of his most whimsical works can be seen at Absinthe, where he helped design the Green Fairy Garden, its electric oak tree and Pier 17 Yacht Club. He’s also behind smaller details like the s’mores cutting boards at Ski Lodge at the Cosmopolitan.
The bar at Pier 17 Yacht Club
“We get paid to do weird s**t,” Martin says. “Absinthe called a year ago and was like, ‘So, I got a sword swallower, and there needs to be these tables that she can put the things on, but they need to go up to the thing, but then they need to collapse when we don’t use them, you know?’ And it’s like, okay, I’ll make a thing.”
Prior to creating for Spiegelworld, Martin toured with MythBusters and The Illusionists as a production manager. He moved to Las Vegas in 2006 to work on the Planet Hollywood production of Stomp Out Loud.
“I spent 10 years doing Stomp all over the world, and kept thinking I’m never gonna have a professional experience like this again, where I get to be part of a family like this. … I was very lucky to find Spiegelworld,” he says.
The Lightbearer
Oscar Gonzalez, neon bender at YESCO
Oscar Gonzalez looks very comfortable over an open flame. When we meet the neon bender of 30 years in his YESCO workshop, he seems wholly within his element. He rotates a piece of glass tubing between his fingers, the flame catching and licking at it until the glass begins to yield like rubber. Gonzalez blows into a hose connected to the tubing to keep it from collapsing. The material dances under the heat, becoming so pliable Gonzalez has to move with it to keep it level. When he’s ready, he bends it into its desired shape.
“Definitely, it’s an art,” Gonzalez says of his trade. “Art is something that gives you that kind of peace of mind.”
The neon bender started working at a neon shop in Guadalajara, Mexico at 14. Enamored by the flames and the neon lights, he’d collect pieces of discarded glass and practice. His first sign spelled out the word “vino.” It took him eight hours to make.
Restored Moulin Rouge sign
At YESCO, a sign and lighting company that’s helped illuminate Las Vegas for more than 100 years, and his previous role at Hartlauer Signs, Gonzalez has been essential to restoring historic signage like the 24-foot sign for the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel and one from the Moulin Rouge. A father of three, Gonzalez says his kids are equally as interested in his craft, to the point where “now, they think I make all the signs in Las Vegas!” he laughs.
Gonzalez hopes to pass on his knowledge, as many of the old guard have either retired or died. And with more energy-efficient LED starting to replace traditional neon, Gonzalez admits he has reservations about the future of his craft. “Is this thing really gonna die? I’ve been hearing that since I started. … I don’t know what’s gonna happen in 10 years,” he says.
Whatever may come, he says there’s always a place for neon in this city and in his heart.
The Metal Shop Master
Luis Varela-Rico, metal artist
Luis Varela-Rico’s work is as pronounced as it is public. From the 4,000-pound, metallic-plated heads adorning the roadway median near the 215 Beltway and Eastern Avenue, to the 15-foot-tall solar sculpture of a hand gripping a baseball at Desert Diamonds Baseball Complex, his artistic touch can be detected across the Valley.
The Guadalajara-born metal master seeks to amplify the identity of Las Vegas, much in the same way Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” shaped Chicago and Robert Graham’s “The Fist” defined Detroit. Having amassed a reputation here, at Burning Man and on shows like Netflix’s Metal Shop Masters, Varela-Rico is well on his way to achieving that ambitious goal.
“There’s a responsibility for a public artist to meet the population in the middle,” Varela-Rico says. “I want to make something for you guys, for us, that helps identify the city, or helps us say, ‘We’re proud of our city, because look how banging our art is.’”
When it comes to his art, Varela-Rico draws from a rich base of culture—his Mexican heritage, the voices of Indigenous people, the resilient Black community—to celebrate all people. For instance, Varela-Rico dedicated the design of his Arts District installation, “Radial Symmetry,” to the Southern Paiutes and their intricate style of basket-weaving. “Peso Neto,” a tremendous and highly symbolic work of steel and bronze from Burning Man, also tells the story of his Mexican heritage, touching on colonialism and religion.
Today, his practices have evolved. He employs computer-aided design software to sketch out 3D designs that he processes through his machines, so he can cut the pieces out and reassemble them.
Varela-Rico developed an affinity for metal due to his love for cars. In his North Las Vegas studio, a vintage Volkswagen sits in the driveway, an old VW Beetle rests on a lift, bicycles dangle from the ceiling and a motorbike is parked in his office. It’s all very industrial, gritty and, dare we say … metal?
“I think people look at metal workers and they have all these stereotypes. But it’s too much to be heavy metal all the time and be dealing with heavy metal. I burn incense and I like to chill the f**k out,” he laughs.
The Glass Artisans
Barbara and Larry Domsky, owners of Domsky Glass
Barbara and Larry Domsky have been partners in life and artistry for so long that every piece they create feels like a concerted effort.
“We’ll just kind of determine who has the strongest idea, and from there, we design and develop it,” says Barbara. “Always at the end of it, you never really remember who’s right.”
“We’re a team,” Larry adds. “We’re moving forward to create the best art.”
The couple met through mutual friends, bonding over artistic backgrounds which couldn’t have been more different. Larry was a stagehand and metal worker, while Barbara was a scenic artist and a designer for a glass studio.
“She was pretty feisty, pretty confident,” Larry says. “And I was drawn to her, even though she looked at me like, ‘There’s no way.’”
When Barbara’s colleague offered to show them how to fuse glass—a technique that layers sheets of glass so they can be fired in a kiln and melted into a single, solid piece—they jumped at the chance. It didn’t take long for their love for glass and their love for each other to deepen.
The Domskys opened their first studio in 1994, during a time when Larry says Vegas wasn’t an art town. Still, properties like Wynn and Mandalay Bay took a chance, representing and selling their glass works. They’ve sold and shipped art pieces in 18 countries now, with many being completed for Strip hotels, private residences, Symphony Park and for Harry Reid International Airport, where “Cloud 9” and “Sunset Mirage,” their largest installations, took five years to fabricate and install.
“No matter how good you get at the technique of working glass, it’s still going to do what it wants,” Barbara says. “If you’re placing paint on a canvas, you pretty much know where the paint is ready to go and how it’s going to dry. When you’re working with glass, it’s a mystery up until the very end.”
Barbara works with fused glass to create wall art and sculpture, while Larry works with hot glass to create hand-blown light sculptures, awards and home decor. When blowing glass, he starts by taking a “gather” of molten glass, the consistency almost like orange glowing taffy—except it can scorch at the touch. The glass can then be shaped directly or by blowing air through a piece of pipe to form a bubble that’s manipulated into various shapes and sizes, Barbara says.
“There’s tons of techniques, but the way we learned is we would buy [Dale] Chihuly tapes and watch Dale blow glass. …Nobody was teaching,” Larry says.
But the Domskys are willing to teach. The couple regularly host workshops and open houses where they give glass blowing demonstrations.
“It takes at least two years to become decent,” Larry says. “It takes five years to become really good. It takes a lifetime, and you’re always learning.”
Clay Arts Vegas keeps local restaurants in handcrafted tableware
Clay Arts Vegas’ Esther’s Kitchen collection
“Made at Clay Arts Vegas” isn’t an imprint you’d expect to find engraved on the bottom of the dishes at Esther’s Kitchen, but the pottery studio has been in the business of supporting local restaurants and bars with handcrafted server ware for years.
“When James [Trees] was planning the opening of Esther’s Kitchen, he reached out to the community and said, ‘I’m looking for someone: I want locally-made plates that complement the food that I’m making.’ Lots of folks pointed him in our direction, and we’re kind of crazy foodies as well,” says Peter Jakubowski, co-owner of Clay Arts Vegas. “We met with James, and next thing you know, we were making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds [of plates].”
Co-owners Peter Jakubowski, left, and Thomas Bumblauskas
Clay Arts Vegas already had some experience doing this with Backwards Distilling Company in Wyoming. But working with the wildly popular Esther’s Kitchen was another beast entirely. Jakubowski made all the bowls and plates, and Clay Arts Vegas co-owner Thomas Bumblauskasglazed them and also created Esther’s water pitchers.
“We would close the studio at nine o’clock at night and then glaze until one o’clock in the morning, and then start up again [a few hours later],” Bumblauskas says. “It was a learning experience and insane and fun.”
On top of workshops, classes, managing the 200 students they currently have and showing pieces in galleries, Clay Arts Vegas has also created products for Ada’s Food + Wine, CC Speakeasy, Main St. Provisions and the former Valencian Gold.
A man works at a potter’s wheel during independent studio time at Clay Arts Vegas.
Bumblauskas and Jakubowski both hail from theater backgrounds but their love for ceramics will always run deep. “My entire life has been as a maker,” Bumblauskas says. “As a theater kid growing up, I was always making props or building a set. Coming into clay … after a professional life designing for theater and film, suddenly I got to really be in control of the whole product.”
“For me, a lot of it ties into the historic nature of it … and the fact that we know so much about past cultures solely from their ceramics,” Jakubowski says. “Fabric and paintings wear away just from being exposed to the environment, but something that we make out of clay today will still be on this planet thousands of years from now, and it’ll still be clay. We still do processes that are exactly the same that someone did 4,000 years ago.”
CLAY ARTS VEGAS 1353 Arville St., 702-375-4147, clayartsvegas.com. Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday, noon-3 p.m.
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