Keny Stewart often sits in his backyard and hears the train whistle. In that moment he thinks about what Las Vegas must have been like in the 1940s—a moment made more meaningful by living in historic John S. Park Neighborhood. He enjoys his place, a place he has called home for 20 years. He was there for the beginning of the neighborhood "renaissance". Keny moved from California to Las Vegas in 1984 to work as an entertainer. One day a few years later he accidentally drove through John S. Park neighborhood, admired the architecture of the homes and the nostalgic feeling. Soon he was a homeowner, restoring his investment, a labor of love. At the time he worked nights on the Strip and restored his house day. Along the way he made a career change to educator/librarian for grade school level. He is a former neighborhood association president. He remembers the neighborhood's battle to maintain its integrity as it went up against local casino developer Bob Stupak's (whose home i

Interviewed by Monserrath Hernández and Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez. Eric Calvillo was born into a Mexican American household in San Jose, California in 1980. As he recalls, it was there that his fixation with the colors and recurring themes of his family's Mexican roots told hold of his imagination. Today, this is core to his growing art career. Art has not been his sole ambition. Before moving to Las Vegas in 2005, Calvillo attended a San Francisco culinary school. He relocated to Las Vegas to complete his culinary internship at the prestigious Picasso restaurant at the Bellagio. Eventually, he began to pursue a professional art career as a painter of Día de los Muertos motifs and beautifully portray the Mexican tradition of celebrating the lives of the deceased. Through his use of acrylics and oil on canvas, Calvillo conveys the emotion of his culture and then, being a skilled carpenter, crafts his own frames.