Jesse RK Wilson Selected Works
Brief
Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe based arts and entertainment company, is becoming world renowned for building large scale immersive experiences that blend narrative storytelling, original art, and environmental design into fully realized alternate worlds. Their Las Vegas location, Omega Mart, opened in 2021 and is among their most ambitious projects to date. Almost Earth is a fully immersive UV installation that lives within the larger world of Omega Mart.
Role
I was brought in as an artist by Meow Wolf to conceive and build a fully realized world within their Las Vegas installation. Meow Wolf needed someone who was fluent in whimsy and understood strict architectural parameters as well as mythology. I could deliver both with a straight face and a sense of humor. What followed was a comprehensive process of world building, blueprints, schematics, project management, and creative direction.
Process
The installation was going to live in a dome that was 30 feet wide and 15 feet tall. The project began with an architectural model of the dome that I made out of cardboard from the measurements of the blueprints and schematics of the structure. At a ratio of half an inch to one foot, the model gave me an accurate line of sight into a space I had never physically stood in.
I used it to develop and verify the 2.5D mural concept, painting the interior of the model under UV light to confirm that the color relationships, the depth of field, and the horizon illusion would all work at full scale. This is a process I have developed over many years and many installations, where the painted elements of a mural are designed to match the scale and materiality of the sculpture around them so precisely that the two become indistinguishable. The painted environment reads as a continuation of the physical world, creating the sensation of an endless horizon.
To present the concept to Meow Wolf, I produced a five minute art film narrated through the characters and mythology of Planet Snarflac, a window into the fictional world of Almost Earth. This film is a schematics walk-through of every element and materiality of the installation.
Fabrication
The fabrication process was its own unique design challenge. I based the construction of the alien flora on my own reinvention of the techniques used to make vintage silk flowers.
Each petal, leaf, and floral element were painted by hand with a combination of spray gun, airbrush, and hand painted elements.
The installation required over 200 individual pollen nodes, each hand sculpted and hand textured using stamps made from natural objects and invented alien forms. The armatures were extruded wire mesh wrapped over dowel rod, skinned in foil, then finished with a two-part epoxy clay that met Las Vegas permit and code standards.
The flower bases were developed from paper templates translated to sheet metal flashing, hand cut with shears, riveted, and hand painted. Every material choice, anchoring solution, and method of assembly had to be documented and approved, and the installation simple enough to be executed by union contractors on site. All of this had to meet the strict fire and building codes of Las Vegas without compromising the creative vision. I designed a system that was highly creative and legible at the same time.
Installation
When I arrived on site, the mural was behind schedule and tensions between artists and contractors were high. Project management in these dynamic situations can be complicated, but it is a place where my prolific skill sets translate to wizardry. I know how to speak to contractors in their own language, get answers back to them that are legible and actionable, and in high pressure situations I know how to keep things moving and keep them fun.
The mural was outsourced to a Las Vegas local, an intentional choice to bring a community artist into a project of this scale. When the deadline got close I jumped in on mural painting and invited Meow Wolf staff to help fill in the lines. A lot of people in that building had set aside their own creative practice to keep this machine running, and there is nothing like picking up a brush to remember what they were doing it for.
The anchoring system I designed was streamlined and only required a flathead screwdriver to install, which made the contractors very happy. I was on site for every placement decision, directing how each flower broke from the mural in the 2.5D construction process that is uniquely part of my creative practice. When the last piece was up I went through and fluffed every sculpture by hand. I invited the people who had built it with me back for one last experience. We had a music show inside of the dome before we handed it off to the public forever. In that moment it belonged to only us.
Outcome
Almost Earth is an artistic departure and its own unique, colorful world. It is recognizable and completely alien at the same time. The installation fulfilled every creative and logistical goal of the project. We held true to the narrative vision and created a beautiful permanent installation in the collection of Meow Wolf Omega Mart.
What this project demonstrates
The narrative universe of Planet Snarflac is an intentional world building practice of fabrication. It not only informs you of all of the elements that go into the piece and its materiality, it provides a translatable form of how to realize something highly creative and very abstract. This is a successful method of building wild and whimsical large scale art.
The 2.5D technique, the silk flower methodology reinvented at installation scale, the anchoring system designed for union contractors. I designed it as an artist and a fabricator, with knowledge of what needed to be made, and how it would go together and still maintain its other worldly beauty.
Las Vegas fire and building code is among the strictest in the country. Every element of Almost Earth passed through a rigorous documentation and approval process without losing an ounce of its creative vision.