At 76, James Stanford possesses an energy akin to the Atom Smasher.
Much like that DC Comics superhero, the Las Vegas-based visual artist has battled challenges and persevered. He has witnessed atomic bomb blasts, left his high-security clearance job with defense contractor EG&G in 1978, and later became a blackjack dealer for seven years to support his family — an experience he describes as the “masks of Mammon” and the “Ph.D. of life.”
Even though Stanford is past retirement age, the idea of retiring is nowhere near his orbit.
Last summer, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Derby in England. Shortly after his return to Southern Nevada, his book, “The Atomic Kid,” was published in October. The monograph depicts digitally manipulated images inspired by his experience growing up in the Atomic City.
During Stanford’s youth in Las Vegas’ Huntridge neighborhood, when the bombs exploded at the Nevada Test Site, he didn’t see a mushroom cloud. Instead, he remembers them “lighting up the sky, like the sun was rising,” followed by a shock wave permeating the city.
Las Vegas’ Atomic Museum. (Nephology Ltd.)
“It was terrifying especially because Las Vegas was part of the destruction — it was on the target list because of the test site,” he says. “I remember doing duck-and-cover drills at grammar school. The thought I might never see my parents again was a horrible feeling, and they were only seven blocks away.”
Currently, four large-scale lenticular pieces from “The Atomic Kid” collection, curated by his art management team — Gemma Marmalade and Jane Boyer of [cloud] Collective — are on permanent display as part of the “Atomic Odyssey” installation at the Atomic Museum.
Marmalade, a British academic, artist and cultural contributor for Las Vegas, has known Stanford for four years. He’s also a patron of an exchange program she leads with Las Vegas and the United Kingdom. Marmalade describes Stanford’s work as having a “visceral impact” and containing layers of meaning that her collective seeks to help him “draw out.”
In referring to his atomic art, she says the underlying message is we all share a common humanity of what it is to experience the absolute, annihilation, fear and ourselves in the world today.
Stanford’s next exhibit “Invisible Cities,” which he has been working on for over a year and a half for the Museum of Making in Derby, is set to open in January.
“James is taking images of the United Kingdom, of places that are overlooked and underappreciated,” Marmalade says, “And through his own unique eye and interpretation, he creates a sense of celebration, of elevation and awe that comes from images that otherwise would be construed in the United Kingdom as rather mundane and pedestrian.”
Stanford also uses his position to unify and uplift others, Marmalade says.
“It’s never about his solo perspective, his experience, his privilege and things that happen to him,” she says. “(His art is) with and for everyone else.”
Creating new works is how Stanford enters his strongest element.
“I lose myself, I lose the sorrow, I lose the suffering,” he says. “I become part of the Great Mind.”
He says someone once told him an artist’s inspiration and production are greatest in their 20s and their 70s.
“That’s how I feel my life is right now,” Stanford says. “I feel like I’m on fire.”
