Week of Oct. 1, 2026

From the editor’s desk

The MacArthur Foundation announced its 20 “genius grant” winners this week. Among them is Chip Thomas, whose name might ring a bell for local art fans.

Yes, this is the same Chip Thomas who once pasted a three-story photo mural onto a downtown Reno motel. 

Thomas, who is now retired from his day job—as a physician on the Navajo Nation reservation for 36 years—spoke with the RN&R by phone this morning from his home in Flagstaff, Ariz., to tell the story of how he came to make an art piece in Reno.

On a trip to Brazil in 2009, he met some street artists. They showed him pictures of an installation that the French artist JR had done in Rio de Janeiro.

JR—perhaps the world’s most visible practitioner of “social practice” art, which happens in collaboration with communities and often critiques social structures—depicts ordinary people, usually marginalized ones, in huge, striking outdoor photo murals. (I fully endorse devoting any amount of free time you may have today to a JR rabbit hole.)

Said Thomas: “I saw that, and it was amazing, because I have always loved street art, and I had spent 22 years working in my home darkroom. To see how he combined black-and-white photography with street art, using these photographs blown up to scale as street art, was mind blowing.”

He began pasting large photos of people on the Navajo reservation to structures there. He quickly got attention from street-art blogs, which led to invitations to participate in street-art festivals.

In 2012, at a festival in Baltimore, Thomas saw some mural work by Reno artist Erik Burke and began following him on social media.

“He was one of the first artists I invited out to take part in my public art project on the Navajo Nation called the Painted Desert Project,” Thomas said. “And then, five years later, he returned the favor and invited me to Reno, which is how I got that motel.”

It was the now-gone Monte Carlo Motel, then on Virginia and Fifth streets, one of 31 outdoor canvases that received new wallworks as part of the Reno Mural Expo in October 2017. On the motel’s three story wall, Thomas affixed a photo of an activist with messages written in urgent, black letters on her face, including “I am the change” and “fake snow.” The image was part of a series he made amplifying the concerns of Navajo and Hopi tribe members in Flagstaff who were, in 2015, urging the local ski resort not to use reclaimed wastewater for snowmaking in a place they considered sacred.

The motel, and with it the mural, were demolished in 2020. 

But there seems to be some hope that we’ll see Thomas and his work again in our region. Eric Brooks, arts and culture program manager for Visit Carson City and organizer of several Nevada mural events, said today that plans are simmering for a 2027 event in Carson, and that Thomas is invited.

Thomas said he was surprised to learn this week that the MacArthur grant comes with an $800,000 cash stipend. The money is unrestricted, meaning recipients can spend it however they see fit. He already has some ideas.

“I live in a small house here in Flagstaff—it’d be wonderful to get a studio,” he said. “The Painted Desert Project, which brought artists out to create murals and to work with students, was a self-funded project. So, I’d like to start a 501(c)(3) to continue doing the same work and not necessarily pay for it out of pocket.”

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor