Scrollway to Heaven: A Rewarding Return for Mark Oatis
Some sumptuous hand-carved scrollwork returns to its original designer after two decades’ service.
It’s now 25 years since Mark Oatis designed the original signs and branding for the Green Valley Ranch (GVR) casino in Las Vegas. With an overarching ‘Argentine Ranch’ theme, he recalls that “everything began with hand lettering”. This included the GVR monogram that the owner selected as the property’s logotype after Mark had penned it directly onto the cover page of the art package delivered to the casino.
Mark Oatis’ Green Valley Ranch monogram and its manifestation above the entrance to the casino and resort.
More from the feast of hand-lettered work that Mark designed and delivered for Green Valley Ranch.
“It was great project” says Mark, and, after a move to YESCO and the passing of nearly 20 years, he hadn’t given it much more thought. That was until a YESCO sales rep walked into his office in 2020 to ask if he’d been involved with the original work on GVR’s signs. Which, of course, he had.
Part of the project involved casting hundreds of tiles with this acanthus leaf design. Mark sculpted the positive in clay (pictured), which was then used to create the mould for casting.
One of the pieces created for the project was a pair of scrolls carved in basswood by Mike McConnell. (“Mike was a great carver who we used on a lot of our projects in Denver.”) Based on Mark’s initial sketch, the finished scrolls framed an illuminated sign above the casino’s reward centre.
Mark’s original drawing used by Mike to carve the scrolling ahead of installation at the casino.
However, while the ‘ranch’ was closed during the pandemic, the scroll on the right side fell off. It was found by a security guard who unwittingly threw it out.
The casino had reached out to YESCO to commission a brand new pair of scrolls — “since they’d have to match” — and Mark accepted the challenge. Rather than working in basswood he opted for precision board, feeling “confident that I could faux finish them to resemble the wood originals”.
Carving, priming, and faux finishing the new scrolls.
With the replacements completed and installed in 2021, the outstanding question was what to do with the original left-hand scroll. For five years, the answer to that was for it to sit in storage at Mark’s house. That was until the last Sunday of January this year when it was dusted off and given a new lease of life by being screwed to the bannisters of his staircase. “It almost looks like it was meant to go there” says Mark of this outrageous piece of interior decoration.
PS. This is not the only piece salvaged from the casino as it has evolved over the last quarter century: the hanging ‘Feast’ light fitting shown above has since been decommissioned, with two of the stained glass panels by Michael Mattei now installed in Tom Siebert’s studio, while a cast ‘Around the World’ ribbon can now be found in the Oatis’ kitchen!
Old signs putting the re-use into ‘reduce, re-use, recycle’.
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