Boulder City - The Magazine is a monthly publication full of information about Boulder City and Southern Nevada. Boulder City - The Magazine features the Boulder City Home Guide, a real estate guide to Boulder City and Southern Nevada.

The Arts

An Interview With Boulder City's First Lady Connie Ferraro
by Ev Chase

I have done interviews so many times before I should not be surprised by what I see and hear - for many different reasons. Normally I do not look forward to an interview with a surprise lest I become disappointed. No problem here - Connie Ferraro is a pleasant surprise.

How many people dream and how many people are able to follow that dream? Whatever the number, Connie Ferraro, at a very early age, followed her dream of being a dancer and found out she was not only a dreamer, but an achiever.

"Actually, I was extremely shy when I was little. When someone would come to the door, I would run away," Connie says. "But sometimes I would dance."

She couldn't have run too far and she must have shed her shy coat early on in life too, because at the age of six she was already taking dancing lessons.

"My parents thought it was one way to open me up," Connie says. "I had a choice between dance and violin."

Connie's choice and her focus during her school years was on dancing. That early choice set Connie on an unwavering career path of dancing and show productions lasting more than 30 years.

When Connie finished high school, she left her Pennsylvania home excited about her chosen career in dance and an eye on the best place to begin - The Big Apple.

"I knew after I graduated from high school I would be going to New York," Connie says. "I went to Manhattan to continued my dancing lessons."

Not only did she continue her dance lessons, but in time she began auditioning for Broadway shows and finding success in her chosen career.

"I did a lot of auditions, Broadway shows, and TV," says Connie.

Her entertainment experiences included Ed Sullivan, Don Amici, and Shirley Maclaine. It was during this dancing and production company career she started taking sketching classes.

"I did a lot of dancing. That was my whole life. But while I was dancing, I started going to the art student league to take sketching lessons.

"While I was sitting around waiting for the next dance number I was sketching everybody. That's how I started with painting."

Talented people will often develope talent in another areas and so be it with Connie. Her art talent may be traced to her father, who during her early years made a serious effort to gain fame and fortune as an artist.

"He took off from work for a year to exhibit," Connie says. "Although he exhibited a lot of his work in different galleries, he was not really successful."

But for Connie, an art career, although not yet approaching her dancing success, appears to be shaping up quite nicely.






















Connie moved to Boulder City in 1989 because her mother had moved here, but she had not been developing her art career because she was "a working girl." That means she had a regular job and couldn't run off to the park and sketch between shows.

"I went to work for Pacific Engineering (where she met the Honorable Bob Ferraro) and went to Denver for four years."

It was after settling in Boulder City she had an opportunity to restart her career.

"Where on Earth had a contest to find someone who could come up with a design featuring Boulder City." Connie says.

"I won the contest and received two hundred dollars. Then they asked me if I wanted to do a mural of the design on the wall of their building.

"I did not have the slightest idea of what to do, but I said I would try it."

Connie was dealing with a 40 foot wall, and the poster she had done for the contest was not to scale for the wall. She was beginning to doubt her sanity, but she spent her winnings and bought the paint and brushes she thought she would need.

"I said to myself, I'm crazy, why did I do that?"

She did it. She sketched the drawing on the wall, but ended up with blank areas because of the large area she had to cover.

"I thought, I have all this space, I have to put something else here. So I just put mountains in it."

Connie has already had the opportunity to try her luck in private homes as personal friends have started to help her satisfy that mural dream.

"I just want to keep painting," Connie says. "I've done a variety of things, but I love to do portraits or murals in homes.

"I've done a lot of children's rooms, different art - under water with fish."

Her own home is a galary in itself. She displays art of others that please her as well as pieces she has painted over the years.

As beautiful as her work is and as much variety as she has attempted, Connie still has doubts about what she can do.

"I know in my head what I want to do," she says, "but it doesn't always come out right."

Well Connie, welcome to the real world of us ordinary people.

View more of Connie's art on her web site: www.burnettferraro.com




Boulder City - The Magazine®
688 Wells Rd #A
Boulder City, Nevada 89005
(702) 293-4916 or (702) 294-1392
E-mail: BoulderCityMagazine@gmail.com



Web Site Design by Appleby Arts
Copyright © 2004 - Boulder City-The Magazine - All Rights Reserved
E-mail Web Master at: webmaster@bouldercitymagazine.com

Disclaimer