Free Art in Las Vegas

If you follow me on Instagram, then you know my road trip was full of free art, including street art, building murals, and large sculptures across the city. In the last decade or so, Sin City has become a real mecca of amazing artists from around the world. The annual Life is Beautiful festival is a 3-day event that mashes awesome music, art, and food together, and one day I hope to attend.

The aim of Life is Beautiful is to unite people around artistic experiences, and even though we've never actually gone, we get to soak up the art that sticks around. If you head downtown, you'll find Fremont Street, and the blocks surrounding it packed with murals and sculptures, all of which are more impactful for being surrounded by the desert and city landscape than I feel they would be in a museum, and many are much larger than would even fit into a traditional museum.

I think this is why I love free, public art so much. I don't have to hang out in a museum and I have the chance to see more of a city by walking around. By going downtown, we found some new shops, one of which enabled me to support a 13 year old Black girl who started her own business at the age of 8. I also finally got a try a coffee shop that's been on my list for the last 3 trips. The drinks and food were delicious, and I can see why they are so popular. 

Not all, but a lot of the metal sculptures downtown have been rehomed from Burning Man. My favorite is The Mantis, by Kirk Jellum that greets people at the entrance to the Container Park. It comes alive at nighttime, and if you missed it, here's my short video from a previous trip. Make sure you turn up your sound. 

You may have also saw this piece in my past posts, but this is the first time I've seen it in the daytime. Big Rig Jig was made from two actual semis by Mike Ross and moved to Las Vegas as part of the 2016 Life is Beautiful festival. It's cool in photos, but really impressive in person. 

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Pieces have transitioned over the years, so no two visits to Vegas are the same. Here are some of my other favorites. And if you think this must be an exhaustive list, you would be wrong. There are so many pieces everywhere you look, and I truly can't wait to return to explore some more.

Container murals by Snipt

I can't seem to find the artist for this one, but I'll update when I do.

Black Girl Magic by Criola

Next, I'll be talking about OmegaMart and Area15, but until then, remember...

Ricardo Gonzalez from It's A Living

Do you have a favorite city for art, public or otherwise?

Snapshots of a Road Trip - Part 2

Our road trip was a big success and we had a great time, even with as much time as we spent in the car. There's so much to see and do if you know where to look. I did a lot of research in the weeks leading up to our trip to know where I wanted to stop and see notable things. We would have done more out-of-the-way things if we had more time, but we only gave ourselves a day to drive to Reno, then to drive to Vegas, and the same on the way back. 

Here are some of the things we saw/did that I'll probably talk more about in future posts, because at least a few of these are worth the detour to check out.

Just me chilling at  a good rest stop. We stopped at different ones on the way back and I particularly liked this one that didn't have real parking, but had some big rocks as features in between the picnic tables in the picnic corral. I don't know what they call it, but that's what I called it, since they were in a fenced in circle, then the road was on the outside, then the restrooms and a gas station on the perimeter.

4 miles from our route was a free museum. Goldwell Open-Air Museum is a great place to stretch your legs and see some out-of-the-box sculptures.  

One of the coolest things you'll see anywhere is this Last Supper 1984 by Albert Szukalski. He creates his works with "ghosts", which is really impactful. There are two other of his ghosts here that are much smaller than this focal point, but you should stop for the variety in the handful of pieces on the grounds. 

There's also this metal boxes installation. It changes from all different angles. From The Last Supper, it looked like doorways, closer up it looked like a square, and closer still, you saw all of it and it's contrasting colors. It made some great photo ops.

There's clearly a lot of desert in Nevada, and I'd love to spend a little more time Beatty, besides the awesome nut and candy shop. Apparently, it's the gateway to Death Valley...and also their sign is cool.

On my last road trip through the area, I missed stopping in Goldfield both ways, because on the way there it was super late and on the way back it was super early. It's very small, but cute...though I'm not sure what they want me to do when I'm staying awhile, because their sign is keeping me in suspense.

Right outside of Goldfield is the International Car Forest, which I've been wanting to visit for a long time. The guy who started it acquired cars and then buried them in the ground. Artists have come and put their artwork on large portions and other people have added their own flavor, making each car unique and cool in its own way. 

There was a full-size bus, and also what appeared to be a delivery van that you could open the back of and see all the graffiti inside. All of it was amazing. There's even a little welcome shack that accepts donations and has a guest book you can sign.

We passed by and over a lot of bodies of water, but none were so pretty as this marina. The clouds gave it a surreal quality and the colors were so bold, you'd swear that they were fake. This is exactly how it showed up on my phone camera.

This town wasn't anything special, but their local football(?) team was geese that they called honkers and this sign made me giggle so hard on our way through the first time that I was determined to get a picture on the way back. They also had a bar called Jock's. Right on the edge of town was a fantastic restaurant with fresh-made food that served us the biggest drinks we've ever had (that you can see at the end of this post.

I don't know what this was, but there were a lot of empty buildings and remnants of buildings. I thought this one had some good character. I'd love to know what it was in the past.

Walter Lake is a beautiful area that I've stopped at in the past. Sportsmans Beach has these awesome camping spots for RVs with these cool covered picnic tables to shelter you from the wind and rain. It's right off the highway, but it's really quiet and overlooks the lake and even has public restrooms.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for more posts on what happened in between the road, including OmegaMart, The Museum of Dream Space, and all the amazing art we saw around Vegas and Reno.

What's been your favorite road trip and what made it special for you?

Snapshots of a Road Trip

We're currently on a road trip, going from Portland to Reno to Las Vegas and back. Considering we didn't feel comfortable on a plane just yet, this seemed like the best way to still take a vacation and also still feel safe, since we could control who we would be around and remove ourselves from situations that felt too close to others. I love a good road trip, and we haven't been on one together for quite a long time, that was further than the next state over. 

As you probably know by now, we are timeshare owners, and we use it whenever possible on trips. Luckily, we were able to get rooms in both Reno and Vegas and only had to figure out where we would eat and what else we wanted to do. If you've been following me for some time, then you have seen that we go to Vegas at least once a year. Often, I go twice, and one year I went three times before the end of July, and that is on top of our other regular big trip of the year. We have family here, but the city changes so often that it's hardly ever the same trip twice.

All the bags on the left are just empty reusable grocery bags that I probably could have left at home.

I'll be recapping my trip and telling you all about the new things we did (including the Museum of Dream Space, OmegaMart, Reno's Riverwalk District, and awesome food), but right now I wanted to share some photos of the road tripping part, which will also be followed up with some tips when I return. Mask mandates are in effect in both Oregon and Nevada (though you won't see that many in between the bigger cities), so we felt pretty good about getting out and doing some stuff among people. 

I'm a sucker for a cool rest area, because I love seeing historical markers (like the one below) or just fun maps, like this one. If there are brochures, vending machines, good bathrooms, or little shops, that's even better. It's also just nice to look at stuff while you're stretching your legs.

Road trips are a great excuse to try local restaurants, cafes and coffee shops! The coffee wasn't the best, but the food made up for it.

I also like rest areas that seem too creepy to stop at alone, because I guess I'm weird. 

That one had clean restrooms and a lot of parking, plus this crazy place across the street where a guy was basically selling cold drinks, ice, and random other stuff like a mini thrift store. It's unfortunate I didn't need an old coffee maker or vintage shot glasses.

I'll never not stop at a cool looking cemetery. This one had people who were buried over 100 years ago, some from the 50s and even newly deceased people in a grassy part. You could see how some familes were buried together, some people didn't even have headstones, just little metal signs stuck in the ground, and how many children had died between 1918 and 1955.

I wished I had a little trinket to put on this guy's plot as well. His family seemed to really care a lot and he had fresh fake flowers and other military things brought fairly recently. We righted some other people's flowers that had fallen over, and I put this jar back on the ledge, because there's no reason that the dead can't have nice plots. Also, I just felt like if I was coming to visit people I didn't know, I should do something nice for them besides admire their headstones.

Every time I drive this route, I stop for gas at Eddie's World. It has a giant candy store with clean bathrooms, plus it's also the last gas for quite a while. Check out some of their aisles:

 

Anyhow, that's my road trip so far. You can see more of my trip while I'm on it if you follow me on Instagram, but I'll definitely be bringing more of it to you, including tips for having a successful and budget-friendly trip. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy.

Where are your favorite places to stop on a road trip or to go on a road trip?