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18B Graffiti Walk

5/30/2014

On the south end of the Arts District, the spray-painted walls is the region's contribution to graffiti culture thats rooted in 1980's wildstyle, where abstraction of typography is the iconic message and the content is subtext to the form.

It’s a different aesthetic territory than the commissioned street art in the Downtown Project footprint from the Life Is Beautiful Festival. Those murals are faith healers testifying for city revival.

These works are on the roads leading into the 18b Las Vegas Arts District, where the grids between The Strip and the old city show an uneasy transition of angles. It’s fitting that’s where graffiti makes a rocky push to be treated as a legitimate art form that thrives in galleries, while being mumbled about by civic authorities.

The works by locals and the guest artists sometimes make a visual reference to the region. In the day’s light the colors bounce off the walls in bright hues of greens, blues and yellows, then move into a softer glow when the sun sets, before they hide at night. In the better works, images connect to the heated space of alleys, or walls fronting large empty parcels. You can spot symbols of gaming, fragmented type left behind by old signage, or the towering Stratosphere that hovers like a sundial of time and space.

Graffiti art aficionados will like how some of the works are semi-permanent, mixed with walls that keep changing out. That fulfills the primal expression to mark space as a pervasive declaration of existence, a practice that decorates environment as a dare against convention. It’s not a coincidence that this murals are neighbors to bail bondsmen, temporary saviors of urban despair. It also has a kinship with the tattoo parlors in the area, since graffiti is also based on the will to make blank space inventive.

WALK THE STREETS: The graffiti that’s leaked out of the 18b Arts District moves south from a cluster on Coolidge Ave and S. Casino Center Blvd, then into the walls and alleys approximately between W. Charleston, S. Commerce, S. Casino Center Blvd, and W. Imperial. It's a walkable route that circles back to a free parking lot.

Park: Park at Boulder Ave and S. Art Way in the Arts District

Graffiti Stop 1: Small bunglows waiting for redevelopment have been a constant changing gallery. S. Casino Center Blvd between Hoover and Coolidge

Graffiti Stop 2: Cross Charleston and enter first alley on right, then left into another alley to see a wave of graffiti. Exit alley at California, turn right and turn left on Main and walk to Imperial. Turn right and cross street.

Graffiti Stop 3: Enter alley 1/2 block up Imperial. Walk through alley to California

Graffiti Stop 4: Real Results Gym S. Commerce and California

* Umbrage was taken with this post, including how creating a map or the use of a photo is an invasion of copyright. It has been edited. However, with people coming to this district to see art, including what is in public space, marking a path would help people visiting the area from getting lost. Added note, there is limited lighting, so daytime viewing is best.

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murals 'just working' a backyard

5/27/2014

iPhone shot of Puro Jale at dusk.

Justin Favela
"Puro Jale"
(2014)
The Las Vegas Backyard Wall

FIELD NOTES: Near the end of a cul-de-sac in a downtown neighborhood of modernist homes, one backyard is an outdoor gallery for temporary murals. Those who install works for “The Las Vegas Backyard Wall,” a project by Todd Duane Miller and J.W. Caldwell understand the caveat is their art will not last past the next artist.

Artist Casey Weldon influenced the after hours de-installation to become part of the evening, reported Las Vegas Weekly. "But Weldon, the sixth artist in the queue, thought it would have more of an impact if the painting were destroyed as a performance."

That seems appropriate in a city where projects are dismantled with ceremony to make way for the next idea. Now the art won't be intact when the sun rises.

On Saturday, Justin Favela stayed with that idea of temporary art and his mural was ready for its sacrifice. It was a set of piñatas assembled by the artist’s family, friends and day laborers, said the artist in an informal statement.

The mural is within the cultural tradition of hand-crafted targets made for ritualistic backyard destruction. The 8 by 20 foot wall was covered in different light hues of green tissue. In front of the wall were the words Puro Jale were made out of individual black block letters, the sides adorned with gold streamers.

“Directly translated, 'Puro Jale' means 'pure pull' or 'just work.' This is a term that I always heard growing up at family gatherings and backyard parties," wrote Favela. "The term was almost used as a greeting,”

The mural shared the yard with a clump of six mature palm trees, lit in the same colors as the distant Stratosphere.

But when Favela danced with his grandmother on a platform built over the soft backyard sand, that spontaneous gesture had the night become more than affectionate cultural parody with thematic music and food. The mural was also an personal response to the Latino cultural traditions of backyards.

MORE ON JUSTIN: In 2011, Justin Favela spoofed CityCenter's public art programming with cardboard and chicken wire. The Wall Street Journal noticed. "It really annoyed me when they said the CityCenter was going to to be the cultural centerpiece of Las Vegas, we are going to educate everybody, we’re going to show them what art really is,” Favela told WSJ. “When you go there, its not really about that." [Video]

Desert Companion Issue Party

5/26/2014

There's just one more day to RSVP for “Desert Companion Issue Party: Focus on Nevada Photo Showcase,” the second annual contest that began with a call to local photographers to send in images that captured Nevada. Now winners will be announced during a evening of mingling and noshing. The big night starts at 6 p.m. on May 29 at Trifecta Gallery. RSVP by May 27.

Desert Companion

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murals 'just working' a backyard

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