City's art scene awaits discovery

By John L. Smith Review-Journal

     The reviews are in.
     The Urban Bush Women troupe is to anthropological dance what Charlie Parker was to the alto saxophone. It is a must-see event.
     The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band is a Yiddish jazz and pop group that celebrates the songs and ballads popular in Jewish communities in prewar Europe. It swings without schmaltz.
     The idea these diverse outfits are performing on the f+isame planeto is a testament to the creativity of the human race.
     The fact they are scheduled to play within weeks of each other in Las Vegas tells you all you need to know about the growth of the arts in Southern Nevada.
     Fact is, the tired Vegas-as-artless-boomtown cliché hasn't applied here in years. Not that many of the city's 30 million annual visitors would know that. Or care.
     Nor are the arts buried deep underground in Las Vegas. They exist on the surface, but do not yet shine as they do in larger communities. Southern Nevada has become an underappreciated goldfield where keen observers can pick up nugget after cultural nugget.
     Constance DeVereaux, Nancy Deaner and Barbara Molasky are three of many locals who play a role in helping Southern Nevada stake its claim as a viable and vibrant arts center.
     As the executive director of the Allied Arts Council of Southern Nevada, the clearinghouse for local creative groups, DeVereaux shares her insight into the Las Vegas phenomenon.
     "We have new organizations starting virtually every month," she says from her office at the old Fifth Street School. "It's really good to see people are finding things they want to do and are filling the vacuum."
     But the Southern Nevada arts face a challenge in the form of geography.
     "One of the big differences here is that we don't have a permanent infrastructure for the arts. Other cities have districts where the arts tend to congregate along with a general commitment and a deeply entrenched structure for the arts. We don't have that deeply entrenched structure to build on."
     But, say arts community insiders, that geographical challenge may be met in the form of a fledgling arts district taking shape downtown. Its center is the Arts Factory at 103 E. Charleston Blvd. Owned by local photographer Wes Isbutt, the building is a piece of art in progress and features not only the commercial Small Works Gallery, a frame store and the nonprofit Contemporary Arts Collective, but has become a meeting place for like-minded people: Those who believe the arts have a real place in Las Vegas society.
     "I like to go to the Arts Factory," Deaner says. She is the city's assistant manager of the Cultural Division and is partly responsible for bringing to Las Vegas such diverse groups as Urban Bush Women and the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band. "To me, it has a real grass-roots feel of the arts there."
     DeVereaux adds, "I really like going to the Arts Factory, not just to look at the art but there's always somebody to talk to."
     Kathleen Nathan and Jim Stanford own Small Works Gallery, which plays host to a growing number of nationally recognized artists.
     "We believe that there can be an art center in Las Vegas which has not existed," says Nathan, who doubles as the president of the Contemporary Arts Collective. "The mission of the people in the Arts Factory is to help cultivate an arts center in Las Vegas beginning downtown in the confines of this building."
      Outside the building, Southern Nevada offers literally dozens of arts programs through the city, county and university system.
     Some favorites of those interviewed: