LEFTOVER LOVE FROM THE "LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL FESTIVAL"...

The fourth annual Life is Beautiful Festival (THE three day MUSIC, culinary, arts, and learning experience extraordinaire - a modern day Woodstock meets Electric Daisy Carnival, of sorts) will be held in downtown Las Vegas. in September.  As part of the revitalization of this area (and certainly as part of this enormous festival), international artists have been brought in the past three years, to install and paint amazing artworks.  Left in place after the yearly festival is done, they have most certainly added amazing ambiance to the area.  I'll try to be short on words in this post - enjoy the murals.

 ENTIRELY air-bushed (or at least as close as two art teacher friends and I could determine).

 

"Same"...

I do have to interject here.  This is in an alley next to the restaurant we ate at.  We walked as far as we could until we ran into transients sleeping, and decided it was a good turning around point.  Plus, we couldn't be sure if the shoes over the power lines were a real indicator of shady drug dealings, or just another "art installation" to go along with all of this (which would be my guess, with the great eating and drinking establishments around it), but we turned around anyway.  This fenced off area is the back of a local bar.  The paintings were beautiful - again, all airbrushed.

And less than six months later, the paranoid blonde has been replaced with Sherlock and a Unicorn!  The bums and shoes were still there, however.

"Interactive" graffiti'd wall, past the alleyway...

That has morphed, itself, in the past months!

Further down the same street - I love this enormous "bird".  The rocket ship mosaic was set into the wall, and no bigger than my hand.

How koi!  I think it's a gold fish, actually.

I believe this is the abandoned Vegas casino/motel that is turned into an "art gallery" of sorts, during the festival.

Another of my favorites - this sits across the street from the Praying Mantis - Meerkats, on a BUS, made entirely from cast off junk (shaded by a lone palm tree casting that weird shadow).

And next to what looks to be the "Last Chance" for those "kats" to beat it out of town, at this bus stop!

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...that's my own camera lens in the center of a tiny mirror attached to a street light.

Thankful for anything that helps to clean up a desperately run-down area, this is most certainly the new hot spot in Vegas.  There are many, MANY more murals than these as you drive around this area - all you have to do is look.  I'm sure many of these will be covered (if the alley is any indication) for this year's festival - excited to see what September brings, anew!  Tomorrow:  a great restaurant tip while you're there, looking...