Las Vegas, NV; 19-20 April 2011

19 April

I don’t take many pictures of graffitti, but this one really caught my eye.

Graffitti silhouette of a young man on a power box

My main stop today was the Cosmopolitan, one of the newer hotels in Las Vegas. My brother had recommended that I go to the u*tique (warning: really crappy web site with annoying music). It appears to be pretty much a really high-end vending machine, selling things for people with more money than sense. Example: a set of salt and pepper shakers for US$48.00; yes, they were quite artistic, but that’s a bit much.

vending machine showing many circular “display cases” of high-end products

The hallways have a lot of artwork:

Rope basket with southwestern motif; horses and people on top of basket Five large plaster dogs sitting in a circle, on their haunches. wall-sized art with three sets of loops of fiber/wire

These shoes are by an artist named Roark Gurley (warning: site also has music). The shoe in the second picture is titled “Steampump.”

Large sculpture of a pink high-heeled shoe Large sculpture of high-heeled black shoe; heel is a mechanical piston-like device

These next two were interesting as well; one had a telescope-like viewpiece and the other had binocular-style viewpieces. They were at opposite ends of a hallway When you looked through one, you saw a low-res picture, and when you looked through the other one, you saw a scratchy black-and-white image. The image, however, wasn’t what was in the hallway at the moment; it appears to have been whatever was in the hallway at some past time. Freaky, but fun.

Telescope-like sculpture that looks as if it came from a Jules Verne novel Jules-verne-style machine that looks like a telescope.

This was absolutely the best part of the hotel; a group called Art-o-mat takes old cigarette machines, refurbishes them, and stocks them with art, which you can get for US$5.00 apiece. Some of the items are photos, others use fabric; I got a small ceramic piece.

Yellow cigarette machine re-designed to vend small packages of artwork Close up of the types of art offered in the vending machines.

20 April

Just a couple of pictures from Tehachapi Pass on the drive back.

Desert landscape with brush in foreground Part of a large “windmill farm” at Tehachapi Pass, CA. Windmills have three large blades.