On the corner of Charleston and Main sits a warehouse that would be rather inconspicuous if not for the murals that have been painted on nearby building sides. Art has a presence here, though in the heat and traffic of midday it’s difficult to discern. On certain nights, this building becomes a hotbed of color and noise, a working space for artists to labor and love.

This warehouse is officially called the Arts Factory, a name so industrial for a place that fosters organic expression. The space is owned by Wes Myles, a landlord who admittedly “participates more in (his) tenants’ business than any landlord in this position would or does.” He has recruited a number of artists to share in his vision and rent space in his building, thereby solidifying the Arts Factory’s reputation a unifier of the Las Vegas Arts District.

A graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Myles migrated to Las Vegas in 1988. He lived Downtown, a location that serendipitously allowed him to discover the warehouse he now owns. It was an old and decrepit building not far from Fremont Street, and Myles loved it. With a set of tools and four fellow artists, he began making repairs to the building. The rent was cheap, and the artists would stay up all night creating and working together. Five years after moving in, Myles purchased the Arts Factory in 1996.

“I was able to move in, to convince like-minded people, other photographers in the beginning, to move in,” Myles said. “I was able to convince artists and art galleries to move in. That kind of built that synergy, that model I had been shown and that energy. That kind of brought Las Vegas the first time that multiple artists and multiple art venues were in a single location. Prior to that they had been scattered all over the city. That kind of became the focus.”

Myles concentrated on developing the newly centralized arts community, pushing the city to recognize 18 blocks in Downtown Las Vegas as the Las Vegas Arts District, as well as creating incentives for new artists to take up residence in the area. Myles admitted his project, though for the greater good of the community, has also catered to his own interests.

“The whole nucleus has been about bringing like-minded people around, trying to compare myself to the best artists I can find, seeing if I’m as good or better, to challenge them to be as good or better,” he said. “That’s the basic concept. It’s a bit self-serving in a philanthropic way.”

Seventeen years after taking up residence in the Arts Factory, Myles has ushered the Las Vegas arts community into a new era. In addition to the designation of the Arts District, Myles has also helped to write laws, building codes and zoning codes “that didn’t exist” before he and other artists began actively working to develop the district.

“We’re extremely active in trying to make our little 18 blocks exciting for someone in San Francisco or New York or Copenhagen to go, ‘Well, the city really cares about it there, there are all these layers of incentives to do this, and they’re going to make all these things kind of happen for us very easily,’” Myles said.

Myles dismisses any notion that art is irrelevant in a city like Las Vegas. Residents turn out in droves for events like the monthly First Friday, and Myles said tourists will begin to visit the district once a transit stop from the Strip to Casino Center Drive is added.

“More people in this country have gotten off their butts, turned off their televisions and gone out to live art events—museums, galleries, shows, art openings, performances—than all sports combined, pro, amateur, across the board,” Myles said. “That’s not watching on television per se, but getting off their butt and going out. The counts at museums across this country are amazing, and the arts festivals are amazing. Hundreds of millions of visits.”

Myles is understandably passionate about his work, and also rightly proud about what he has brought to Las Vegas. In a town so intent on constant reinvention that any unique culture seems to be shed after a short period of time, Myles is developing not only a community, but also a sense of longevity.

Myles said he believes the Arts Factory is “what the art scene is about,” but the warehouse also represents what the city itself is about. Where Las Vegas rose from desert sands to become a towering metropolitan oasis, the Arts Factory emerged from a tangle of concrete and brick to become a bastion of creativity.

And the Factory will only continue to grow as an adjacent complex is added (what Myles terms an “Arts Factory on steroids”), complete with centers devoted to theater, ceramics, glass-blowing, photography, design and music. The new building, tentatively titled The Mission, will break ground in spring 2009. In the meantime, Myles is working on renovating parts of the Arts Factory, including installing more bathrooms, expanding the restaurant and adding an urban lounge by the end of the year.
    
For more information about the Arts Factory, visit www.theartsfactory.com.

By Caitlin McGarry

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