Kristen Peterson is a staff writer at the Sun who covers the Las Vegas arts community. E-mail Kristen.
Saturday
8:30 p.m.
This place is looking more like Vegas as the days roll on. Tourists crowd the attractions on the playa. Lights flicker from every angle. In Las Vegas it’s pirate shows and exploding volcanoes. Here it’s burning pyramids and sculptures. We don’t have the fountains of Bellagio, but we have propane tanks sequentially launching huge […]
If trees are truly a metaphor for life, growth, endurance and stability, then we’re screwed. The reality and humor are not lost here at Burning Man, where artists play off the green theme.
Trees constructed from steel, found wood and recycled products dot the bleak, barren lake bed. Their lifeless bodies, sparsely planted, create the effect […]
The topless parade of bicycling women is the talk of the camp. Burners who don’t know about it follow the mass of cyclists shooting godspeed across the playa. There is somewhere to be and this is it. Women are cheered by the revelers. They are young, old, heavy and thin and they wave to us. An old man snaps photos. Pervert.
7 p.m. Thursday
The once-elusive neighbors are misting the fine silt off their bodies. Everyone is covered. The white-out came this afternoon, announced itself fully, then took a break, returning later with foot-level gusts. Tiny grains of sand pelted dusty ankles and anything else in the way. Moving rapidly across the desert floor, it swirled […]
Highway 447 slices through rural Nevada. The air is more pristine than the ugly brown cloud that was laying dormant over the Las Vegas Valley this morning. It’s nearly noon. Burners in RVs loaded with bicycles chug along slowly. Window-painted SUV’s with flower-adorned bicycles tacked neatly to the back speed past, changing lanes, speeding more, changing lanes. No brotherly nods, waves, honks or wild camaraderie you’d expect to find on a paved road headed to a dusty campground that is revered for its open-armed welcome of unity and self expression.
Amber Wise strolls toward the garage of her perfectly landscaped 1956 ranch home. After e-mailing a real estate client, she rummaged through leopard-print hats, bright sashes and other body decor, then stepped outside, where her husband, Bill, and a friend are working on an art car. Day-Glo green faux fur hangs from her knees. A hot-pink sash hugs her waist. Her husband’s flame-throwing boat car is parked in the driveway next to tidy arrangements of lantanas mingle with potted cactuses.
