Surveying murals and street art in Las Vegas, Paint This Desert looked closely at these mediums’ direct relationship to public art. The blog was an extension of Fuentes’s previous blog, View from a Loft, and his writing for KCET.org, and reports on public art through writing, photography, and documentary work. It connected two symbolic destinations—the Arts District of Los Angeles and the Arts District of Las Vegas—in the interest of enlarging our understanding of public art in the West.
Ed Fuentes was an arts journalist, photographer, graphic designer, and digital muralist. For thirteen years, he has written about art in the public spaces of southern California, including, since 2010, through his column, “Writing on the Wall,” for the Los Angeles-based independent public broadcasting station KCET. In 2013, his previous work in digital murals was revisited as fine art photography at the Riverside Art Museum, and was he published inVisual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art. He was regionally known as an advocate for public art for his coverage of the art and politics of muralism.