Space is the place

Bill Hughes

Jana Cruder and Waiter in Space.

By Ken Miller (contact)

Thursday, May 6, 2010 | 11:43 a.m.

Jana Cruder wants to get one thing straight: Space is not an art gallery.

“It’s a space for creatives,” she explains, a two-sectioned place in the Arts District for all forms of expression. You’re as likely to find an art exhibit in the main area as, say, a yoga class, a presentation by the Las Vegas Farmer’s Market, or a screening of the movie Food, Inc. The back area, cordoned off by a large, metal sliding door, serves as office space for creative types, including Verge Marketing. Cruder, a photographer, started Space last June after moving to Las Vegas from Los Angeles in January 2009 “for love,” and opens the facility for meetings, displays or workshops. Response has been positive. “You create the space, and it will fill with what you created the space for,” she says, adding she is “picky” about its use—“I lean toward sustainability, green, nourishing new talents.” This First Friday, she’ll display Weapons of Mass Consumption, the first show for mixed-media artist Brad Bernhardt. (Coincidentally, Cruder will also have her first show as well, a photography exhibit at Brett Wesley Gallery titled What Lies Beneath.) She misses LA’s “artistically rich community,” but says Las Vegas has potential. “The art and culture is here,” she says. “We all just need to pick like-minded people, commit and go.”