Last week I had the fortune of visiting my former city of Las Vegas for a week long visit. I had a great time hanging out with my friends whom I miss and love very much and realized how much I miss that town. People tend to down Las Vegas sometimes as a city without community but I believe that is a bad rap. There is one community of people there I have grown to love, the burners, and I was glad to catch one of their parties while there visiting. This is what they were doing.
Burners is a generic term for people who attend the Burning Man festival. The Las Vegas burning man community decided to build the Life Cube in downtown Las Vegas on Freemont st, a replica of a Life Cube that was built and burned at the 2011 Burning Man festival. It's stated mission is
Impacting people's lives by helping people realize their goals, dreams, wishes, and ambitions. Change the world by helping one person at a time.
All to connect art and community.
I know there are some people who would never believe someone who parties so much has tenets they live by but they do and most burners I know have a few. Radical Inclusion is one of them. All are welcome and appreciated despite any difference, in fact differences are celebrated. This is a tenet I share in my life as well, I love meeting new an interesting people who are doing amazing things. Amazing amazing things which brings us to another tenet shared by most burners I have met.
Participation.
No Spectators! Grab a brush and paint something, participate. In addition to the big cube there were a dozen or so 2 meter canvas cubes with an array of oil paints, water colors, spray paint, chalk and other implements of creativity. Dance, we have a DJ too with someone who brought their saxaphone with them on stage with him. Do something even if you aren't artistic. Build something or help set up or clean up, be responsible for and interactive with your life experience.
That was my meager contribution to the art, how I was feeling put into the corner of one of the smaller canvas cubes. I also moved over half a dozen of those cubes together and out of the way when the party was over because there were runners showing up in the parking lot for a run that day. I'm not scared to work, hell put me to work. And it takes a lot of work to do these little events or go to burning man, a lot of work and planning. This painting here was my favorite.
The last tenet most burners I know share is Radical Self Reliance. Take nothing, leave nothing and be responsible for yourself. These people pack in everything they need to live for 2 weeks in the desert and then take all of their shit out with them. Leave the place cleaner than you found it. After one party I attended once on a beach at Lake Mead they were going through the ashes of what was burned the night before with magnets to collect all the small nails. Being self reliant also means looking out for yourself in how you behave, no one is gonna baby sit your ass if you get to far out there, but they will make sure you have something if you need it.
All in all tenets I could agree with and how I try to live. It's still hard for me to believe they are going to create all that and then burn it though.
Take nothing but memories leave nothing but love I suppose.
UPDATE:
Shared my post with their page on FB and the creator sent me this message:
Just an FYI - though we have involved a lot of the burner community, this is not a Burning Man event. I created 3 prior Life Cubes at Burning Man and grateful for the chance to explore and improve the vision for The Life Cube Project before bringing it to Las Vegas
For any who want to know more or are interested in supporting this project:
http://www.lifecubeproject.com/