Around the time heat waves roll in, Reno turns its wishful eye to Artown, the month-long celebration of the arts that has come to define our city’s culture. After celebrating the 20th anniversary last year in stunning fashion, Artown, Stan Can Design, and JM Studio were out to make 2016 even better.
This year’s biggest upgrade comes in the form of an intuitive, personal, and straight up beautiful new website full of features to heighten the festival experience. Not the least of these is a revamped calendar that makes it easier to find and schedule time for the events you care about most.
Users can create an account under the new My Artown account feature and begin saving their favorite events to a custom calendar. My Artown users also get tons of other awesome perks like the ability to download the Little Book and a desktop wallpaper of this year’s poster.
This year’s poster artist, Michelle Lassaline, was selected by a panel of art professionals among 32 total submissions. They saw her concept as whimsical and reflective of Reno’s emerging culture as the 2016 poster emphasizes and portrays animals native to the Reno area personified in artistic movements.
“The concept [for the 2016 Poster] was inspired by my project for Artown’s 20th Anniversary in 2015, in which I performed weekly as ‘Coyote,’ drawing portraits of the public as their favorite animals,” said Lassaline. “This year’s poster art shows Coyote marching with her fellow Nevadan animals in a festive parade that celebrates the performing and visual arts that thrive in our community.”
Head over to the Artown website and begin crafting your personal calendar. You can experience Michelle’s work July 7th at Sierra Arts Gallery, or on on July 12 at McKinley Arts and Culture Center where she’ll dazzle children ages 6–12 with her characters.
