In the world at large, by which I mean people I talk to when I visit Los Angeles, the words “Vegas” and “Art” are mutually exclusive. “Kitsch” is about as far as Californians will go in complimenting Las Vegas style. “Oh, I know,” they say, when you remind them that there’s a Monet exhibit at the Bellagio right now, or that it takes genuine artists to design Cirque du Soleil costumes or paint murals as nice as the ones at the new Hofbrauhaus. But it still doesn’t change their basic and unshakable belief that Vegas ain’t got no cultcha.

It’s funny, really. Wasn’t Los Angeles in exactly that spot a couple or three decades ago? More than a few New Yorkers would say it still is. Somehow, there’s no art in places that are newer than you, and especially those with slot machines.

So I sigh and come back home in time to go to First Friday, the beginning-of-the-month event that is not only about art, but also about community, another thing many outsiders believe doesn’t exist in Las Vegas.

The Arts Factory, where I began my evening, was already packed at six o’clock. Parking valets were doing a brisk business near the corner of Charleston and Main, but I found a place to park less than a block away and walked back to join the throng pressing its way through the serpentine passages and narrow stairways linking the twelve galleries ingeniously created out of funky old industrial space.

I like looking at art this way, bumping shoulders with people of all ages, tastes, and types, most of whom are sipping red wine out of plastic cups. It’s not that fancy museums aren’t pleasant, or that already-famous paintings aren’t worth ogling. It’s just that when you’re standing on a creaky, rough-hewn floor discussing still-wet canvases with an artist who’s got paint under his fingernails, it’s more about process than product. It’s still happening, still alive.

And it’s more fun, especially when an artist is as eager to talk as Mike Griesgraber, a former advertising executive from Minnesota who always considered himself an artist at heart. He now spends every day painting, and the results cover every inch of wall space in his Arts Factory studio. Las Vegas local Tony Tompkins was also happy to chat. He left “gainful employment” a year ago to devote his energies to digital photography. His works, displayed in an upstairs room, offered delightful proof that whenever a new tool emerges, art expands to fill the new arena it creates. All of Tony’s pictures start out as shots of household objects, but, assisted by his skill with a computer, they end up somewhere in the far reaches of his imagination.

Also upstairs is the studio of H. Stephen Jackson, a local architect who is working on the redevelopment of the Holsum Bread building on West Charleston. He had his latest drawings on display, and he was fielding questions from throngs of people eager for updates about improvements to downtown Las Vegas.

Next door to the Arts Factory is one such improvement. The S2 Art Center moved to Las Vegas three years ago from New York City, bringing with it its fabulous antique flatbed presses. Art seems especially alive when you get to watch people mixing ink, pulling prints, and hanging them up to dry.

Like some of the paintings on display in the studios, the Las Vegas Arts district is a work in progress. There are still some scary abandoned buildings in the area, and blocks where I don’t feel comfortable walking alone, especially after dark. Even so, it’s worth braving the rough parts to revel in the excitement of new growth. First Friday makes it easy to enjoy the blossoming of a thriving arts community, and it provides me with a handy smug smile whenever I hear those old Sin City stereotypes.