Published August 4, 2023

Double Scoop Brings You the Scoop on Local Arts

by Kris Vagner

As PBS Reno’s newest Art Views columnist, I’m looking forward to bringing you news about the region’s artists each month. But first, I’d like to introduce you to my own arts publication, Double Scoop. 

I’ve been reporting on local arts since 2004 for the Reno News & Review and other media outlets. Since I’ve been on the job, the visual arts scene here has grown quite a lot. A handful of makerspaces and artist-run galleries have opened. Reno got a new art museum in 2019 – the Lilley at UNR – and the Nevada Museum of Art is undergoing an expansion. Thousands of new residents have moved into the region, many of them artists and art lovers. 

As I watched the art community grow, I wanted to provide a forum for more discussions around the visual arts, and I wanted it to reach a few different audiences: professional artists, longtime art fans, and people who might be new to the arts or new to town and wondering where to learn about exhibitions, personalities, and events. 

I had a few other goals, too. I wanted a stable platform for arts writers – both up-and-coming reporters and veteran art critics. I wanted to cover the arts statewide. (After all, there’s someone making art in just about every small town, ranch, and reservation in the state.) And I wanted to expand the idea of what art-magazine-style coverage should be. Of course an arts publication would interview well-known artists and cover museum shows, but there are a lot of other people who care about the arts, too. I reasoned that up-and-coming artists, teachers, students, and arts administrators would have a lot to say, too.

I launched Double Scoop in the fall of 2018 with a couple of freelance writers and 80 readers who used to follow my old blog. Now we’re a non-profit news organization with 6,000 monthly readers. We have around 15 reporters and reviewers in Reno, Las Vegas, and Elko – everyone from college students to some of the state’s most thoughtful art critics and journalists, just like I’d hoped. (We’ve even worked with journalists from outside the United States. Our Kenyan and Australian radio broadcasters, both visiting UNR students, brought in some great perspectives.)

We also try to get the word out about the arts via a few other channels. We produce an interview podcast, which you can find on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. You can hear our weekly Reno art calendar on KWNK 97.7 FM, Reno Community Radio, and occasionally one of our podcasts airs on KUNR, Reno’s NPR station.

If you’d like to keep up with our art news, please visit www.doublescoop.art, or stay tuned right here on PBS Reno Art Views, where I’ll be back with a northern Nevada art story every month.