The Moapa Valley Art Guild (MVAG) held the 29th annual Pomegranate Art Festival at the Clark County Fairgrounds Nov. 7 and 8. As always, the event was a celebration of art, craftsmanship and, of course, pomegranates.

First organized in 1959 by former Moapa Valley High School art teacher Max Bunnell and Zona Tobler, the event has been hosted by MVAG since the first year in 1996. The annual event is now a far cry from its humble beginnings in the True Value parking lot.

Visitors were first met with a long table in the fairground’s breezeway, where MVAG was selling raffle tickets and raising money for the annual MVAG scholarship. The scholarship is available to high school students who are planning on going into an art program following graduation. In a unique twist from previous years, those who bought tickets were able to choose which raffle basket they would like to have a chance of winning.

This year saw a slightly smaller turnout of vendors from previous years, with 98 in total, including a handful of food trucks. However, vendors traveled from all over the West Coast, from as close as Moapa Valley and Mesquite to as far as Utah, California, Colorado and Wyoming.

Though the festival was unfortunately scheduled a few weeks too early for fresh pomegranates, there was a plethora of other food and craft items to choose from. Many of the booths were longstanding local participants, including Ozaki Honey, Rawson Jellies, the Aspire Center and the Moapa Valley FFA, which was selling pomegranate saplings this year. Pomegranates will be available for sale at the Ag Farm and around the valley when they ripen in two to three weeks.

Other booths ranged from handcrafted jewelry and Christmas wreaths to wooden toys, tallow products, handmade soaps, fiber arts, 3D prints and resin sculptures. The majority of fine art and art prints was housed inside the Fine Arts building, where aisles and booths were set up for creators of all kinds. Photographs, paintings and prints were the most common of the visual arts, with much of it focusing on the beauty of the desert. Wood carvings and textile products filled much of the rest of the building.

So long as the items offered were handcrafted rather than resale or dropship, they were generally welcome to be sold. “We want to provide the local area with affordable, quality craft,” said MVAG’s Kim Delgadillo, organizer of the event, at the end of the day.

MVAG looks forward to holding the highly successful event again for its 30th year in 2026.