Volume 3, Issue 10
May 10 - May 23, 2001

CCOA MAKES ITS MOVE

Come for the art, stay for the Nelson.

After two years at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Celebrate Colorado Artists festival has moved to the retail complex of the Denver Pavilions. The free, third annual show will showcase more than 130 artists, all exclusively Colorado residents. The show will run from May 25 through May 28, Memorial Day weekend. "The primary reason [for the Pavilions move] was the overall amenities with the location," explained Brian Nelson, CCOA executive director. "At the Pavilions we feel that we've got a huge amount of extra amenities for everyone." Nelson, who should not be confused with the towheaded duo playing on May 26, said the new location will offer a wider array of activities for festival goers, such as movies, dining and shopping along the 16th Street Mall, in addi-tion to the traditional festival activities. One of the goals for this year's event is to make it an all-day attraction. From art on sale and display, food booths and children's activities during the day, to concerts each night, CCOA is intent on offering something for everyone.

But first, the art. Of 600 entries, 130 painters, sculptors, photographers, drawers and artisans of jewelry, fiber and more were chosen from across the state. A group of three jurors were impaneled to judge four slides submitted by each entrant. Art curator Katherine Smith Warren, Denver artist Emanuel Martinez and Metro Center for the Visual Arts director Sally Perisho made up the jury. Nelson and his partner D. Michaels wanted to keep the criteria simple: "Mainly, 'Hey, this is a festival, we really want to get some stuff out on the street that's very accessible, '" Nelson said. "We want to consider diversity of medium and ethnicity ... a really good show that the public can really enjoy."

Artists who won top awards at last year's festival were invited back. "I think it's a good idea to show Colorado artists like this," said Abend Gallery director Christine Serr. Serr expressed concern about the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, which has far less emphasis on local talent. Both Nelson and Michaels worked on the Cherry Creek festival before creating CCOA. "We realized there were a lot of Colorado artists who were not getting into the show," Nelson said of the Cherry Creek show. Celebrate Colorado Artists was created with the intent to fill this gap in local events. Nelson said, "Last year we had over 65,000 people and the artists' sales were very brisk." "Last year there was a good deal of contemporary art," said John Nicklow, who creates mixed media work with his wife Valerie. "We saw a lot of people we hadn't seen at other Colorado festivals." The Nicklows will show at the festival this year. "It's the first time we've applied and gotten in," Nicklow said.

A distinctive feature of the CCOA festival will be the availability of secondary prints for sale. Artists can have an array of reproduced work in bins, clearly apart from the rest of their pieces, at a fraction of the cost of the original work. Nelson said the goal was to create "accessibility and affordability" for patrons who will not buy a painting or sculpture priced at several thousand dollars.

Kids can be placed at a secondary location as well. An education area, called Art's Peak, will offer family portraits, face painting, Italian paper mosaics and other activities for children and their parents. The festival will be expansive, with Glenarm between 15th and 17th streets shut to accommodate stages in the street. The family-friendly stage will host theater companies, storytellers, musicians, dancers and magicians. Those at the main stage will have to settle just for music. National headliners will include Crash Test Dummies and The Nelsons, (they've added the 's', dropped the metal riffs and 12 pounds of hair each). Local acts include singers Hazel Miller, Wendy Woo, funk rockers Opie Gone Bad and the Ryan Tracy Band. Most of the local talent will play during the day with the bigger bands taking the stage in the evening after the festival booths have closed.

So you've got great local artwork, Wolfgang Puck in bite-size portions, music, drinks and perhaps a mime or two. And if booze and mimes don't strike your fancy, there's always the $5 all-day parking rates. --Andrew Wells

Hours: May 25, 4-11 pm; May 26-27, 11:00 am-11:00 pm; May 28, 11:00 am-7:00 pm No charge for admis-sion. A preview of artists' work will be showcased in a nightly slide show projected on the 15th Street wall of the Denver Pavilions starting May 11. For more information check the festival website at www.celebratecoloradoartists.com

THE LINGUISTS
@
FRESH ART GALLERY

208 S. Broadway
720-570-2255
through May 26

Seeing Words in the incessant rain was perfect. The soothing sound of falling water, the blank canvas of a grey-white sky, the unavoidable metaphor of cleansing and renewal all accentuated the art of Homare and Mamiko Miura Ikeda. Visual artist Homare and poet Mamiko are husband and wife who inspire each other and often collaborate. Together, their works are a comfortably passionate couple, for whom even a simple touch of hands is imbued with devotion.

An outstanding collaboration is the "Kitchen Hike" series (four pieces), a strangely affecting verse and delicate water paintings detailing the love of a potato for a carrot. In Zen tradition, both words and lines find worth in the ordinary.
"When a carrot dreams, a potato answers
/ While she listens to him, she feels warm.
/ ...The potato just wants to let her know
everyone likes her beautiful color so much."

Graceful illustrations-- painted on paper meticulously wrapped like canvas-- are rendered in earthy colors reminiscent of vegetable dyes. This is more romantic than Romeo and Juliet.

The show also contains work by one artist simply inspired by the other, such as Homare's mixed media triptych, "Words Before Words," which showcases his bold use of line and color to portray life at its microscopic beginning. This panel dominates the right side of the gallery and reaches out to passersby. It is intense. The first panel is a virgin, trying to hide its brilliance of hue behind a scrim, only exciting the imagination further about the not-quite-glimpsed. An egg-seed of purest yolky yellow and marked with "X" (the most representational of letters; the blankest of words) has burned through, while a column of midnight stars speaks of DNA or a cosmic rip. The middle panel takes the viewer inside the egg-seed to a sea of butter yellow filled with dancing berry red cells. A protosomite leaps from the yellow sea onto a pearly shore. The right panel is organized chaos, heavily textured with white paint puffs of cotton stanching the flow of birth fluids. A battered canal has just spit out an egg-seed, while to the side a glowing orb (the proto-word?) floats, covered by the filigree remains of egg-seed shells. Also, gallery owner Jeanie King has chosen a spare and elegant presentation to accentuate the lushness of this work. Mamiko's poem "Words" (which begins, "Another day, I birthed words but wasn't ready to raise them / I watched helplessly / The baby words died.") floats at eye-level like mist or a fragment of a nearly forgotten dream. Moss-green accent walls offer a nice foil to two contrasting pieces of calligraphy, while adding another layer of reference to nature. The two calligraphy works-- one with voluptuous brushwork, the other, lithe-- offer a lovely study. Fullest enjoyment of one is due to its proximity to the other.

One caveat: Words is not a quick-through show. Allow sufficient time to drink it in, to uncover surprises such as Mamiko's "Tipi Book," opened to stories of losing everyday objects (a pencil, some worn-out slippers) told with pathos and tender-ness so complete they breathe life into the vanished objects. Words has restorative properties. Take full advantage.

--Kimberly Graham