Art Attack!

If you take a walk around downtown Denver today, you'll notice that it's suddenly chock-full of arty delights that have been placed along the wide third-floor walkway at the Denver Pavilions and in once-empty storefronts — in fact, just about anywhere you look.

Local artist Rodney Wallace started the Think Tank group last year to highlight Denver artists by including them in the festivities around the new Denver Art Museum opening, exposing both local and national visitors to the vibrancy of the Denver art scene. "It doesn't mean anything to be a Denver artist if Denver art doesn't mean anything," Wallace says. With that same goal in mind, this fall he gathered a collective from the art community to create a Denver Art Infestation as part of Denver Arts Week, which started Friday and continues through October 12.

In addition to the works displayed downtown, local artists' work can be seen on coasters at the Breckenridge Brewery; in fortune cookies at P.F. Chang's; on magnets stuck to anything metal (which art lovers are encouraged to move around or collect); on T-shirts distributed to the homeless (along with food gift cards and outreach counseling); and on the City and County Building in the form of light sculptures, which will undoubtedly be more tasteful than the garish "light sculptures" that hang there over the winter holiday season.

Wallace hopes that by seeing art in every nook and cranny of the city, the public will realize "that art is everywhere. That Denver is art."

Visit www.denverartweek.org for information.
Oct. 5-12, 2007