Longmont ArtWalk, Havu Anniversary, Emmanuel Opening and Shayna Cohn’s “FUNctional” Ceramics

This week in metro Denver galleries, Lanny DeVuono and Yoshitomo Saito populate the Emmanuel Gallery’s fall opener with tiny oceans and giant butterflies, Bill Havu celebrates fifty years in the art biz by showing off his gallery’s star-studded artist stable and Yard Art Contemporary returns for an outdoor fall fandango on the lawn. And there’s always more.

Here are the arty highlights:

Reframing the Landscape: Lanny DeVuono and Yoshitomo Saito
Emmanuel Gallery, 1205 Tenth Street Plaza, Auraria Campus
Through October 7
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 7, 4 to 7 p.m.
Lanny DeVuono and Yoshitomo Saito deliver micro- and macrocosmic views of the natural world – DeVuono in drawings that miniaturize the scope of vast imagined extraterrestrial oceanscapes, and Saito by blowing up butterflies and other fantastical insects into monumental bronze sculptures – in the two-person show Reframing the Landscape. At Thursday’s reception, both artists will draw viewers into their secret worlds during a Q&A session. Seen together, their opposing bodies of work foster hope that the power of nature will prevail in the face of destructive climate change.

Josiah Lee Lopez: Artist Talk
O’Sullivan Art Gallery, Fine Arts Building, 3333 Regis Boulevard, Regis University
Thursday, September 7, 7 to 8 p.m.
Josiah Lee Lopez comes from the streets, but his agility as a draftsman, painter, muralist and cultural observer of his urban community is nuanced and timely. Trending Topics, now on view at Regis University’s O’Sullivan Art Gallery, offers everyday perspectives, human struggles, cultural symbolism and shades of underground comic art; hear what Lopez has to say about his mixed-bag sensibilities during an artist talk tonight. Trending Topics continues through October 1 at the gallery, which is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.

Memento: Places and Perspectives
GOCA Project Space, Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 North Nevada Avenue, Colorado Springs
Thursday, September 7, through September 23
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 7, 5 to 8 p.m.
It takes a village to raise a gallery show at a college or university art space, and more often than not, the village is made up of student interns and/or gallery employees learning the ropes of curation, administration, archiving, handling art and installing exhibitions. They often remain anonymous at openings and work when no one’s there, but the team at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Galleries of Contemporary Art will have a different experience as subjects of their own show. Memento pairs up curators and artists (and a few who do both) to build a diverse and collaborative show of personal works by the artists, as curated by their teammates.

From All Angles: Fifty Years in the Art Business
William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street
Friday, September 8, through October 21
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 5 to 8 p.m.
Since Robischon Gallery’s two-part 45th-anniversary artist spectacular wrapped up in May, the William Havu Gallery has been busy awakening its own anniversary soirée. From All Angles: Fifty Years in the Art Business has an itinerant story behind it, landing finally at the gallery’s Cherokee Street location 25 years ago. But Havu himself isn’t the star of this show, though he certainly has shown the wherewithal to recognize talent and stick steadfastly to his artists. They are the headliners: Emilio Lobato, Sushe Felix and Tracy Felix, Tony Ortega, Amy Metier and so many others, some new and some who’ve been with Havu for decades. This is the commercial gallery who’s-who exhibition of 2023.

Margarita Cabrera, “Security” … “Seguridad” …”Seguridad” “Control” … “Control” … “Control” “Safety” … “Protección” … “Protección” “Power” … “Poder” … “Poder”
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543 A Wazee Street
Friday, September 8, through October 20
Reception: Saturday, October 7, 3 to 5 p.m. (Artist Talk: 3:30 p.m.)
Margarita Cabrera, a newcomer to the David B. Smith Gallery, makes an auspicious debut, taking over both the main gallery and the project space to cover work from three separate series. In the main space, For Space in Between combines both traditional and unexpected found materials, clay pots and reclaimed Border Patrol uniforms to shape embroidered, cactus-shaped storytelling sculptures evocative of human resilience and the border-crossing experience. Another series, Flujo de Extracciones / Flow of Extractions, pairs blobby pink and orange circles of cochineal dye on paper, collaged over with the ubiquitous uniform scraps, a reminder of every immigrant’s nightmare. And in the Project Room, Cabrera offers Pepita Para El Loro Para Que Hable o Calle / A nugget for the parrot to speak or be quiet, a series of interactive sculptures of endangered red-crowned Amazon parrots that draw viewers into mimicking the way information is garbled as it passes from one person to another. A reception and artist talk are scheduled for October 7.

Internal Mapping
Walker Fine Art, 300 West 11th Avenue, #A
Friday, September 8, through November 4
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 5 to 8 p.m.
At Walker Fine Art, the theme is Internal Mapping, with a sextet of artists examining human neurologic reactions to visual and sensory stimuli. Described through abstraction, mark-making, area washes and patterned shapes using painting, printmaking, 3D-printed sculpture and mixed media, these works will keep your synapses charging throughout the gallery.

Impart: Works From University and College Educators, Inspiring and Shaping the Colorado Arts Community September 8 through October 13
Julie Havel, Pattern Shape Element, September 8 through October 13
John Henley and Peggy Feliot, Mettle: Strength of Form in Line and Motion Dual Sculpture Exhibition, September 8 through October 28
BRDG Project, 3300 Tejon Street
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 6 to 10 p.m.
The new BRDG Project space on Tejon Street fills three galleries to the brim for its second opening, beginning with Impart, a fine group show demonstrating a variety of art practices by eleven local university and college educators. Textural, mixed-media, abstract painter Julie Havel is the solo voice in Pattern Shape Element, a dreamy exploration of every degree of color palette, from stark monochrome to incendiary color, with various stops in between.

Alexandra Stefanec, Cured in Water
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
September 8 through November 5
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 8 p.m. to late
Alexandra Stefanec documents her year of floating in water tanks for two hours a day in unrippled, meditational, graphic shapes against pale backgrounds, all indicative of the fluid, modern style she wields to perfection in everything she does. But in between the perfect lines and serene curves, Stefanec juggles symbolic emotions that come free in her floating world.

Rethinking Plastic
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts (DAVA), 1405 Florence Street, Aurora
September 8 through November 10
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 4 to 7 p.m.
Over the summer, DAVA students of all ages, from preschoolers to teens, worked with a marine biologist, learned video and green-screen technology, and were mentored by artists focused on the plastic problem that’s killing oceans and filling landfills. Now comes the big reveal of what different age groups created, as well as a display of work by mentors Kalliopi Monoyios, who reuses plastic trash in sculptures and decorative “quilts,” and ceramics artist Summer Jarolmen.

Makenzie Davis, Lignin: A Homecoming
Gigantes Papier-M’ché Open Studio
Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Avenue, Longmont
September 8 through October 8
Opening Reception: Friday, September 8, 7 to 9 p.m.

ArtWalk on Main 2023
Main Street, between Third and Longs Peak avenues, Longmont
Saturday, September 9, 4 to 8 p.m.
It’s a big weekend for the Firehouse Art Center and downtown Longmont, with new shows opening on Friday and the annual shindig Firehouse hosts in the streets on Saturday. First, Makenzie Davis’s Lignin: A Homecoming, which draws comparisons between human community and the organic polymer lignin, the building block of structural and supportive elements in plants, debuts with a reception in the main gallery at Firehouse. Meanwhile, the South Gallery will serve as a community workshop space to build and repair old Gigantes – or giant papier m’ché or cardboard puppets carried through the street on Día de los Muertos – for the center’s annual Gigantes Procession through downtown on October 14, which is back in a big way this year. Learn more about how to participate and register at Eventbrite. Saturday evening, Longmont Arts Week arrives alongside the opening act, ArtWalk on Main 2023, an artsy street fair with live music on six stages, vendor booths, gallery open houses, food trucks, a chalk-art festival and live art demonstrations.

Yard Art Contemporary
100 Gaylord Street
Saturday, September 9, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, September 10, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Yard Art is making up for lost time after hosting only one other event this summer, and this is a big show: even more artists -up to twenty – at the best yard sale ever, where you can buy new, original art, and not someone else’s junk.

Identity Crisis
Rising Gallery, 4885 South Broadway, Englewood
Saturday, September 9, 3 to 10 p.m.
Rising Gallery is opening the floodgates for Identity Crisis, a show of old and new work by five rebel street artists -Parksy, Franksy, Impostr, Ratai and Super Fiend. Oh, and they might all be the same person, but don’t tell anyone we said that.

Shayna Cohn, Rock Candy
Galapago Space, 923 Galapago Street (enter through the alley)
Saturday, September 9, 6 to 10 p.m.
Ceramic artist Shayna Cohn steps into the Galapago Space garage gallery for a one-night reveal of a new series of what she’s dubbed “FUNctional” curvy candelabras, which she says are “good enough to eat.” And they are pretty cute, sporting marbled and spotted textures, pastel rainbow palettes and rhinestones.

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