Art Attack: Alternative Galleries and Cinco de Mayo Energize First Friday

First Friday in May will be a blockbuster for Denver art lovers. Set foot in any local art district and the energy could be overwhelming. From alternative galleries to Cinco de Mayo parties and Mother’s Day shopping, this weekend will be hopping.

Here’s a rundown of all the best First Friday shows around town:

Christine Nguyen, A Centrum of Cosmic Energies
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Through June 10
Christine Nguyen’s beautiful collection of cyanotypes opened last week, permeating the gallery walls with that certain shade of blue while casting floral shadows and creating cosmic explosions in space. Nguyen captures her blue imagery on cotton and embellishes the prints with colored pencil, graphite, pastel and salt crystals for a series of out-of-this-world visions inspired by NASA images and the botanical realm; she’s also included imaginative ceramic sculptures covering similar realms. You can drop by and have a look at Leon, where a concert by King Bee and Pineross at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, offers another opportunity to peep Nguyen’s work (tickets are $15 in advance at Brown Paper Tickets, $20 at the door).

Alex Branch, Bill Nelson, Fernando Orellana and LA Samuelson, Tender Machines
Through July 1
Union Hall Gallery, The Coloradan, 1750 Wewatta Street, Suite 144
Visiting Artist Talk: Fernando Orellana: Saturday, May 6, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Tender Machines Curatorial Talk: Wednesday, May 24, 6 to 7 p.m.
Union Hall Gallery chief curator Esther Hernandez is serving up machine dreams with a group show, Tender Machines, that’s focused on the nuts and bolts of human goals. Elements of performance, automation, assemblage, multimedia and technology meld works by four artists: Alex Branch, who integrates disciplines to create sound sculptures, video and functional inventions using unusual materials; Denver stalwart Bill Nelson, known for constructing weird and wonderful assemblages, clown chairs, jackalope paintings and contraptions; Fernando Orellana, maker of kinetic, sculptural and 2-D works inspired by robotics and robot-like humans; and LA Samuelson, a multidisciplinary movement artist whose constructed landscapes bear the weight of human seeking.

Celebrate! Think 360 Artists
Converge Denver, 3327 Brighton Boulevard
Friday, May 5, through May 26
First Friday Opening, Friday, May 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Think 360 Arts’ 60th Birthday Party, Saturday, May 6, 2 to 4 p.m.
Since 1963, Think 360 Arts (then called Young Audiences of Colorado) has been working magic by pairing local artists with kids of all ages, older adults, teachers and everyone in between to provide quality arts and cultural education in a variety of disciplines, from visual arts to literary arts, music, dance and theater. Sixty years later, the statewide programs are still going strong, and it’s time to celebrate! On Friday, May 5, the exhibition Celebrate! Think 360 Artists opens at Converge Denver, showcasing work by a roster of notable artists who’ve facilitated classes over the years. On Saturday, May 6, it’s party time, with arts-education sampling and more fun. Both events are free; a party RSVP is required in advance at Eventbrite.

The Bread Show, through May 28
Elizabeth Moreno, A New Purpose, through June 25
Bell Projects, 2822 East 17th Avenue
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 10 p.m.
Breaking bread is a basic, universal example of human interaction. Besides the metaphor of nourishment, it’s how we agree to be friends and learn to understand one another. Perhaps the most foundational staple in every cuisine, bread sustains our bodies and brings us together. With that in mind, Bell Projects brought together more than thirty artists to muse on the role of bread in our everyday lives for an exhibition simply called The Bread Show; each artist offers a personal statement about his or her bread art. In the Living Room Gallery, Elizabeth Moreno shows a series of photographs of models wearing one-of-a-kind repurposed garments and accessories.

Jodi Stuart, Toxic Positivity
Alto Gallery, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
Friday, May 5, through May 27
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 10 p.m.
Jodi Stuart blends digital and handmade practices – and a lot of cheerful color – into her woven sculptures created using plastic filaments usually fed into 3-D digital printers. It’s a bit of a joke how she uses the digital tool to hand-weave a sculpture, and the title, Toxic Positivity, drives in the punchline: The synthetic materials she uses to replace thread or organic basket-weaving stems might make for a pretty picture, but there’s a specter of perfect, experience-bleeding technology hiding behind the curtain.

Mark Farrell, High Strangeness
Lane Meyer Projects at Pon Pon, 2528 Walnut Street
Friday, May 5, through July 2
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 8 p.m. until late
In Mark Farrell’s world, the suburban hood-scapes are creepy and splashed with lurid colors that backlight witches driving carriages, spiderwebs and the symbolism of horror stories. But darn, if this mysterious oil painter can’t perfectly fill a canvas that will look magnificent in the right kind of setting…or maybe in that house next door where the windows are always dark. No surprise that Farrell says he’s inspired by growing up in the hinterlands of Littleton.

Sam Grabowska, Intake
Understudy, 890 C 14th Street
Friday, May 5, through May 28
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Recharge Room Self-Care Pop-Up: Friday through Sunday, May 18-21, noon to 6 p.m.; free, RSVP at Eventbrite
Talk about scary: Sam Grabowska’s installation at the Understudy artist incubator adjacent to the Colorado Convention Center takes on the rise of AI visual technology, psychological trauma, new-agey character treatments and ubiquitous surveillance cameras. Intake will have you jumping through a gauntlet of probing steps in order to create a DIY custom-care environment suited to your personality and requiring no human interaction.

Jon Rubin, The Survival Studies Institute
The Yard, Coordinates: 38.847596,-104.799216
Friday, May 5, through August 4
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 6, 4 to 8 p.m.
Jessica Langley and Ben Kinsley, stewards of The Yard, a project space in plain sight in a quiet Colorado Springs neighborhood, continue to turn their front yard into a site-specific experimental gallery with widely exhibited interdisciplinary artist Jon Rubin, whose conceptual game is public intervention. He’ll be producing another nail-biter with his current project, The Survival Studies Institute, which basically does the math to predict the future of the Springs. As home to the Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, U.S. Space Command and Space Operations Command, the city to our south boasts the most space service military installations contained in one area. Rubin’s work? He’s trusting his crystal ball to predict how soon 1010 North Logan Avenue, Colorado Springs, U.S.A. (aka The Yard) will meet its demise, given the circumstances. Only time will tell.

Earl Chuvarsky and Ryan Austin Lee, New West Clash
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood,
Through May 28
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 4 to 8:30 p.m.
Both practitioners of imagining a contemporized West, Earl Chuvarsky and Ryan Austin Lee team up for a two-man show at Valkarie Gallery. In juxtaposition, their works cover the gamut from heroes of the Old West in pop-art colors to the new wave of car-racing cowboys and Indians, and immigrants crossing the wall.

CHAC Cinco de Mayo Fiesta
CHAC Gallery, 1560 Teller Street, Lakewood
First Friday Celebration: Friday, May 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Party with CHAC on First Friday, where you’ll have another chance to eyeball the show Flor y Canto, but with the added attractions of food truck fare and vendor booths.

Cinco de Mayo Celebration
Museo de las Americas, 861 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, May 5, 5 to 9 p.m.
In Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe, the Museo will also take advantage of First Friday to host an extra-special Cinco de Mayo celebration with performances by Ballet Folklórico, a food truck and beverages. The exhibition Colombia: The Corn, the River and the Grave remains on view through August 19.

Las Madres
Art Contained Del Sol, 3058 West 55th Avenue
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 5 to 9 p.m.
Continues on Saturdays through May 27, noon to 4 p.m.
Art Contained Del Sol, a northwest Denver shipping container gallery that’s another outgrowth of the CHAC family, salutes Las Madres in anticipation of Mother’s Day with a sweet display of art with a theme of motherly love in all its shapes and forms. This group of artists, mostly women, is close-knit and collaborative in nature, as well as deeply engaged in preserving the community’s culture.

Youth Violence Prevention Through Art
BuCu West, 4200 Morrison Road, Unit 3
Friday, May 5, 5 to 7 p.m.
The BuCu West Development Association joins the Cinco de Mayo celebration in Westwood, with an opening of artwork by in-house art instructors and their students. A piñata workshop and live art will polish off the event.

Ground, group show
FoolProof Contemporary Art, 3240 Larimer Street
Through June 24
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 9:30 p.m.
Derby Day and Open House: Saturday, May 6, 1 to 5 p.m.
FoolProof in RiNo changes seasons with a new group show, Ground, which gallery founder and director Laura Phelps Rogers describes as “a conceptual idea of what ground is, is not or could be.” She also notes that Derby hats and dress are encouraged at the Saturday open house.

Ephemera: New Works by Mr. Depalakua
Westward Gallery, 4400 Tennyson Street
First Friday Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 10 p.m.
Mr. Depalakua (the brush name of artist, graphic designer and arts booster Jarred De Palo) is the First Friday feature artist at Westward Gallery, where he’ll unveil a cool stash of mixed-media and collage pop art images. Gallery owner Michelle Courier will also have work on view.

Benjamin Feliciano, New History: A Study In Time & Personal Transformation
Memento Mori Gallery, 6451 West Colfax Avenue, Suite B, Lakewood
Friday, May 5, through May 27
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6 to 9 p.m.
Benjamin Feliciano, a writer and musician in the local band Younger Than Neil – a frenetic somewhat ska, somewhat post-hardcore combo – is now working on a project that might be art. In a way, it sounds like he’s making amends with the darkness of his personal writings in favor of salvation by healing. But the video above will draw you into the world of this project: In four screens, Feliciano sits before a different open blank book that’s been scribbled in and begins painting it page by page in a single solid color, perhaps as an act of self-discovery. The point? It’s alchemy: He’s selected a different type of intoxicant to use during each section.

Boulder Potters’ Guild: Spring Show & Sale
Boulder County Fairgrounds, Barn A, 9595 Nelson Road, Longmont
Thursday, May 5, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday May 6, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, May 7, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, May 8, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pottery shows bloom like spring flowers when Mother’s Day draws near, and giving Mom a handmade mug or ceramic tchotchke on one day in May is a tradition older than you are. The Boulder Potters’ Guild is here to help this weekend; the guild’s eighty artists should make for plenty of variety and price points to please everyone. Admission is free.

Emilie Odeile and Ken Chapin (Wove), Goodnight Moon-A Fiber Tale
The Commons @ Space to Create, 200 West Main Street, Trinidad
Friday, May 5, through July 7
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 5 to 8 p.m.
Things you never dreamed could happen really do happen more than you think down in Trinidad, Colorado, near the New Mexico border. This week, it’s Goodnight Moon-A Fiber Tale, a giant hand-knitted yarn installation based on Clement Hurd’s memorable illustrations for Margaret Wise Brown’s perfect bedtime storybook. Will it make you sleepy? More likely, it’s the drive to Trinidad that will do that, but this level of creativity will be worth it. Created by Wove World, the nom de plume of marathon knitter Emilie Odeile and knitting-needle designer Ken Chapin, the opening is tonight at Trinidad’s Space to Create (and there are whispers about a performance, too), but the spectacle is open to the public through July 7. Bring children.

Mario Zoots, Tangerine Dreams
Pardon, 3758 Osage Street, Building #102
Saturday, May 6, through June 30
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 6, 5 to 9 p.m.
It’s turning out to be a good year for collagist Mario Zoots, whose clean works bleed a pure and timeless modernist tableau, cut after cut. Zoots’s relationship with collage isn’t just about cutting and pasting – it’s also driven by his knowledge of the medium and its history, and how he folds that expertise into his designs. If you’re looking for the future of collage, look no further. Tangerine Dreams represents work by the artist made over the last five years, including two major bodies of work, I Love New York but I Live in Denver and Fragmented America. Shannon Kelly will be spinning tunes at the Saturday night opening; the show is up until the end of June.

Pattern Shop Closing Party and Art Sale
Pattern Shop Studio, 3349 Blake Street
Saturday, May 6, and Sunday, May 7, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
RiNo trailblazers Sharon Bond Brown and Rex Brown moved into the former Box Ironworks building at 3349 Blake Street before the old neighborhood of warehouses even had a name, let alone a fancy, urban one. Now, after a whole different vibe has grown up around them, the Browns are leaving their home, studio and gallery space behind, but not without some hoopla. They’ll be hosting a two-day open house and discounted sale of Sharon Brown’s artwork this weekend to say goodbye. If you’re going, RSVP in advance here.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to editorial@westword.com.