August's First Friday: Streets Close on Santa Fe, Circus at 40 West and More Art Activities

First Friday will be beyond festive this month in the Art District on Santa Fe, where five blocks of Santa Fe Drive will be closed to traffic, and in 40 West, where circus heroics will rule the night, along with a big batch of openings. But wherever you end up — from Night Lights at the Daniels & Fisher Tower to the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Greenwood Village — there's no doubt you'll enjoy the view.

Find your First Friday adventure below:

TAD Projects, Monumomentum
Night Lights Denver, 1601 Arapahoe Street, dusk to midnight, and rotating between LED screens in the Denver Theatre District
Daily through August 31
TAD is an acronym for Temporary Alternative Duty, but it also could stand for Toby and Don, aka the artist/curatorial duo Tobias Fike and Donald Fodness, who dream up DIY art exhibitions on the experimental side. Their latest project, Monumomentum, is a giant collection of video art by Donna Conlon, Gary Emrich, Kevin Sweet, the Thorn Collaborative (Erin Ethridge and Colleen Marie Foley) and Matthew Weedman. It will be a feature for Night Lights Denver throughout August, projected on the outer wall of the Daniels and Fisher Clocktower at 16th and Arapahoe streets, as well as on giant downtown LED display screens. Follow TAD’s ongoing projects on Instagram.

Martha Russo, Caesura
Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery, Ent Center, 5225 North Nevada Avenue, Colorado Springs
Thursday, August 3, through December 2
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 3, 5 to 8 p.m.
Martha Russo studied developmental biology and psychology while entertaining serious athletic challenges. But when an injury put an end to her Olympic goals, she dove into the arts, specifically ceramics. Her background in science pervades her organic installations, which combine porcelain, moldable paper clay, metal and other mixed-media materials. Much of her most memorable work comprises tiny components modeled after the bits and pieces of the natural world; for the exhibition Caesura, opening Thursday at the Ent Center’s Sharpe Gallery in Colorado Springs, she invites viewers to take the time to identify and understand ideas beneath these breathtaking conglomerations that portray life's building blocks. The show runs through the beginning of December; for better understanding, Russo will give a talk as part of Colorado College’s Visiting Artists & Critics series on September 28. The event is free; find information and reserve tickets here.
Essentially D’art: Fourth Anniversary Members Exhibition
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 3, through August 27
Opening Reception: Friday, August 11, 6 to 9 p.m.
D’art’s annual members exhibition opens this week for the month of August — also American Artist Appreciation Month — offering visitors a taste of the gallery-wide talent and vision of the co-op’s 21 artists. During the run of the show, D’art will be hosting artist talks; as of this writing, only creative photographer Seth Mayer is scheduled for one (2 p.m. Saturday, August 12), but follow the website for additional dates as they are added.
Inaugural Exhibition of the Colorado Women’s Art Center & Museum
East Gallery, D'art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 3, through August 27
First Friday: Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
Exhibition Cocktail Reception: Saturday, August 5, 5 to 8 p.m.
Meet The Artists: Friday, August 11, 6 to 9 p.m.
Curators’ Talk: "What’s in a Title?": Sunday, August 20, 3 to 4 p.m.
Have you ever wondered why so many women artists in Denver often gravitate toward co-ops? Perhaps it’s the best way to get their art on gallery walls regularly. Local artist Carrie MaKenna proves her mettle with this preview of her dream: The Colorado Women’s Art Center & Museum, a new nonprofit Colorado touchstone in the Art District on Santa Fe, an idea cemented in the tradition of her mother, Ruth Brunskill Greiner, an artist and arts booster. MaKenna, who is seeking donations toward buying a building she’s earmarked on Santa Fe Drive, hopes the exhibition will give her an opportunity to introduce her plan and its potential to the public. As noted above, MaKenna has planned several events during the show’s August run. Learn more about the venture here.

Artist Statements: Collections and Sets
Urban Mud, 530 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 3, through September 16
Preview Party: Thursday, August 3, 5 to 7 p.m.
First Friday: Friday, August 4, 5 to 8 p.m.
Mary Mackey’s member-based Urban Mud studio/gallery showcases cohesive collections by its own artist cohort for Artist Statements, giving an inside look at who’s doing what back in the studio area. Walk through this exhibition, and you’ll get to know each artist’s style and personal journey in the ceramic arts. Urban Mud is taking advantage of the First Friday weekend to offer a party atmosphere on Thursday and, on crowded First Friday, a second look.
Katy Kidd, Homing
Alto Gallery, RiNo ArtPark, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
Friday, August 4, through August 26
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 6 to 10 p.m.
Katie Kidd radiates a pop sensibility visually, with a one-two punch of political messaging that gives her work a deeper edge. Cartoonish religious figures, commercial values, car culture and capitalism’s wage gap mix freely in combinations of oil and acrylics, auto and spray paint, printmaking inks and enamel on paper, wood, fabric, Yupo, vellum and acetate for a street-ready ethos that gives viewers something to think about. During RedLine’s August 19 Satellite Saturday, Kidd will lead an artist tour through the gallery, and fellow artists Andrew Huffman and Matt Tripodi will offer a painting demonstration and class in building stretcher bars from noon to 4 p.m.
Rebecca Peebles, Felt: Ekphrasis
MiddleState Coffee, 212 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, August 4, through October 30
Rebecca Peebles debuts her felt paintings — composed, 2-D, hangable art. The works also weave in an element of ekphrasis (“a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art,” per Merriam-Webster), as mentioned in the show title. Each image is titled with a short, personal poem — a trail of memories and ideas conveyed in the artwork. Come to MiddleState and ponder this technique over a nice cup of joe.

First Friday Street Festival
Art District on Santa Fe, Santa Fe Drive corridor between 13th and Alameda avenues, from Kalamath to Inca Street
Friday, August 4, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The biggest First Friday of the year in the Art District on Santa Fe falls in sunny August, when Santa Fe Drive is closed to automobile traffic between Sixth and 11th avenues while art-walkers stroll in the streets. The galleries are ready and waiting.

Colfax Art Crawl: Summer Street Party
40 West Arts District, West Colfax corridor, between Lamar Street and Wadsworth Boulevards, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
40 West also has a party planned for First Friday, centered around performances by Soul Penny Circus, a high-flying band of aerialists and acrobats. See below for a sense of what’s happening in 40 West galleries.

Chicano Legacy: The Past Is Present
CHAC Gallery, 1560 Teller Street
Friday, August 4, through August 25
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
Chicano Legacy is the gallery’s last official show in Lakewood before its members look to their new treasured space — at home, again — on Santa Fe Drive. But what a way to go! Artists will explore El Movimiento — the Chicano political movement that grew out of the California grape boycotts of the ’60s under such leaders as César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, sparking action here in Denver later under Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales’s La Raza Unida — and how it has changed over the years. CHAC itself, and Su Teatro, still entrenched on Santa Fe Drive, both have roots in the Chicano movement. As a postscript, CHAC will still keep a studio at the 40 West space, where individual artists can showcase their work, at least for now.
Craig Robb, Silence Inside the Illusion
Tom Mazzullo, Three-Part Inventions
Grant Adams in the Treasure Chest
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, through August 20
Closing Reception: Friday, August 18, 6 to 10 p.m.
Craig Robb and Tom Mazzullo seem to share a fascination for clockwork and how things fit together, though they process it in different ways. Robb’s essential forte lies in delicate opposites, where curved steel dances around unbending wood and glowing LED-lit acrylic sheets sandwich streaks of light between dark wooden blocks, while found objects work their way in between the basic elements. Conversely, Mazzullo, who works in two dimensions but imagines in three, renders depth and gossamer shadows in metalpoint, silverpoint and palladiumpoint. Guest artist Grant Adams, whose drawings and works in other mediums seem to tango between the sacred and the profane should turn Pirate’s Treasure Chest into an interesting adventure. Zip 37 Reunion Show
Kanon Collective, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, through August 28
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Closing Reception: Friday, August 25, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
The cheery co-op Zip 37 Gallery joined what was once the thriving Navajo Street Art District in 1995, not leaving its sunny storefront near the Bug Theatre until 2018, when rising rents and other costs forced the gallery members to disband. Many joined other co-ops, others went out on their own, and Zip became a memory. But now, whether or not you ever visited Zip Gallery, you can relive its time in the spotlight with nearly thirty former members showing small works at Kanon Collective's Zip 37 Reunion Show on First Friday. As you will see, Zip 37 had a deep, deep bench. On Edge
Edge Gallery, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, through August 20
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge debuts this year’s On Edge, a juried show of work considered their best by each artist who made a submission. More than 25 entrants who “push[ed] the boundaries of material and concept,” as requested by Edge, were selected by curator Annie Geimer, the producer/artist liaison at Meow Wolf and the Denver Theatre District’s Understudy artist incubator. A $250 juror’s choice award will be announced at the reception.
SheRa Kelley, Eyes Wide Open
Barbara Veatch, Swept Away
Tierra Lalk, Wonderment
Core Art Space, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, through August 20
Opening Reception: Friday, August 18, 5 to 10 p.m.
Core celebrates August with three member solos, including SheRa Kelley’s repurposed thrift-store art and wildly mixed-media wall assemblages, Barbara Veatch’s bold, abstracted mixed-media landscapes, and Tierra Morton’s stained-glass-like abstracts inspired by the shimmering lights of the Aurora Borealis.
Laurie Hill Gibb: It’s All Aging
André Lippard, Terraforms
Lost: Next Gallery Members Show
Next Gallery, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, August 4, through September 10
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 5 to 10 p.m.
As her show title at Next Gallery implies, Laurie Hill Gibb muses on inner feelings about cycling through life stages, making changes and accepting aging as a part of life. Meanwhile, André Lippard paints the world in lurid landscapes and more serene ones inspired by the Japanese aesthetic. The latest members' show, Lost, runs with the theme.
Untitled: NFS with Phillip Patrick O’Brien
RPO Framing and Gallery, 1588 South Pearl Street
Friday, August 4, through August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
Phillip Patrick O’Brien brings pastel figure drawings to RPO, where they’ll be accompanied by live music, schmoozing, hors d’oeuvres and drinks. It's a pretty way to while away an evening on Pearl Street.
First Friday Closing Event
Westward Gallery, 4400 Tennyson Street
Friday, August 4, 6 to 9 p.m.
Artist Michelle Courier, who’s been running Westward Gallery at the corner of 44th Avenue and Tennyson Street for seven years, decided to close the doors of her brick-and-mortar space at the the end of her lease. It’s time to direct more energy into painting, she says, and the gallery will become an online outlet. Westward officially closes at the end of September; after First Friday in August, and Courier will be most hosting special receptions through the gallery's final weeks, on September 1 and 8, and her own birthday party on September 16. Come by and hang out, buy some art and say goodbye.

Kenzie Sitterud, From, Dawn
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Saturday, August 5, through September 16
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5, 7 to 11 p.m.
In From, Dawn, Kenzie Sitterud (they/them) works their way through the attitudes and moral codes that shape the culture of the American West, noting that it can be fun to wear a ten-gallon hat, but the social backdraft experienced by the square peg within that culture isn’t always as enjoyable. Nonetheless, Sitterud invites gallery-goers to dress Western to the reception, where local go-go dancer Connie Love will be expecting tips of the dollar-bill variety. Later in the show’s run, Sitterud will host an artist talk and live musical performance (details TBA); keep an eye on the website for updates.
Steven Morrell, Enjoy
Bell Projects, 2822 East 17th Avenue
Saturday, August 5, through August 27
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5, 6 to 10 p.m.
Steven Morrell is smitten with the human figure, which he paints in active poses or twisting in space, splashed with brushy colors both hot and cold. A whole constellation of feelings comes attached to these images, from self-loathing to the pinnacle of joy in life; see if you can stare at them long enough to catch the stages in between.

Design and Build 2023: Good Vibrations
Marjorie Park, 6331 South Fiddler's Green Circle, Greenwood Village
Saturday, August 5, through June 14, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 5, 5 to 8 p.m.; free, RSVP here.
The Museum of Outdoor Arts' Design and Build program, which began in 1991 as a high school competition, has changed over the years to now serve as an internship opportunity for college undergrads. It is exactly what it says it is: The interns, mentored by mid-career fellows, learn to design and build site-specific public installations over eight weeks while considering every detail along the way, from concept to teardown. This year, nine students working with artist fellow Erica Rawson and resource artist Walter Ware completed the course, and it’s time for the big reveal at MOA’s outdoor home in Marjorie Park by Fiddler’s Green. Food trucks, a bar and live music will add to the festivities at the free reception.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].