Thatβs the world local writer Jill Carstens recalls so eloquently in her new memoir, Getting Over Vivian, which briefly touches on that volcanic era of Denverβs underground art communities as a backdrop to her own personal story.
Back then, the streets of what is now known as LoHi were quiet and empty, but artists were teeming inside the hulking brick buildings lining Platte Street, claiming studio space with few restrictions. Photographer and art-scene historian Mark Sink took over the original Samsonite factory at 1553 Platte Street, where he rented 10,000 square feet for $150 a month. After leaving Denver for Andy Warholβs Factory in New York, he later returned to Platte Street to host βwild-ass partiesβ with "punk-rockers and debutantes" for Interview magazine, Sink told us in 2016.
βDozens of artists got their start there,β Sink recalls. βPhil Bender and his Pirate Gallery hosted my first show when it was located at 16th and Market streets.β Pirate later relocated not so far from there on the Northside, where the Navajo Street Art District grew up in a block of buildings secured by Pirates Reed Weimer and Chandler Romeo. When the block became too expensive for co-ops, an exodus to Lakewood decimated the Northsideβs hold on galleries.
But in the present, the whisper of a renaissance is blowing back into Highland, led by BRDG Project, which secured and moved into an incredible, evolving 8,000-square-foot space on Tejon Street last August. So far, so good, says BRDG co-director Brett Matarazzo, who is delighted to have seen so many people drop by the gallery just to see whatβs going on inside.
Early on in BRDG Projectβs stay in LoHi, Carol Keller β whoβd once run a photography gallery on Boulder Street β stepped in, asking, βWhoβs doing this?β and launched into a lesson about the significance of LoHi in the Denver art scene. βI didnβt know the history,β Matarazzo recalls. βShe really gave us an idea. She showed us the artifacts.β
Ironically, BRDG Project began fundraising and searching for the right space after losing what was a temporary space on Platte Street in the spring of 2022. Kellerβs memories gave Matarazzo the idea that north Denver should be the galleryβs next stop.
To Matarazzo, who lives in the Highland neighborhood, it only made sense to sidestep into the Northside. βMy happy idea was that the neighborhood needed it back β art has to be in these neighborhoods,β Matarazzo says. βIn the first week here, I met three neighbors down the street I had never met before. Within a few weeks of opening, people started stopping in. My premise was that we needed a place here for people to congregate.
βPerhaps we jumped in with more passion than sense,β he adds. The new building, which last served as a church, was funky but βset up perfectly for us. We have two big garage doors up front that just say, βCome in,ββ Matarazzo notes.
Envisioned as more than an art gallery, BRDG Project has already made efforts to add elements of performance to complement art shows. And beyond those open doors, the gallery has ample studio space, three exhibition rooms and a yet-untouched, 2,000-square-foot garage perfect for renting to an arts organization.
Matarazzo has also scoped out other art studios in the area β including NINE dot ARTS, Jack Ludlumβs photography studio, a new clay space called City Mud and more β that might be interested in joining BRDG for competition-free Second Friday openings to unite the neighborhood.
![](https://media1.westword.com/den/imager/u/blog/18840421/1_12_brdg-project-pirate-gallery-flyers.jpg?cb=1705103596)
BRDG Project remembers Pirate and Northside co-ops with a throwback exhibition.
Courtesy of Jill Hadley Hooper
Matarazzo credits Carstens as a mover and shaker in getting the exhibition off the ground. As part of the opening reception, sheβll read relatable excerpts from Getting Over Vivian. βShe captures that sense of loss, memory and history of wonderful, simple times,β he says. Carstens was also instrumental in gathering artists from the period to participate.
The show of new and old works by founding artists will also include a living wall of posters and ephemera. Artists Weimer and Romeo have brought a bounty of history and memories to the exhibit, as well as Sink and Pirate founder Phil Bender. "People recognize the emotional and fundamental history of Navajo Street through Phil," says Matarazzo.
Not only are old exhibition street fliers and materials included, but Matarazzo suggests surprise artifacts might include the original door to Pirate, from when it was an βArt Oasis,β as well as the defunct Patsyβs Inn marquee from down the block on Navajo Street.
Itβs also important to note that the show is inclusive of artists from the Chicano movement, which was centered around La Raza Park in the β60s and β70s and the original Chicano Humanities and Arts Council gallery. To that end, artists Arlette Lucero and the late Stevon Lucero and muralist Jerry Jaramillo all have artworks in Roots of an Era.
βItβs necessary for a new group of artists to show how great it is to know where you've come from,β Matarazzo says. βSo we did the heavy lifting and included the Northsideβs Chicano art history, too. Having essentially grown up here, Iβm interested in knowing how all the original cultures β Italians, Chicanos, artists β melded with one another. How did they co-exist?β
Itβs all a primer in learning how to get along in the same neighborhood in 2024.
Roots of an Era: Mixtape to the Old North Denver Art Scene, Friday, January 12, through February 4. Opening reception: Friday, January 12, 6 to 10 p.m. (reading by Jill Carstens at 7:30 p.m.). Westword editor Patricia Calhoun will moderate an artist panel discussion at 5 p.m. Saturday, January 20. BRDG Project, 3300 Tejon Street, brdgproject.com.