Blurring the Line: Form, Function, & Design
Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, Arvada
June 6 through August 25
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 6, 6 to 9 p.m.
If you leave the Arvada Center’s Blurring the Line: Form, Function, & Design exhibit with a burning desire to redecorate your home and dress up your closet, don’t blame the exhibition’s thirty-plus artists. They’ve just been making art, like they always do, in the form of furniture, pottery, lighting, wearable art and handmade jewelry that runs circles around the ordinary — like Kristin Stransky’s 3D-printed plastic necklaces, Jesse Mathes’s outrageous brass Elizabethan collars, or Anne Bossert’s patchwork dyed-maple cabinets and credenzas.
Joseph Coniff and Marina Kassianidou team up for a pop-up show at Georgia Art Space.
Marina Kassianidou, Joseph Coniff
Georgia Art Space, 952 Mariposa Street
June 6 through 9
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 6, 6 to 9 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Friday, June 7, 6 to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, June 8 and 9, 1 to 5 p.m.
Subtle works by Joseph Coniff and Marina Kassianidou work together in (In)visible Hand, a weekend exhibition at the Georgia Art Space garage gallery using minimal materials to tell a story about what happens when craftsmanship is overshadowed by mass production. The title refers to the economist Adam Smith’s laissez-faire, self-directed free-market approach to doing business, as opposed to a slow local-business economy that builds community. Which would you choose? In addition to the exhibition, Georgia will host a creative-spaces panel discussion at 4 p.m. on June 8 and a literary reading at 8 p.m. with Tameca Coleman, Adrienne Garbini, Alex DeCarli and Emily Stebbins on June 9.
April Cannon and Sharon Strasburg, Regeneration
Mai Wyn Fine Art, 744 Santa Fe Drive
June 6 through July 13
Exibition Preview: Thursday, June 6, 5 to 8 p.m.
The duo of ceramics artist April Cannon and monotype printmaker Sharon Strasburg mingle abstract works inspired by landscape and the natural world at Mai Wyn this month, beginning with a special preview event on June 6. Additional receptions follow on First Fridays in June and July, and during the Art District on Santa Fe’s Third Friday Collectors’ Preview on June 21.
Its Honor Is Hereby Pledged: Gina Adams
CU Art Museum, 1085 18th Street, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder
June 6 through November 2
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 15, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Artist Gina Adams, who claims Ojibwa, Lakota and European heritage, sets out to heal the inherited trauma experienced by indigenous people in four major installations at the CU Art Museum, most notably including work from her ongoing Broken Treaty Quilts series, in which she reproduces portions of broken treaties between indigenous tribes and the U.S. government in quilt patterns. Also on view: Ancestor Medallions, comprising porcelain busts of ancestors, new work inspired by historic maps, and a photomural, all of which divert rote white American history to tell alternative indigenous stories. In conjunction with the opening, Gina Adams, Crisosto Apache, Natalie Diaz and Roger Reeves of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Summer Writing Program will read at 7:30 p.m. June 15 at Duane Physics and Astrophysics, Room G1B20, 2000 Colorado Avenue, Boulder.
Make, Believe Bakery unveils its new look, with art by Lares Feliciano, Ariana Romero, Frankie Toan and Katy Zimmerman, indoors and out.
Make, Believe Bakery
Make, Believe Bakery, 214 East 13th Avenue
Thursday, June 6, 6 to 9 p.m.
Friends and artists Lares Feliciano, Ariana Romero, Frankie Toan and Katy Zimmerman were commissioned to create a new look inside and out for Make, Believe Bakery, 214 East 13th Avenue (part of a vegan/vegetarian triumvirate with Watercourse and City, O’City restaurants), and now they’re ready to unveil the whimsical, Alice-in-Wonderland-like results. The bakery will also be introducing its new soft-serve concept called "wizards" and a happy-hour policy at the reception, offering $2 off all items between 6 and 9 p.m. Have a look and a bite.
Nth Dimension
MCA Denver, 1485 Delgany Street
June 7 through September 1
Opening Celebration: Friday, June 7, 5 to 11 p.m., $8 to $50
The big to-do this summer at MCA Denver revolves around beloved Denver pattern painter Clark Richert, who seems to have art in shows all over the Front Range this month. But MCA will give an extra nod to Richert’s role as a mentor and educator over twenty years at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design with a side show, Nth Dimension, a display of work by notable former students influenced by Richert's wisdom and philosophies. Nth Dimension will be on view during the big opening bash on June 7 and throughout the summer-long run of Richert’s MCA retrospective.
Nathan Abels and Daniel Granitto, For the Time, Being.
ReCreative Denver, 765 Santa Fe Drive
June 7 through 28
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
Nathan Abels and Daniel Granitto, two artists with atmospheric technique and a way of looking between the lines of seemingly simple scenes, share space at ReCreative around a common theme: Everything is connected. Think contemplative epiphanies and, sometimes, strange light.
Animals2
Alto Gallery, 4345 West 41st Avenue
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
Everyone loves an art menagerie in a gallery, particularly when partial proceeds from sales benefit a pet-friendly cause. Artist s. legg reprises his Animals show at Alto with a second round of clever animal-inspired work, with help a from a bunch of his friends, who pitch in with works of their own. The nonprofit beneficiary is Planned Pethood International, which is just up the street from the gallery. Who’s in legg’s pack? Sabin Aell, Janelle Anderson, Koko Bayer, Susan Blake, Tom Bond, Raymundo Muñoz, Summer Sleight, John Van Horn and Emily Wilcox.
Grown-up?
Birds, Botanicals, Land and Man
Foolproof Contemporary Art, 3240 Larimer Street
June 7 through July 20
Friday, June 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
RSVP in advance at eventbrite.com
Foolproof starts off the summer with another of its big group shows, this one all about growth and change, personal and otherwise, from more than three dozen points of view. Yes, it’s a cliché to say there’ll be something for everyone, but it’s true. And there’s more: A smaller show, Birds, Botanicals, Land and Man, will be tucked into the rear gallery at Foolproof.
Tracy Weil, Produce
RiNo Made, Zeppelin Station, 3501 Wazee Street
June 7 through 30
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 9 p.m.
RiNo Art District president and co-founder Tracy Weil is also an artist and a dedicated urban farmer — not to mention he created RiNo Made, the Zeppelin Station storefront that showcases artists living and making work in the trendy art district. All of Weil's interests will come together this weekend when he takes over RiNo Made himself with Produce, an art show all about growing veggies in the inner city.
Joshua Ware, "total animal soup," acrylic paint, gel medium, varnish, gel transfers (toner ink), archival adhesive and paper on wood.
Joshua Ware
Lighthouse Writers Workshop, 1515 Race Street
June 7 through 21
Pictures and books go hand in hand, and that’s good enough reason to have an art show at a literary festival. It’s been an occasional tradition during Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s annual Lit Fest, and this year, the Hey Hue portable pop-up gallery has come through with Text Me, a book-inspired show that will hang at Lighthouse’s home inside the historic Milheim mansion throughout the two-week fest. Take in a free reading and see the show; a portion of art sales will benefit Lighthouse’s fellowships and special programs.
Dreamlogic II
Trio: Daniel Shaffer, Cleonique Hilsaca and Duyen Tran
Helikon Gallery & Studios, 3675 Wynkoop Streets
June 7 through July 5
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
Helikon gets downright dreamy for June with a big group show that follows dreams from their vivid beginnings to the moment when REM sleep ends and they begin to fade away. In the annex gallery, find works by the pop-y trio of Cleonique Hilsaca, Daniel Shaffer and Duyen Tran, who derive their imagery from the worlds of anime and storybook illustration.
Laura McCracken, Return to Self
Kim Anderson, Revisitation
Christy Lynne Seving, The Devil’s Gateway
Next Gallery, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
June 7 through 23
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 6 to 10 p.m.
Next presents a trio of its own, including work by gallery guest Kim Anderson, known for her imaginative clay and mixed-media wall sculptures; Christy Lynne Seving’s gallery of “scandalous women"; and fused-glass sculpture by Laura McCracken.
JC Milner, Cognitive Diversity
Balefire Goods, 7417 Grandview Avenue, Arvada
June 7 through July 14
Opening Reception: Friday, June 7, 5 to 8 p.m.
RSVP in advance at eventbrite.com
Balefire, an emporium of sublime handcrafted jewelry in Olde Town Arvada, hosts artist JC Milner, who cuts painted panels into house shapes to create wall sculptures that celebrate our differences. While you’re there, take time to stroll the neighborhood and see what First Friday in Olde Town is all about.
Jonathan Saiz: Colorado Coastal
K Contemporary, 1412 Wazee Street
June 8 through July 6
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 8, 6 to 9 p.m.
Jonathan Saiz, who is already riding high this year with a mind-boggling installation of 10,000 tiny paintings at the Denver Art Museum, goes both big and small in 1,000 canvases imagining a Colorado surrounded by oceans and changed by climate change for his first solo at K Contemporary. What if?
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]. For more events this weekend, see our 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.
