First Friday Art Walk should be the most wonderful evening of the month, but without proper planning, it can turn into a mad dash across the city to hit each of your favorite galleries. Scrolling through social media the morning after, you’ll realize you missed out on an opening reception party in Manitou Springs or a deep, philosophical discussion at an obscure gallery you’ve never heard of.
We’ve highlighted four can’t-miss exhibits from Manitou Springs, downtown Colorado Springs, Old Colorado City and the Knob Hill neighborhood to help you plan out your First Friday.
Manitou Springs
Liz McCombs sculpts hybrids. The resulting creatures, fitted with modifications from the plants and animals, look like evolutions of the human species from a post-industrial future.
McCombs’ art materials range from bones and antlers to plastic bags to wasp nests. Just how she survived obtaining some of these materials is an insider secret.
“I always joke that it’s amazing I don’t get hit by a car, because when I go on walks, I’m looking down to pick up some treasure,” laughed McCombs. “There is nothing that I see anywhere around me that doesn’t have the potential to be turned into a sculpture. Nothing is safe.”
McCombs has been creating these sculptures for eight years, using them to embrace one of her biggest fears: change. After all, in nature, the caterpillar is no less beautiful than the butterfly.
“I’ve always liked that phrase, ‘the human animal,'” McCombs said. “Adding horns and [animal] ears just makes that a little bit more obvious.”
McCombs’ exhibit “At the Edge of the Woods” will be on display at Green Horse Gallery throughout June.
While you’re in Manitou Springs, be sure to visit Commonwheel Artists Co-op for their pastel “Rocky Mountain Reverie” show and the Manitou Art Center for Leah Gonzalez’s multimedia exhibit “Flowers Shall Grow, And I Am In Them.”
Downtown
Last year, Jess Preble bought a 1987 Suzuki Samurai for $350, replacing everything from the radiator to the windshield until it was in working condition.
Preble’s new exhibit of oil paintings, “Salvage Title,” makes parallels between disused, disheveled vehicles and humans rebuilding their lives after grief.
Each painting references photos taken during Preble’s grieving process.
Paintings of plants, bedsheets and cats are odes to the daily chores that guide us through grief.
Meanwhile, “Acceptance, 59 Pins.” shows the lifeless body of Preble’s pet tarantula, taxidermied and set in place with pins. The subject of “Bargaining” is a horse skull, gifted to Preble by her father, stuffed with Christmas lights. “Depression” depicts a spectral glimpse Preble caught of herself in a mirror in the middle of the night.
Though “Salvage Title” is intimately vulnerable, Preble hopes the emotions her artwork invokes are universally relatable.
“I realized that the grieving process actually isn’t that personal because everyone’s going through it,” Preble explained. “When I’m grieving, it’s not just about me. Nothing is about me. We’re all part of the ecosystem that is living on planet Earth as human beings.”
“Salvage Title” will be on display at Auric Gallery throughout June. While you’re there, be sure to check out “a.muse,” a figurative show featuring over 50 local and regional artists. And when you’re done at Auric, swing by Cottonwood Center for the Arts for “Self-Starter,” a group show of artwork inspired by selfies.
Knob Hill
The Knob Hill neighborhood is quickly becoming a First Friday hotspot.
Hidden away in the basement of Platte Furniture, Platte Collections feels more like an eccentric collector’s treasure trove than a traditional gallery. In May, featured artist Arionna Goffinet sold out her “Zodiac” collection. In June, Platte Collections will feature Dylan Montanio, who paints wildlife against vibrant, impressionistic backgrounds.
A few doors down the road of Platte Collections is Shutter & Strum, a community arts center serving marginalized youth. Shutter & Strum’s Disruptor Gallery often features countercultural work you may not find in a traditional gallery. In June, they’ll be featuring a range of LGBTQ+ artists from the Pikes Peak region, with a live hip-hop poetry performance by Stoney Bertz on First Friday.
Photographer and fashion designer Aaron Graves is just one of the show’s exhibiting artists. Graves submitted five male figure studies captured over the span of 11 years (2010-2021).
Male figure studies are often seen as inherently homoerotic, and while Graves’ work is certainly sensual, his aim as a photographer was to emphasize “confidence and being comfortable in one’s own skin.” The comfortable body language of the subjects makes it clear that the shoots were liberating on both sides of the camera.
One of the photos, “The Lovers,” depicts a gay couple wrapped in a passionate embrace. Graves still remembers the adverse reactions he got when he showed the portrait at his senior show at UCCS in 2012.
“When I look at [my photos] now, I’m excited to show them off, and I don’t have the same apprehension I would have about 10 years ago,” Graves said.
As for what to expect in the rest of the Pride show, Graves answered, “You’re going to get a lot of different voices, different techniques, different styles, different approaches to the same topic of identity.”
Old Colorado City
After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Robert Lococo could paint lifelike birds, but it wasn’t until he started sculpting “potato birds” – oversimplified blobs with beaks – that his artistry really came to life.
Lococo’s education had so consistently pushed him to infuse his work with some biting commentary or heartfelt message that he’d lost sight of what made him fall in love with art in the first place: the whimsy.
In his latest exhibit, “Bubblegum Wrapper,” Lococo uses bronze, woodblock printmaking and paint to depict a cast of quirky animal characters: a grumpy pufferfish, two raccoons tumbling off a branch in the dead of night and a terrier giving some serious side-eye. One impossibly contorting Dachshund appears as the subject of an M.C. Escher homage.
No matter the medium, Lococo’s characters have a cartoonish quality that could only have been created by an artist in touch with their inner child. As Lococo put it, “As a kid, you’re animating life, as opposed to mimicking it.”
“Bubblegum Wrapper” will be on display at Surface Gallery throughout June, along with experimental exhibits “Running with Wolves” by Dinah Mann and “Liberation” by David Vincent Gonzalez.
