It’s the First Friday of October, Arts Month, and Manitou Springs is hopping.
A young guy jumps off his motorized skateboard, flips up the visor on his helmet and starts playing Bach on one of the town’s outdoor pianos.
Nearby, in the glowing courtyard at the Manitou Art Center, nationally acclaimed folk singer Edie Carey cradles her voice around a tender cover of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird.” And weaving through the crowds of First Friday art-goers, ghost tours head off to the park to enjoy the first real chills of fall.
“During Arts Month, we just do everything we usually do, but bigger,” said Natalie Johnson, director of the Manitou Arts Center.
That’s an understatement. In addition to a blow-out, jam-packed First Friday, Manitou’s Arts Month has featured:
• The MAC’s annual Big, Loud, Silent Auction
• Manitou Elementary School’s “Manitou Monster Project.”
• “Skeleton Craze” shop window displays competition.
• “Cookies with CRANE,” an event to celebrate new outdoor art acquisitions and installations.
• Indigenous People’s Weekend, which included a community potluck, storytelling, poetry and a photo exhibition at the Heritage Center.
October events will culminate Saturday with the running of the 30th Annual Emma Crawford Coffin Races.
Johnson looks at Arts Month as a chance to show the wider region the cultural vibrancy that is Manitou. One of the driving forces behind that vibrancy has been serious investment.
Manitou Springs is one of 30 certified Creative Districts in the state, receiving grant support totaling about $7,000 annually to support the arts. It also is one of those rare communities that taxes itself to support the arts. Created by Manitou voters in 2019, the Manitou Springs Arts, Culture and Heritage Initiative, or MACH, raises about $600,000 a year for arts and cultural organizations, projects and events.
That’s a larger per capita investment per person than Boulder has, funding everything from big cultural entities like the MAC, the Carnegie Library, Miramont Castle and the Heritage Center to public art installations and single events, such as poetry readings and summer activities for kids.
“I think that investment allows us, even though we’re a small town, to have a more thriving cultural environment,” says Audrey Gray, the Creative District director.
Even though the arts in Manitou have had their ups and downs, she has plenty of reasons for optimism.
Here’s a quick look at the Manitou cultural landscape, by medium:
Music
Lulu’s Downstairs, at once a kind of underground music venue and also the most popular and ambitious concert stage that Manitou had seen in decades, closed in January. It would reopen a few months later in downtown Colorado Springs as Lulu’s Downtown.
“The loss of Lulu’s – that was huge,” Johnson said.
The Buffalo Lodge, in No Man’s Land, has taken up some of that slack, offering live music, a mix of local, regional and touring musicians, Wednesdays through Sundays.
The Armadillo Ranch, the Townhouse and Kinfolks also keep the music resonating down the Ave, with tunes further boosted by musical buskers.
And Mona’s Cellar patrons recently enjoyed a blast from the past. Guitarist Doug Zinn joined phenomenal vocalist Kellie Amend, once a regular fixture at Mona’s, re-united for a series of slow sensual standards that went perfectly with a pinot noir.
Performance art
The only standing venue for the performing arts in Manitou, the Iron Springs Chateau, which has been doing melodramas, sing-alongs, parodies, musical revues, closes its fall show, “Rocky Horror Picture Show” on Saturday night (Oct. 26).
Manitou parks have also had summer Shakespeare performances, compliments of Theatreworks, and the Manitou Springs Heritage Center has significantly upped the professionalism of its annual ghost tours, partnering with the fine actors and directors of the Theatre d’Art community players. Their final tours are tonight (Friday, Oct. 25).
Visual art
From all appearances, just looking at galleries, the Manitou art scene might appear fairly static.
Green Horse, the Manitou Art Center, the Commonwheel Artist Co-op (which runs the annual Labor Day art festival), Darpino Studio Gallery, Cherokee’s of Manitou and various gift (and art) shops offer a mix of nature paintings, contemporary works, retro sculptures, art jewelry, and more, as they have for years.
But look beyond the number of galleries and you’ll see growth.
One is the explosion of public art, most of it along Manitou Avenue, thus the aforementioned Cookies with CRANE event.
“It’s in the 50 range,” Gray said. “This year, we put in three new sculptures and our fourth and fifth murals.”
A bear, a guitar, a crescent moon, a light bulb, a question mark and various abstractions along with new murals set up on the 400 block highlight a strip chock full of public art.
Much of those efforts have been coordinated through a group of art-advocating volunteers called CRANE (Creative Alliance Manitou Springs).
Another place you can see the growth is in the Manitou Art Center’s studios and maker’s space.
In 2021, the maker’s space had 85 member artists. Now it has about 2,000.
Of course, they’re not all there at once.
“It’s like a gym,” Johnson said. “Some use it more than others. Some are using it for, say, fixing windows in their home. Hobbyists come and go, and we have plenty of serious artists. The ceramic studio is the number 1 used station. It’s just rocking.”
Elsewhere in the MAC, 30 artists regularly teach classes, and 45 artists rent studio space there at a fraction of market price.
“The bottom line is that we’re paying more artists and teachers than ever before,” Johnson said.
One of the many beneficiaries of those classes and that access to a maker’s space is up-and-coming glass artist Jordan Fitzgerald, who went from novice to professional in a few months, and is now making a name for himself in the art world.
“I took a free studio certification
(at the MAC) last June with Jannine Scott,” he said. “All I had to bring were some supplies and my creativity… Jannine saw how voracious I was to learn how to work with the glass and encouraged me on the daily.”
He spent hours and hours at the torch, joined the ISGB (International Society of Glass Beadmakers), and made connections that continue to expand his career.
He’s done demos for a glass group in Arizona, and recently did one to raise money for the group Beads of Courage, which supports children with serious illnesses.
“Never would I have thought this is where I would be after those three measly beads from my certification class,” he said. “All of this thanks to the resources and encouragement from everyone at the MAC.”
The vibe
Beyond the individual media, you can’t talk about the arts scene in Manitou without mentioning the Thursday Drumcircles, 6 to 9 p.m.-ish through September.
At the inner circle, the drums in every variety, kick out a simple beat that grows in its complexity and syncopation as more drummers join. Around them, the aroma of ganja settles over Memorial Park as the hula hoopers, fire dancers, jugglers and humans old, young and everywhere in between move, shake and shrug off the almost-done work week.
This is the heart of Manitou, the creative spark of the town made manifest. It gets no tax dollars. Nobody makes a dime off it. But it remains this essential, expressive place where all are welcome, whether joining the dance, beating something or just passing with your dog and saying, “hmmm. That’s something.”
