STATE OF THE ARTS: OVERVIEW

Welcome to The Gazette’s first State of the Arts section, a comprehensive look at the local theater, art, dance, film and music scenes. With the Fine Arts Center poised to unveil its dramatic expansion, the wider arts scene shows signs of a budding cultural renaissance. Can a city that lost its artistic vision 60 years ago get it back?

Many believe it can. Here, you’ll meet some of the artists, musicians, actors and dancers working to make that happen.

GET CONNECTED IN THE ARTS

Whether you sing in the shower and want to share your talent with the masses, you’re a professional artist wanting to book an exhibition or you’re a theater lover looking for tickets to next season’s shows, you’ll find what you want at peakradar.com/org/listing — which has links to 154 local arts organizations. Who knew we had so many?

A stretched canvas

Concentrating art in central cluster could benefit community

The Thursday reopening of the Fine Arts Center will mark the start of a new era in Colorado Springs’ artistic history.

Along with Colorado College’s Cornerstone Arts Building — scheduled to open next year — the city’s artistic infrastructure will dramatically improve. Colorado Springs appears poised to escape the two-steps-forward, one-step-back pattern that has characterized its artistic development.

“This expansion of the Fine Arts Center will change Colorado Springs,” says Michael De Marsche, the center’s president and chief executive officer.

The city has an illustrious artistic legacy from the 1920s to the 1940s. The Broadmoor Art Academy — the Fine Arts Center’s precursor — attracted teachers of international renown. Colorado College hosted figures the stature of novelist Thomas Mann, the Budapest String Quartet, and modern dance pioneer Hanya Holm. It’s not unreasonable to say that in 1936 — the year the Fine Arts Center opened — Colorado Springs was in a better position to become Santa Fe than Santa Fe was.

But Colorado Springs’s population is about 11 times as large as it was then, and the arts community hasn’t kept pace.

It’s not that the arts are moribund here. A new study by Americans for the Arts shows that the arts generate more economic activity here than in most comparable-size cities.

In 2005 — the year of the study data — arts and cultural organizations and their audiences in Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, and the Tri-Lakes area had $94.7 million in direct economic impact — more than 50 percent above the average of $60.3 million for similar-size cities such as Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Mesa, Arizona.

Locally, arts generate 2,639 fulltime equivalent jobs. Nearly 1.5 million people attended regional arts events.

But to some extent, this means that the arts are worse off elsewhere, not that they’re thriving here. Colorado Springs has only a handful of highend art galleries and only five major theater companies. Its symphony orchestra struggles financially even as it earns national praise. A full-time professional dance company is

still a dream.

And longtime residents recall that promises of new eras haven’t always panned out. The presence of the Fine Arts Center didn’t prevent the regional artistic decline that began in the 1950s. The Pikes Peak Center, opened in 1984, was another watershed event that — while significantly improving the region’s performing arts — didn’t turn the city into an arts magnet.

It’s even conceivable that the building boom could hurt arts organizations by pulling funds away from arts groups’ day-to-day operations.

“How do you weigh human resources against bricks and mortar?” asks Michael Hanson, concertmaster for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. “When funding a symphony orchestra or a string quartet, it’s hard for the funding community to see the same tangible legacy as when you’re putting up a building that’s going to be seen for a long time.”

History bears out Hanson’s concern. The Fine Arts Center has had several periods of underuse. In fact, when De Marsche was brought in in 2003 — hired for his ability to raise money and expand facilities — he quickly realized that the most urgent priority was increasing attendance.

“The board told me they wanted the building expanded,” he says — “and I told them they weren’t filling the building they had.”

To turn that around, in 2004 De Marsche brought in a major exhibit by Dale Chihuly, arguably the most popular living artist, that drew a record-breaking 80,000-some visitors and more than doubled the museum’s membership. That success convinced De Marsche that expansion was viable.

The Pikes Peak Center has been a mixed blessing. When it opened, it gave the city, for the first time, a world-class large concert space.

But the city’s performing arts organizations have had trouble filling the 2,000-seat main stage, and two of its major original tenants — the Colorado Springs Symphony Orchestra and the

Colorado Opera Festival — subsequently went belly up and had to regroup as different organizations.

But De Marsche isn’t the only one who thinks 2007 will be different than 1936 or 1984, because it has a broader base.

The openings of the Fine Arts Center and the Pikes Peak Center took place in a relative artistic vacuum. In contrast, the Fine Arts Center expansion is just the most dramatic of several recent improvements, capital and otherwise.

It was preceded by a $5 million renovation of the Pikes Peak Center, and the move of TheatreWorks from a shabby university performance space to the fancy Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater. Three dance companies — Ormao Dance Company, NorthRidge and Daza Arts — have moved into larger facilities since fall. Even the Fine Arts Center, in the middle of its renovation, opened another space — downtown’s FAC Modern.

Nor are all the improvements brick and mortar. The Colorado Festival of World Theatre has brought theater to a new level, and other theater companies have accepted the challenge: The Fine Arts Center’s recent production of “Into the Woods” featured three Broadway veterans.

Cottonwood Artists’ School became an overnight success when it moved into its fourth home. The local Art on the Streets program recently opened its largest exhibit ever, not long after a major sculpture/fountain by local artist Bill Burgess was installed in America the Beautiful Park.

“Citizens are beginning to demand art,” De Marsche says. “They’re starting to say, instead of a blah corner there, let’s put a piece of art on it. Now, how do we improve the quality?”

With the formation of COPPeR — the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region — there’s finally an organization supplying an overall artistic vision for the region. One of the first fruits is PeakRadar.com, a Web site that helps link audiences to performing arts organizations.

Eve Tilley, president of the Pikes Peak Arts Council, sees a difference in the local creative class compared with that of years past.

“The youth are coming up into positions of power, and they’re very creative,” she says. “The fact that the youth are hanging around to help make a difference is another indication of the health of the arts community.”

And some improvements are invisible to residents. Over the past few years, Colorado Springs has developed so much dance talent that the Broadway Theater Project and Royal Caribbean Cruises hold auditions in town twice a year.

The fact is, creating a thriving environment for the visual and performing arts is a never-ending struggle. Nonprofit groups are rarely so well-funded that they’re not in danger during a recession. Things always look worse close up than they do at a distance.

Jonathan Guise, director of NorthRidge Dance, grew up in town, and sees how much the scene has improved. He believes it’s ready for an explosion — though he counsels patience.

“I’m here for the long haul,” he says. “Not three or five years, but seven to ten years.”

And once an improved situation gets established, a positive feedback loop could develop.

“A museum will inspire galleries, and galleries will inspire people to come and collect art,” says De Marsche.

Tilley also thinks that the Fine Arts Center will drive improvements all across the arts scene.

“People talk about a tipping point,” she says. “We might have tumbled over that tipping point without realizing it.”

THE CHALLENGES

The transformation of the Fine Arts Center shows that Colorado Springs faces no inherent demographic issues that can’t be overcome with vision, determination and community support. But efforts to turn it into a major arts community face some challenges that not all other cities face.

- A sprawling community: Arts thrive in concentrated districts, whether it’s the old 42nd Street in New York or Canyon Road in Santa Fe. But it’s 15 miles from Daza Arts — Zetta Alderman’s dance studio east of Powers Boulevard — to the Business of Art Center in Manitou Springs.

- Few venues: Currently, Colorado Springs is short on high-quality performing arts spaces and the high-end galleries that attract cultural tourists. For the performing arts, there are no professional venues between the 400-seat Fine Arts Center and the 2,000-seat Pikes Peak Center.

- Lack of inexpensive studio space: Artists thrive on the stimulation of other artists nearby. There was a creative burst in the visual arts community when Cottonwood Artists’ School moved into the old utilities administration building — adding more than 30 studio spaces in the region. (That space is scheduled for demolition under a new downtown redevelopment plan.) Not many such spaces are likely to become available, especially on the west side, where the majority of artists live.

- A relatively transient population: According to the 2000 Census, 40.1 percent of Colorado Springs residents lived in the same place for five years or more, versus 44.1 percent statewide and 54.1 percent nationally. That makes it harder to get citizens to feel ownership of their arts institutions.

- Minimal governmental support: Regardless of one’s views on government support for the arts, it can provide a safety net for nonprofit arts organizations, smoothing out the natural economic peaks and valleys.

THE ADVANTAGES

Turning Colorado Springs into a major arts city is a challenge. But the city has some advantages, both in attracting visual and performing artists and in attracting the cultural tourists that make for a thriving arts town.

- Strongly rooted institutions: Historically, the city’s artistic leaders in Colorado Springs were the Fine Arts Center and Colorado College. Both had retreated from this in recent decades but now are reclaiming stronger and more central roles.

- Some signs of concentration: The majority of the city’s galleries are strung on or near Colorado Avenue between downtown and Manitou Springs, with concentrations at each end and in the center at Old Colorado City. The 2008 opening of the Cornerstone Arts Building at Colorado College will provide an additional high-quality performance space across the street from the Fine Arts Center that will be available during the summer, if the college so chooses.

- Good venues: The city’s performing arts venues, though scarce, are high-quality and diverse.

- Natural beauty: The region attracts visual artists — and tourists, who would probably stay longer and spend more if the arts scene were more vibrant.

- Relative affordability: As of March 31, the cost of living in Colorado Springs was 6.9 percent below the national average. That makes it more appealing to performing artists and visual artists, who, though a key component of prosperous communities, are often low-paid.

- The halo effect of Denver: There’s lots of talent nearby for Colorado Springs’ arts organizations to use. Conversely, Denver provides venues for locally based visual and performing artists. Finally, it’s a major transportation hub, facilitating visitors traveling to Colorado Springs.

- Committed private support: The performing and visual arts benefit from a cadre of committed supporters such as the El Pomar Foundation, the Bee Vradenburg Foundation, the Gay & Lesbian Fund of Colorado, and The Gazette. This helps ameliorate the lack of local governmental support.

- History: Colorado Springs was the center of the visual arts in Colorado. It would be a matter of rebuilding that reputation, not creating it from scratch.

ARTS

Of all Colorado Springs’ fine arts, the visual arts scene appears to be furthest from its storied past. In the 1920s and ’30s, artists such as John Carlson, Birger Sandzen and Boardman Robinson painted and taught in Colorado Springs. Students from the Broadmoor Art Academy and its successor, the Fine Arts Center, spread the city’s fame all over the country.

The art school began to slip in the 1940s and fell into the doldrums in the 1950s. As a teaching center, Colorado Springs has never recovered.

But even in its glory years, the city’s reputation was narrowly based: Artists were trained here, not employed here. It was never a great gallery town where art collectors came to purchase art. Nor was it ever a great museum town. And the Fine Arts Center’s expansion doesn’t yet make it either of these things — but it does give residents reason to hope.

The expansion completes the transformation from community center to art museum that Michael De Marsche began when he arrived as president and chief executive officer in 2003. For the first time, Colorado Springs can be the destination of major international shows.

Even outside the Fine Arts Center, the city’s artistic trajectory has been quietly heading upward for several years. Cottonwood Artists’ School has helped spark interest in arts downtown — though there’s a danger that the momentum will be lost when the school has to move to make way for a redevelopment plan, which will happen within two years. There are energetic new curators at Colorado College and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs — Jessica Hunter Larsen and Christopher Lynn, respectively.

There’s also been an influx of energetic young arts promoters such as Function Flux’s Gwin Coleman, Smokemuse’s Don Goede III, Rubbish Gallery’s Jon Lindstrom and Carlita Trujillo, and OpticalReverb’s Jason Zacharias.

The gallery scene, taken as a whole, isn’t bad compared with similarsize cities. It appears worse because galleries are scattered across the city instead of concentrated where customers can easily stroll from one to another.

If you paint, there’s probably an arts organization to help guide and inspire you, whether it’s the Pikes Peak Plein Air Painters, the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society, the Pikes Peak Pastel Society or the Colorado Springs Art Guild.

Arts events are also thriving, whether it’s the downtown Art on the Streets program — which recently opened its largest exhibit yet — the Pikes Peak Arts Fest, which attracted thousands of people to the plaza in front of the Pikes Peak Center in June, or the First Friday Art Walks, which are increasing the visibility of arts from the Depot Arts District to Old Colorado City.

Only Manitou Springs’ Business of Art Center seems to have missed out on the new energy. But if it isn’t the buzzing hive of activity that it was a few years ago under Rodney Wood, neither is it the nearbankrupt organization that it was a few years before Wood.

Development of the Depot Arts District is one of the keys to a rapid revival. The idea of a permanent artists’ district in the area near the Colorado Avenue bridge began in 2001 as the quixotic dream of photographer Elaine Bean. Several times it appeared to be on the verge of success, before failing in 2006 — so demoralizing Bean that she left town. Now, a revised version of the district is moving forward with the support of developer Chuck Murphy.

It would be radically different than the low-rent hub Bean conceived — Cottonwood owners Kay Jeansonne and Peggy Vicaro aren’t sure their studio model could afford the rent — but it would still give the city a third downtown arts anchor, along with the Fine Arts Center and the FAC Modern.

And if that happens, the sky’s the limit.

- MARK ARNEST