RINO Art Safari

It was a beautiful day for the semi-annual RINO art safari. RINO is the new up-and-coming art district in Denver, and there is a lot going on is this neighborhood! Galleries and artist studios are springing up everywhere, retrofitting old factory warehouses in a post-industrial landscape. It's no wonder these massive, old buildings sprawled neath the dramatic-denver skies are attracting artists from all over; however, as an artist, I have yet to hear of affordable studio spaces, an indication of how popular this area has become.

I embarked on the art safari with three friends at around 1:20 p.m. to explore this undercover portion of Denver, known as RINO, where many galleries and artist studios are not regularly open to the public.  Orange balloons floated over the galleries and studios that had opened that day, and we saw quite a number of spaces.  It was pretty cool to walk through the private studios where artists configure their ideas and execute their works.

After the safari, we had a glorious bike ride home.  The atmosphere felt damp from a light rain earlier, sunlight streamed through bright blue patches of sky, and the air smelled of smoke, pot, and fresh spring flowers.

Robischon Gallery Art Opening

Despite a long day, I mustered up the motivation to attend my second art opening since being back in Denver (2 weeks now!) at the Robischon Gallery, and boy am I glad I went! I got to witness first hand Denver’s art scene at its finest, or so it seemed, with those trendy thick framed glasses perched on discerning faces (I was wondering where these people were hiding!), coiffed bobs, cool shoes, crowds of all different types of people, and art galore!

After a brief look around, much of the art screamed “this is the age of digitization!”, and other works suggested “hibbity jibbity”  (I have no idea, they were in German).  There were some fabulous paintings of grotesque, mutated faces, dead birds, and a plethora of other objects that would take many moments of pondering to understand the significance. 

After I left the art opening, I was able to enjoy a beautiful evening gliding through the streets on my bike, soaking in the cool air and filling my sights with the dramatic night sky and illuminated high rises.  I even took the long way home and passed many people strolling on the sidewalks, enjoying the evening as I was, people who had not gone to the art opening or even knew about it.  I found that it was quite easy to live in Denver for almost two years knowing nothing about the Denver art scene beyond cafes and street art.  But there  is definitely a scene, compelling and beautiful, as I found out tonight.