Fine Arts Center

Block Printing
2022-09-22 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Denver) | Bemis School of Art, 818 Pelham Pl, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Ages 6-9. Learn how to create prints by carving into Styrofoam. You will be introduced to the art of printmaking and learn about lines, patterns, and contrast. Explore printing on varied materials, such as paper and fabric, as well as how to use found objects in printing with ink.

Free Art Car Painting Events
2022-10-15 09:00 - 12:00 | Bemis School of Art, 818 Pelham Pl, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Have you ever seen an art covered car driving around town and wished you could create mobile art? Well now’s your chance to learn the steps to creating art on wheels with Cheyenne Teague! Come paint a car with us — all supplies provided!
The first morning session will help prep the car for spray painting, and the following morning session and both afternoon sessions will be focused on painting the car. Join us for one session or all of them!
Event is free but registration is required. Space is limited.
Dates & Times
Saturday, Oct 15, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. and/or 1–4 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 16, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. and/or 1–4 p.m.

Yoga at the FAC
2022-10-15 10:30 - 11:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join teacher Amanda Smolinski from Soulshines Yoga for a one-hour yoga class in our beautiful glass-walled Smith Family gallery. Participants are invited to stay and enjoy the museum for free after class. All experience levels welcome.
Please bring your own mat. Water is allowed during class, but not in the museum galleries. Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Fine Arts Center (you’ll also have the option to donate at class).
SPACE IS LIMITED, PLEASE RSVP

FAC Member "Law and Disorder" Downtown History Stroll & Speakeasy Cocktail Tasting
2022-10-15 14:00 - 16:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Due to popular demand, we’ve again partnered with the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum for another downtown history stroll. This member only, “Law & Disorder” tour explores how Colorado Springs officials fought to remain a “dry town” in “wet times,” the captivating story of how local law enforcement, concerned citizens and the Gazette newspaper worked to run the KKK out of town in the 1920s, and an infamous gun battle with train robbers in the streets of downtown.
Two tours available:

Tour only (no cocktail tasting): $5 per person. Tour meets at 2:00 p.m. at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. Tour lasts approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Tour and cocktail tasting at Brooklyn’s on Boulder: $21. Tour meets at 2:15 p.m. at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. SPACE IS VERY LIMITED. Tour lasts approximately 2 hours.

Join a knowledgeable guide from the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum for this .7 mile downtown stroll. Each tour group, with or without the cocktail tasting, start at the Pioneers Museum (215 S Tejon St) and end at Brooklyn’s on Boulder (110 E Boulder St). Wear comfortable walking shoes and be sure to dress for the weather.
SOLD OUT
To be placed on a wait list, please email fac@coloradocollege.edu or call (719) 634-5581
Not a member? Join today for as little as $5 per month!
Image: Colorado City Saloon, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

Photographing with Vintage and Toy Cameras
2022-10-11 12:30 - 15:30 | Bemis School of Art, 818 Pelham Pl, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Class for ages 16-adult. Here is your chance to have some serious fun using an inexpensive plastic film camera or that vintage camera that’s been gathering dust. Learn how to use simple cameras, with their perceived flaws such as soft focus and vignetting, to create beautiful, inspiring images. This course is a terrific opportunity for those who may be new to the B&W darkroom to learn how to process film and make handcrafted gelatin-silver prints from your negatives.

FAC Happy Hour at Bell Brothers Brewing
2022-10-19 17:00 - 19:00 | Bell Brothers Brewing, 114 N Tejon St Suite 100, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for the next stop in our new FAC happy hour series celebrating the “liquid arts.” No formal programming involved, just a casual gathering of FAC supporters getting out to socialize in new and different venues across our beautiful city. Highlighting local bars and restaurants in town, we hope to see you at Bell Brothers Brewing downtown.
FAC members and theatre subscribers will receive $2 off their first drink.
No RSVP needed. Event location: 114 N Tejon St Suite 100. We’ll also be handing out museum admission passes, so bring a friend! Stop by the FAC table to say hi!

Libation Lecture: Dancing Paintings
2022-10-20 17:30 - 18:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Dancing Paintings: An Interactive Guide to Abstract Expressionism
The lecture coincides with Action/Abstraction Redefined, an exhibition currently on view at the FAC.
For many years I had a secret: to understand works of art, I would have to dance them. Discreetly, of course, or risk being thrown out of the museum. Years later, I was surprised to learn that I am not alone: many art theorists, philosophers, and psychologists have investigated in detail how our instinctive physical responses to works of art provide us with critical information about what we see. In this gently interactive session, I will share some of the theories and practices that explore how leaning into this innate intelligence of our bodies can enrich our viewing experiences of art.
Drink: Tequila Sunrise
Lecturer: Jessica Hunter, Ph.D., Associate Director of Creativity & Innovation at CC
Bar opens at 5 p.m.
Tickets: $15 ($10 FAC members) includes your first drink
Libation Lecture Tickets

Tuned-In: The Soundtrack of Your Life with Molly Lord
2022-10-22 08:30 - 17:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Two wildly fun, life-changing days with very cool people and intriguing dialogue offer life-altering insights and deep music listening from Bach to Rock. Explore how six human behavior patterns (archetypes) –the Victim, Wanderer, Warrior, Caregiver, Innocent, and Magician–aim to run your life’s show. Discover how to choose music to positively direct that show to the outcome you desire.
Imagine directing the music you love to gain clarity, wisely read and respond to difficult situations and people, learn to hold onto joy when life is on a roll, and shape your state of mind, health, and even relationships. Yes, music can support it all! Thanks to a generous grant the reduced price is offered for a limited time.
Lunch and refreshments are included.

Crafts + Cocktails
2022-10-27 17:30 - 18:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A fun filled evening of crafting awaits! Instructor Julia Barrett will provide supplies and step-by-step instructions to create your own macramé sunflower wall hanging, just in time for Fall! Space is limited so grab a friend and buy your tickets today!
Cash bar available. Attendees will receive free admission to the museum from 4-5 p.m. the day of the event. Bar will open at 5 p.m.
FAC members: $20
General admission: $30
SOLD OUT

Screening of Extraterrestres (2017, Puerto Rico/Venezuela); Q&A to follow
2022-11-03 18:30 - 20:00 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
About the film: Teresa is a vegetarian and a successful astrophysicist who lives with her girlfriend, Daniela, in the Canary Islands. After years of self-exile, Teresa returns to Puerto Rico to invite the family to her wedding. But the Díaz family, who lives in a rural town, are a conservative and well-to-do family who control much of the poultry industry in Puerto Rico. No one in the family is who they appear and none is willing to reveal their most intimate secrets, so once back home, Teresa chooses to lie. When several acts of sabotage force the closure of the family business and Daniela, tired of waiting for Teresa, travels to Puerto Rico to meet her new family, the Díaz family nucleus collapses like a supernova star, unleashing a chain reaction that puts in evidence that we are all “Extraterrestrials.”
Free and open to the public.
This event is related to the exhibition Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.
Location: Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Room 131 at Colorado College
Image: Suchitra Mattai, Tethered (detail), 2020, vintage saris, wire, and found object, dimensions variable, courtesy of K Contemporary, Denver, photo by Wes Magyar. On view in Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.

Songs from the Border
2022-11-03 19:30 - 21:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Featuring the creator and performer of Where Did We Sit on the Bus?, Songs from the Border is a limited run concert of original music about immigration, identity, and where we belong, starring Satya Chávez and Brian Quijada.

FAC Member Tour: Chicanx Landscapes
2022-11-05 12:00 - 13:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join Michael Christiano, Director of Visual Arts and Museum and Mariana Rodríguez, feminist poet and translator for a tour and poetry reading in Chicanx Landscapes. Rodriguez, who teaches in the Spanish Department at Colorado College, will read selections from her own work and others that relate to the art on view. The exhibition explores landscapes as a system of ecology, history, culture and belonging from a Chicanx perspective with new works presented by the interdisciplinary artist collaborative, Desert ArtLAB. Desert ArtLAB is an interdisciplinary artist collaborative co-directed by April Bojorquez (she/her) and Matthew Garcia (he/him) whose work promotes Indigenous perspectives on ecological practice and climate change.
Not a member? Sign up now for as little as $5 a month!
RSVP for tour

Yoga at the FAC
2022-11-06 10:30 - 11:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join teacher Misty Banta for a one-hour yoga class in our beautiful glass-walled Smith Family gallery. Participants are invited to stay and enjoy the museum for free after class. All experience levels welcome.
Please bring your own mat. Water is allowed during class, but not in the museum galleries. Suggested donation of $10 to benefit the Fine Arts Center (you’ll also have the option to donate at class).
SPACE IS LIMITED, PLEASE RSVP

Poetry Reading and Workshop with Rajiv Mohabir
2022-11-07 15:00 - 16:30 | CO
About Rajiv Mohabir: ​​Rajiv holds a BA from the University of Florida in religious studies, an MSEd in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Long Island University, Brooklyn, and an MFA in poetry and literary translation from Queens College, CUNY where he was Editor in Chief of Ozone Park Literary Journal. While in New York working as a public school teacher, Rajiv also produced the nationally broadcast radio show KAVIhouse on JusPunjabi (2012-2013). He received his PhD in English from the University of Hawai’i and is currently Translations Editor at Waxwing Journal and teaches in the BFA/MFA program in the Writing, Literature, and Publishing department at Emerson College. In “Coolitude: Poetics of the Indian Labor Diaspora” In this project I take a look at the cultural productions of writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers who descend from indentured laborers from Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji, and those in second diaspora in England, the United States, and Canada. I chart the poetics of Coolitude, itself a queer cousin of Césaire’s, Senghor’s, and Damas’s Négritude. Coolitude uses the labor economy of the British Empire to suggest a similarity in identities, not based on racial or ethnic sameness, but rather the function of the economic category Coolie.
This event is related to the exhibition Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.
Location: Max Kade Theater, Armstrong Hall, Colorado College

Converging Journeys: Thomas Blackshear, Dean Mitchell, and Ezra Tucker
2022-11-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for an intimate discussion between Thomas Blackshear, Dean Mitchell, and Ezra Tucker as they discuss their creative practices, which move across design & illustration, commercial, and fine art. Their careers have spanned more than four decades and are marked by a commitment to creative exploration as well as charting new pathways for artists of color in historically white industries.
Event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP

Known for his dramatic lighting and sensitivity to mood, Thomas Blackshear has produced illustrations for advertising, books, calendars, collectors’ plates, greeting cards, magazines, postage stamps, and national posters. His clients range from Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, and Universal Studios to International Wildlife and National Geographic magazines. He has illustrated thirty United States postage stamps and a commemorative stamp book titled I have a Dream. In 1995, he created Ebony Visions, which has been the number-one-selling Black figurine collectible in the United States for the past twenty years.
His recent Western Nouveau paintings have been featured on the covers of Art of the West magazine and Western Art Collector. In 2020, Blackshear was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the Society of Illustrators.
Dean Mitchell is proficient in watercolors, egg tempera, oils, and pastels. During his four-decade-long career, Mitchell has become well known for his figurative works, landscapes, and still lifes. At the age of twenty-three, he became the youngest artist ever accepted into the National Watercolor Society; just five years later, he was admitted into the American Watercolor Society. He holds numerous gold medals from these and other prestigious painting associations worldwide. His awards now number in the hundreds, and his work is featured in museums, corporate, and private collections throughout the country. The New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman praised him as a “modern-day Vermeer.”
After thirty plus years of illustration and commercial art success, Ezra Tucker embarked on a fine art career, determined to create his own style of artistic beauty in both the portrayal of wildlife and historical personalities and events surrounding the settling of the American Western Frontier. This 18-year journey has proved fulfilling and rewarding to his artistic vision and ambitions. Tucker is widely admired for his paintings that portray wildlife, notably mammals but also birds as well as historic scenes.
The Black Experience in the history of the American West has been untold by the historical record and visibly absent from many of our nation’s museum collections. Tucker’s historical paintings pictorially tell the stories of people of African descent: cowboys, bronco busters, Pony Express riders, Buffalo Soldiers, Black Seminole Scouts and other Americans.

This program is presented in partnership with Broadmoor Galleries and Jewelry Company.

The Reminders with CC songwriting students
2022-11-11 15:00 - 17:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A musical collaboration between CC Mobile Arts, CC Music Department, and the Fine Arts Center, featuring a full set by The Reminders and fresh collaborative songs created by CC students. Students’ songs are musical settings of text written for this project by persons incarcerated at the Woman’s Ward at El Paso County Jail.
The performance will be held in the Fine Arts Center’s Music Room. Free and open to the public.

Crafts + Cocktails
2022-11-17 17:30 - 18:30 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
A fun filled evening of crafting awaits! Instructor Sophia Hanna will provide supplies and step-by-step instructions to create your own snow globe, just in time for Winter! Turn plain mason jars into sparkling snow globes filled with whimsical holiday figurines and miniatures. Space is limited so grab a friend and buy your tickets today!
Cash bar available. Attendees will receive free admission to the museum from 4-5 p.m. the day of the event. Bar will open at 5 p.m.
FAC members: $20
General admission: $30
Buy tickets

Redefining Native Art: Conversations of Contemporary Native Art with Anna Tsouhlarakis and Melanie Yazzie
2022-12-01 18:00 - 19:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join the FAC for a critical conversation about redefining perspectives and perceptions of contemporary Native Art. In conjunction with the exhibition, Action/Abstraction Redefined, artists Anna Tsouhlarakis and Melanie Yazzie will share their perspectives as artists, educators, and activists of what Native Art is, isn’t, and can be in our contemporary world. This conversation will be facilitated by Learning & Engagement Intern, Katie Norton ‘24.
Event is free and open to the public.

About the Panelists:
Anna Tsouhlarakis
Navajo + Creek + Greek
Anna Tsouhlarakis works in sculpture, installation, video, and performance. She received her BA from Dartmouth College with degrees in Native American Studies and Studio Art. She went on to receive her MFA from Yale University in Sculpture.
Her work has been part of national and international exhibitions at venues such as Rush Arts in New York, the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Crystal Bridges Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, the Heard Museum, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Tsouhlarakis has participated in various art residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, and was the Andrew W. Mellon Artist-in-Residence at Colorado College for the 2019-2020 academic year.
Tsouhlarakis lives and works in Colorado.
Melanie Yazzie
Dine
Melanie Yazzie is Professor of Art Practices and Head of Printmaking at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. Her works belong to many collections such as: the Denver Art Museum, Anchorage Museum of History & Art, the Art Museum of Missoula, the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Kennedy Museum of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and in countries such as, New Zealand, France, Russia, Canada, Estonia, Northern Ireland, Korea, China, United Kingdom, and Australia. She is known for organizing print exchange projects that connect communities across the world. She makes prints, sculptures, paintings, does surface design and jewelry design. She has been represented by the Glenn Green Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1994.
Katie Norton ‘24
Katie Norton is a Junior at Colorado College studying Museum Studies and Anthropology with a focus in archaeology. In her work at the FAC as the Action/Abstraction Redefined Learning & Engagement Intern, Kaite has led tours, created learning objectives, organized a virtual exhibit, and works to connect people with resources relevant to contemporary Native Art.
Katie comes to Colorado College from outside of Cleveland, Ohio. In her spare time, she likes to travel around Colorado and enjoy the beauty of the state.

Top image: Mike Medicine Horse Zillioux, (Akimel O’odham/Cheyenne/Pawnee,1952–2020), The Day Jackson Pollack [sic] Became A Christian (detail), 1974, Acrylic, rawhide, salt on canvas, MoCNA Collection (P-22), Gift of the Artist

Screening of Todos se van (2015, Cuba/Colombia)
2022-12-01 18:30 - 20:00 | Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
About the film: Everybody Leaves is based on the award-winning novel by Wendy Guerra and is a celebration of freedom and a confrontation of the authoritarian Cuban regime of the 1980s, which led to one of the country’s worst economic crises. Eight-year-old Nieve is the object of her parents’ custody battle. Her mother, Eva, is an artist who believes in the revolution and disagrees with censorship or authoritarianism. She is re-married to Dan, a Swede working on the construction of a nuclear plant. Nieve’s father Manuel is a playwright who sacrifices his artistic career to write government propaganda in a remote area of the country. Through her diary entries, Nieve reveals intimate details of a turbulent family life while painting an authentic portrait of the social and political unrest in Cuba under the rule of Castro.
Free and open to the public.
Location: Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Room 131 at Colorado College
Image: Suchitra Mattai, Tethered (detail), 2020, vintage saris, wire, and found object, dimensions variable, courtesy of K Contemporary, Denver, photo by Wes Magyar. On view in Breathe into the Past: Crosscurrents in the Caribbean.

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
2022-12-01 19:30 - 21:00 | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
See this beloved American holiday classic come to life on stage as a captivating 1940s radio broadcast. With the help of a virtuosic, tight-knit ensemble that embodies a few dozen characters and live foley artistry, the story of idealistic George Bailey unfolds as he considers ending his life one fateful Christmas Eve. This holiday season, join us for a story of hope, faith, and the power of community.
