Fine Arts Center

Día de Muertos Celebration
2023-11-01 16:00 - 20:00, 2023-11-02 16:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver) | Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St., Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, United States
Join us for a special community gathering for Día de Muertos, a celebration of life that demonstrates remembrance, love, and respect for those who have gone before us. Contribute to a community ofrenda, watch live music and performances on the mainstage theatre, engage with hands-on art activities, see ofrendas created by local school and community groups, and more!
This event is free and open to the public.
Learn More About our Día de Muertos celebration
Photo: Grupo Folklórico Sabor Latino of Denver perform during a Dia de los Muertos event at the FAC on Tuesday, November 2, 2021. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III / Colorado College.

FAC Member Tour: Theatre
2023-11-03 16:00 - 17:00
Meet Chris Sheley, the new Producing Artistic Director of the FAC Theatre, and experience a rare behind the scenes tour of our theater. Visit the prop room, costume shop, and backstage. Get a sneak peek of the scenic and costume designs in progress for Elf the Musical, and see behind the scenes balloon magic for Balloonacy.
RSVP for tourSpace is limited
Make a night of it! Stick around after the tour for our First Friday Art Party.

First Friday Art Party
2023-11-03 17:00 - 20:00
Join us for our First Friday celebration from 5–8 p.m. Enjoy the stunning ambiance offered by the FAC’s chic, historic venue.

FREE museum admission
Art in Deco Lounge by Adana Dysart
Music by Bryant Jones
Music by Grapefruit Moon
Drinks and snacks available for purchase
FREE downtown shuttle, THE ZEB, running along Tejon Street to downtown art galleries

Grapefruit Moon is a Manitou Springs-based band featuring Tom Tritsch and Jane Turnis on acoustic guitars and David Moorefield on bass. Their vocal harmony and crisp guitar work create a fresh sound merging contemporary folk, indie, alt-country, and pop with a tinge of blues. Grapefruit Moon performs upbeat crowd-pleasing tunes by Michael Franti & Spearhead, Tom Petty, Ryan Adams, Van Morrison, Vance Joy, The Civil Wars, Kacey Musgraves, The Paper Kites, Caamp, Avett Brothers, Tom Waits, Beatles, Portugal the Man, Talking Heads, Death Cab for Cutie, Grateful Dead, Donovan, The Band, Houndmouth, Paul Simon, and more.
Photo by Eli Epstein, @elis_lens.

Balloonacy
2023-10-28 10:00 - 11:00, 2023-11-04 14:00 - 15:00, 2023-10-29 12:00 - 13:00, 2023-10-29 16:00 - 17:00
Imagine a single balloon changing one person’s life forever. Balloonacy is tender, uplifting show for the little ones (and the big ones, too). Sweet, inventive and packed with physical comedy, this play explores the power of friendship and shows how, with a little imagination and acceptance, companionship is everywhere.
Performed on Saturdays at 10 a.m. & 2 p.m. and Sundays at 12 p.m. & 4 p.m.

Mindful Music: Series Two
2023-11-06 - 2023-12-31
Announcing Mindful Music: Series Two with Molly Lord, Creator of Tuned-In Productions and your facilitator.
Edie Carey, National award-winning, soulful contemporary/folk singer songwriter
Hazel Miller, Colorado Hall of Fame music icon; deemed “The Aretha Franklin of Colorado”
Jorma Kaukonen, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend with Jefferson Airplane, and highly respected interpreter of American roots music, blues and rock.
An inspiring pre-recorded online fun dive into what really happens when music crawls inside your mind. You’ll never listen to music the same again. Music lovers… get your feet propped, a cold drink poured, and the popcorn bowl filled. Prepare to leave the musical shallows for deep places you’ve never gone before.
Series Two provides four hours of intriguing “music and mind” education, insights, and music. Discover three secrets you never knew about the music you love, and three new intriguing interviews with national music artists who share their own insights and personal music.

Drawing Techniques: Exploring the Human Face
2023-11-08 13:30 - 15:30
Portrait drawing can seem like a challenging skill to learn since every face is unique and filled with detail but in this course, you will learn how to draw portraits down to the finer details! The instructor will guide you through each stage of drawing from proportion, structure, and how to draw facial features by drawing from real life. This class is for those who would like to build on their skills.

Ages 16-Adult

We Don’t Have a River: A Discussion from Many Perspectives
2023-11-08 17:30 - 19:00
Location: Taste
Colorado Springs is the largest city in the American West without a major river. Because Colorado Springs augments its local water from intermittently-flowing smaller streams by piping water from Pikes Peak and the Western Slope, the city has developed a unique and complex relationship to water. This multidisciplinary panel discussion looks at Monument Creek, the city’s first and primary water way, as a microcosm of larger issues, mindsets, and inequities. It invites broad consideration of the creek from perspectives including geologic time, endangered species, hydraulic infrastructure, homelessness, urban development, and more, to reveal how the city has developed and how it might live in the increasingly arid future.
This event is presented and hosted by Colorado College’s Creativity & Innovation Program, and made possible by Creativity & Innovation and the Colorado College Cultural Attractions Fund.
Please RSVP

Artist Talk: Annalee Davis
2023-11-09 18:00 - 19:00
Please join us for a talk by the artist and writer Annalee Davis. Combining history, ecology, and cultural activism, Davis explores the extractivist plantation history of Barbados, where she lives and works. Her practice, which often engages community and collaborators, includes walking, writing, artmaking, growing plots, and more recently, embroidery. In this talk, the artist will discuss her process and recent projects, including A Garden of Hope (Barbados) and Pray to Flowers – A Plot of Disalienation (Sharjah, UAE). This event will take place in Taste Restaurant.
The event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are encouraged as space is limited.
RSVP FOR THE talk
Annalee Davis is a Barbadian visual artist and writer whose practice combines history and biography in discussions of ‘post-plantation economies’ with cultural activism in the arts sector. Davis’ works explore Barbados’ transformation from a once biodiverse landscape to sugar plantations and more recently a tourism-dependent island, both arguably sectors of enclosure and exclusion. She understands the plantation as an economic model irrevocably impacting the contemporary environment whose historical legacy has been traumatically inscribed upon the landscape and its people. Working in her studio located on an operational dairy farm–once a 17th-century plantation–Davis exposes the poly-vocal narratives buried beneath the land. Drawing, walking, making (bush) teas, and growing living apothecaries, her practice suggests future strategies for repair and thriving while investigating the role of botanicals and living plots as ancestral sites of refusal, counter-knowledge, and healing. A Caribbean activist nurturing more equitable platforms for emerging artists, her work as the Founding Director of Fresh Milk, and co-founder of Caribbean Linked, Tilting Axis, and Sour Grass–promotes pan-Caribbean community engagement by working with artists across the multi-lingual archipelago. Collectively, they reinforce the healthy growth of contemporary visual arts in the region, by working with artists who often feel marginalized from mainstream society. Davis is a graduate of Fine Arts from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and The Maryland Institute College of Art, USA.
Solo exhibitions include Reseeding the Post-Plantation, Barbados Museum & Historical Society; re:wilding, Haarlem Artspace, UK; Heartseed, TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica; This Ground Beneath My Feet – A Chorus of Bush in Rab Lands, The Idea Lab, The Warfield Center, University of Texas, Austin, USA.
Current group exhibitions include:  Linhas Tortas, ”Mendes Wood São Paulo, Brazil;  Against Apartheid,  KARST, Plymouth, UK;  Seeds and Souls, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. Recent shows include: Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present, Sharjah, UAE;  What’s on your Plate?, Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, UAE;  And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?”, Kunsthalle Wien, Austria.
www.annaleedavis.com | @annalee.devere

Speed Up Your Drawing
2023-11-09 18:00 - 20:00
This class will emphasize speed and accuracy in your drawings including how to start drawings faster. Students will be pushed on speed earlier in the class and then can relax into a longer drawing in the second half of the class. No laid-back, leisurely drawing in this class. Standing is required to get an accurate drawing with speed and movement. Like athletics, quick drawing requires active body movement and the ability to move to get a better angle. Drawing faster requires repetitive practice.

Adults

Crafts + Cocktails: Macrame gnome ornaments
2023-11-10 17:30 - 19:00
THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT. PLEASE CONTACT OUR FRONT DESK TO BE PLACED ON A WAIT LIST AT (719) 634-5583 OR FAC@COLORADOCOLLEGE.EDU
A fun filled evening of crafting and cocktails awaits! We’ll be diving into the art of macrame, where you’ll learn to knot and weave two of your very own gnome ornaments! No prior experience is necessary – our expert instructor Megan Dulin will guide you through the process step-by-step. And as you work on your masterpiece, you can purchase a delicious drink to sip on while you craft. Space is limited so bring your friends or come solo, either way you’ll have a fantastic time socializing and creating something beautiful!
FAC Members: $20
General admission: $30
Drinks available for purchase. Credit card only. Bar will open at 5 p.m.

Museum Free Day
2023-05-13 10:00 - 17:00, 2023-05-19 10:00 - 20:00
Museum Free Days are offered the second Saturday and third Friday of each month. See what’s on view in the museum

Agents of Deterioration
2023-11-17 13:00 - 16:00
Join the museum collections team in the Agents of Care gallery from 1-4 p.m. to explore the work that goes into preserving and caring for museum collections. Discover the forces of deterioration that staff constantly battle against and the measures we take to slow and prevent damage. Take your new-found knowledge and skills home with you to care for your own collections and priceless family treasures.
Free and open to the public.
Image: Collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, TM 2001.11; Ute Photograph Album by Howell Plummer Myton, 1893-1904.

Acrylic Painting Class
2023-11-18 13:00 - 15:30
In this class we will learn the fundamentals of creating successful compositions with acrylic paint on canvas as the medium. The class will focus on two projects for each student consisting of medium canvases. How to start, and how to finish a painting will be covered as well as accuracy and detailing. Subject matter will include a landscape, a portrait, and an architectural rendering as the options available for the students to work on.

Adults

FAC Member "Law and Disorder" Downtown History Stroll & Speakeasy Cocktail Tasting
2023-11-18 14:00 - 16:00
This event is SOLD OUT. To be placed on a waitlist please call our front desk at (719) 634-5581 or email fac@coloradocollege.edu.
This tour is open to members of the FAC. Not a member? Join today.
Law & Disorder 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 2:15 p.m. at Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum Annex in the Plaza of the Rockies (121 S. Tejon St, Suite 100). Tour lasts approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Tour and cocktail tasting at Brooklyn’s on Boulder: $13 per person. Tour meets at 2:00 p.m. at the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum Annex in the Plaza of the Rockies (121 S. Tejon St, Suite 100). 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, starts at The Pioneers Museum Annex in the Plaza of the Rockies (121 S. Tejon St, Suite 100) and ends at Brooklyn’s on Boulder (110 E Boulder St).
Image: Colorado City Saloon, ca. 1900. Courtesy of Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

Drawing Animals
2023-11-29 16:15 - 17:45
Do you love animals? This course is an introduction to drawing animals of all types. They are all around us and are endlessly fascinating to watch and draw. This course will show you the basics of drawing any animal and help you understand anatomy so that you can confidently draw the animal world. Supplies will be provided.
Ages 9-12
