First Friday Art Walk

The Pueblo Creative Corridor’s First Friday Art Walk festivities begin at 5 p.m. Friday, with guests invited to stop in at more than 35 art galleries, restaurants and businesses in the Union Avenue area corridor. All activities associated with the walk are free.

From 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Pueblo Arts Alliance, 410 W. City Center Drive, will host the First Friday Teen Art Feast.

The event will showcase the Impact Youth Initiative and the opportunities it is creating within the community.

Impact Youth Initiative is a council of high school students who produce monthly art activation projects using placemaking techniques.

The goal is to inspire youth activation, create a sense of youth “ownership” of the Creative Corridor, and provide young people with practical applications of civic engagement and city government processes.

There will be live music and food from the SToKD wood-fired pizza truck. Guests will be encouraged to take photos of a pop-up wings project.

Steel City Art Works to feature Knight’s works

Through October, Steel City Art Works, 216 S. Union Ave., will feature the artwork of the late Shirley Knight in the front display window.

Knight painted oils, with an emphasis on landscapes, mining towns and trains, and completed an entire series on boats. A unique aspect of Knight’s work was her addition of a bird in each of her paintings as a tribute to her grandmother.

According to Diana La Morris, gallery manager, Knight was a good friend to many.

“She had a wonderful career, serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, as an engineer for CDOT, and a professor, teaching engineering technology at Colorado State University Pueblo,” La Morris said.

Knight’s father was instrumental in establishing the Pueblo Art Guild and “she carried on the tradition and work to support artists and the arts whenever and wherever she could,” added La Morris.

The window display is visible from the street, and some of Knight’s works will be for sale.

In conjunction with the First Friday Art Walk, the gallery will host “Fall into Florals” with an open open house from noon to 7 p.m. Friday.

Featured artist Irene Grissom, who is well-known for her abstracts and jewelry, will be showcasing acrylic and digitally created florals. She has won numerous awards, including Excellence in Watercolor, at the Colorado State Fair, and is the outgoing president of the Southern Colorado Watercolor Society.

One of her earliest graphic designs still serves as the patch worn by the Rocky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

The gallery hours are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

During the month, some gallery members will participate in a “buy one, get a second item half off” deal.

Downtown Bar display

Local painters Mo Keenan-Mason and Steve Mason will continue their show “Survey of Life and Land” at the Downtown Bar, 103 Central Plaza, through October.

For more information, email moremoart@gmail.com and visit Facebook/MoreMoArt and downtownbar.com.

Impossible Players’ production

Impossible Players will present “The Lifespan of a Fact” Friday and Saturday, and Oct. 9, 10 and 16, at The Impossible Playhouse, 1201 N. Main Street.

The essence of the production is the struggle between truth and artistic license, “factual journalism and dishonest literature.”

It stars Amanda Cardinal, Bill Wright and Dalton Wooldridge, and is directed by Curtis Perkins.

Doors open at 7 p.m. each evening. Masks are required, with seating limited due to social distancing guidelines. Call 542-6969 to make a reservation.

Fall Friday Arts Academy on deck

The Sangre de Cristo Arts Center’s Fall Friday Arts Academy starts Friday.

Designed especially for public, private and homeschooled students, the courses offer activities not normally seen in the classroom: cartooning, mural painting, acting, computer animation, creative dance, fiber arts, photography, clay hand-building, violin, and theater prop-making.

Hourlong classes begin at 9 a.m., with student drop-off available starting at 8:45 a.m. Classes conclude at 5 p.m., with pickup until 5:15 p.m.

Each class will host a maximum of nine students.

To register, or learn more about class cost, call 295-7200 or visit sdc-arts.org.

Virtual classical performances

The Veronika String Quartet will return to the stage Sunday by virtually presenting “Happy Souls, Like Mendelssohn,” an opening program of the quartet’s 2020-21 concert season entitled “Out of Adversity: Beethoven and his Musical Descendants.”

There is no charge to view this livestreamed performance, which will feature the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn and Stephan Thelen.

“We are putting together programs, which will continue celebrating music of Beethoven and also include works of composers deeply affected by the Great Master,” said quartet member Karine Garibova. “Our opening program includes Beethoven’s String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2, “Compliments;” String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso;” and String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13 by Felix Mendelssohn, who was modeling his first string quartet work after Beethoven.”

To access Sunday’s livestream, which begins at 2 p.m., click on the “calendar/series” link at veronikastringquartet.com. Donations also can be made through the website.

At 7 p.m. Oct. 9, Piano Conversations will offer its first concert of the season, “Blazing Strings: Cremona Violin Edition,” also virtually.

Featuring Filip Fenrych and Geoffrey Herd on violin, and Zahari Metchkov on piano, the performance will be livestreamed from the Ascension Episcopal Church on YouTube (youtu.be/9cRPnniJjnU), with the link opening at 6:45 p.m.

“We have as guests two fantastic violinists: Geoffrey, from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), and Filip, from the Dallas Symphony,” said Metchkov. “Our program will be music for two violins, with plenty of piano, featuring historic violins from Cremona, Italy: including a 1687 Stradivarius.”

A pre-concert Zoom “meet-and-greet” with the artists will begin at 6 p.m., at csupueblo.zoom.us/j/8954759754.

To donate to Piano Conversations, write pianoconversations2019@gmail.com

(Have an event going on? Email info to jpompia@chieftain.com)

Chieftain reporter Jon Pompia can be reached by email at jpompia@chieftain.com or at twitter.com/jpompia. Help support local journalism by subscribing to the Chieftain at chieftain.com/subscribenow