World-class opera hall. Check.
Tourist-magnet art museum. Check.
New contemporary-art museum. A new building devoted to a renowned abstract artist. New film, music and book mecca. Check, check, check.
Now if they could just help local galleries sell a few paintings. The Ellie Caulkins Opera House, a $92 million showcase and the latest piece in Denver’s megabucks cultural transformation, is being touted as one of the world’s best. So how about throwing a $2,000 bone to an oil-on-canvas by a local painter?
Denver’s major-league arts scene is on a tear, building a national reputation by building high-profile new venues to house fine arts. The rapid changes could finally make the city a recognized cultural draw far beyond its time zone.
The lingering question is whether hundreds of millions of dollars in large investments trickle down to local artists, helping a street-level arts scene still struggling to put down Rocky Mountain roots. Some Denver arts pioneers answer, “Not yet.”
But the city’s top fine-arts cheerleader, Mayor John Hickenlooper, is already moving to tackle such doubts, well before the centerpiece Ellie Caulkins Opera House opens Sept. 10.
One of the few new hires allowed throughout Hickenlooper’s most recent, painfully pared budget request was a full-time business liaison for the arts community. The position is meant to aid gallery owners or theater directors who create jobs one show at a time.
Hickenlooper calls Denver’s national reputation a balky “ocean liner,” finally turning toward the promised land of cultural tourism.
“All these things build on each other,” Hickenlooper said. “Having Ellie open plants a seed of expectation for the art museum. The art-museum publicity will help the fundraising for the contemporary-art museum. There is a cumulative effect.”
And that effect should include new artists at the big museums spreading their talent in local schools.
On the pioneering edges of Denver arts, small-business owners hope the ocean liner can turn even faster. Meanwhile, they worry about fixing the sidewalks.
Three years ago, Tyler and Monica Aiello meticulously refurbished a filthy Walnut Street warehouse into a home, working studio and acclaimed gallery. As the NoDo (north-lower downtown) neighborhood quickly breeds lofts all around them, they know their expenses are heading up even as art sales are stagnant.
“People aren’t making enough money for their overhead,” Tyler Aiello said. “Soon the city will come through and redo the sidewalks around here, and they’ll either up our property taxes or ask us to pay for it.”
A First Friday gallery event, held by art stores across the city, often draws 500 people a weekend to Studio Aiello, Monica said.
“They drink the wine; they eat the food,” she said. “And we don’t sell a thing.”
Wealthy art buyers from Denver or Aspen often travel to Santa Fe or Los Angeles to buy their art, the Aiellos said. Denver-based artists are considered “hobbyists,” a perception that becomes circular – if no one buys their art, then of course it can’t be their “real” job.
“Part of people’s frustration here is that Denver has been an emerging art market for 30 years,” Tyler Aiello said.
Economists sense whiffs of other misperceptions that may emerge from the Denver arts boom sure to receive plenty of publicity in the next year.
Big-box cultural attractions, like sports stadiums, don’t really push a regional economy forward, said Kevin Stolarick, a Carnegie Mellon University researcher in Pittsburgh who contributed to the oft-cited book “The Rise of the Creative Class.”
Building the dream of an expanding economy based on creative industries requires more than admirable fine-arts scores in Places Rated almanacs, Stolarick said. It also requires a technology base, talented people moving in, desirable territory and cultural tolerance, not all of which are considered strong points for Denver, he said.
“It’s nice, and it’s helpful, but it’s not like we’re saying feed your starving artists and you’ll jump-start the economy,” he said. “Some of these creative people love opera, and some don’t. It doesn’t have the immediate impacts that people tend to ascribe to it.”
Fine, respond city leaders. They’re not giving up on other economic-development plans. But with a new convention center already landing bigger meetings, the art building boom is a “branding opportunity” most marketers would dream of, said Jan Brennan, communications director for the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.
“Denver is just a blank in most people’s minds,” Brennan said. “A lot of business activity comes from people who were tourists here first. Not a single company that considers relocating here fails to ask us, ‘What’s the cultural situation like?”‘
Artists like the Aiellos give Hickenlooper credit for paying attention to small arts businesses at the same time he talks up Denver’s bigger attractions on national sales trips. The liaison position “is one of the best things that’s happened to the city,” and Ginger White, the liaison, is already amassing useful research on what might help studios and small nonprofits, Monica Aiello said.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
