10 MAY 9-15, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Trail Mix CHRIS HAVEN RECRUITS A CREW OF FELLOW STREET ARTISTS TO BEAUTIFY THE BANKS OF CHERRY CREEK. BY C HRIS PEREZ For Denver’s street artists, the Cherry Creek Trail is a “holy mecca,” says Chris Haven, a renowned pop-surrealist. “It’s just this gigantic stretch of walls right in the middle of the city,” adds the Wesminster native, recalling how it was always a dream of his to turn the walls along the banks of Cherry Creek into his own personal canvas. “When I was a kid, we would drive by and I would see all kinds of graffi ti down there,” Haven says. “Mostly letters and tagging and stuff. It’s got high visibility — everybody sees it on Speer when driving, basically — so for many artists, it’s always been a place where to have your art would be amazing. And for so many years, there was no art down there. It was like, ‘Why isn’t the city allowing us to paint down there?’” Back in 2009, Denver Arts & Venues had created the Urban Arts Fund and begun put- ting murals in graffi ti-prone areas, including along the Cherry Creek Trail. In 2018, the city’s Public Art program boosted those ef- forts, commissioning more than sixty murals. All told, the UAF has put up over 300 murals since its inception. But many local artists weren’t given a chance to take part in their creation, since Arts & Venues held a public call for national and international art- ists, taking a “gallerist” approach to commis- sioning pieces around Denver that involved interviews and applica- tions. “When they did those fi rst original calls, you know, a lot of artists that were from Denver didn’t get accepted, and a lot of out-of-state art- ists got it,” Haven recalls. Fast-forward to 2024. “Since the pandemic, we have seen a large and unusual increase in tag- ging, including directly on the existing murals, some of which have been in place for over ten years,” notes Yolanda Quesada, director of marketing and communications for Denver Parks & Recreation. “If the murals are unable to be cleaned and the original artists are unable to revisit Denver to repaint them, then the entire mural needs to be removed. This creates more blank wall space and removes an asset for the community and the trail.” The solution? A new Parks & Rec pilot project along the Cherry Creek Trail that takes an “artist” approach to adding murals to the walls. Curated by Haven, it’s been carried out by dozens of Denver muralists, with just one out-of-state name: Birdcap, out of Memphis. Rather than go through a complex appli- cation process to bring in artists for the cov- erups and new murals, Parks & Rec decided to let Haven use his personal connections and years of friendships with big names in the street-art scene, like Patrick Kane McGregor and Jeremy Silas Ulibarri, aka Jolt. “I think it’s great that they bypassed the call stuff and just let me curate,” Haven says. “I know a lot of the artists in Denver, so it’s really easy for me to just reach out and ask them to come down with me. I tried to have a positive mind, you know, and make sure that the people did nothing political or anything negative. But in general, I just let them do what they want to do, which is, I think, the best for creative artists. To just do what you want to do.” The city gave Haven and his crew a small stretch of the Cherry Creek Trail between Champa and Arapahoe streets, but it was more than enough space for them to fl ex their mural muscles. “For us, it’s always been like, ‘What an amazing place to paint,’” Haven says. “So it was an honor to be able to paint down there and have something there for the city and for the place I grew up in.” The painting was initially done pro bono, since there was no funding to pay the artists. But the Denver Theatre District has since announced it will apply for a grant to help foot the bill. “The opportunity was presented from the beginning without funding included, as it was intended to be a small pilot project,” Quesada says, noting that there was a “pause” for internal coordination on the program, “as we received more interest than originally anticipated.” According to Haven, he did an initial round of murals in March with six artists, and talk around the street-art water cooler prompted others to show interest. “A bunch of people were hitting me up, trying to paint down there,” he recalls. Haven, who did multiple murals him- self, ultimately brought in seventeen artists for the project: Birdcap, McGregor and his son Tristan, Jolt, Delton Demarest, Max Kauffman, @BrettDrawsStuff, Mike Graves, Anthony Garcia, @Brooklynnbk, RubeZilla, Katey Allen, Matador, Lyfr, Koko Bayer, CULTURE KEEP UP ON DENVER ARTS AND CULTURE AT WESTWORD.COM/ARTS Artist Anthony Garcia Sr. made some mural magic on the trail for the fi rst time. Chris Haven created a selfi e spot for pups to pose in front of some familiar friends. EVAN SEMÓN EVAN SEMÓN
