A Letter from the Executive Director: 2023 In Review

Thank you for your support of Street Wise Arts over the past year! 

Street Wise was named 2023 Nonprofit of the Year by the Downtown Boulder Partnership in February. This honor marked the beginning of a year of growth and great success for our non-profit organization, and we could not have done it without the support of this community and our donors and sponsors. 

In 2023, our small team reimagined our mural programming and expanded our youth education programs, community partnerships, and mural tour programs. Street Wise pivoted from the large mural festival model to a seasonal mural series format. Our successful Summer Series and Fall Series brought 10 new murals to the city of Boulder. 

Additionally, we served more than 500 students with free arts programs and reached more Title I schools than ever before. We pay our teaching artists an equitable living wage by supplementing school rates. Organizations and public and private schools now seek out Street Wise due to the reputation and expanded reach of our youth programs.

Street Wise strengthened our community partnerships and collaborations in 2023. We returned to the Boulder Creek Festival to host the 2nd Annual Art Battle and participated in Downtown Boulder’s Community Art Day and [placeholder] festival, bringing professional live painting and hands-on art activities to the public. 

During Boulder Arts Week, our special mural tours attracted great attendance and allowed the community to connect with local artists. Street Wise also developed our mural tour program as we continued to offer monthly walking tours and expanded our offerings to include bike and private tours. More than 150 people attended tours this year. 

Looking ahead to 2024, Street Wise will further develop our youth and mural programs. We hope to expand youth programming outside the Boulder Valley School District, and focus on the “whole student” by encouraging participants to improve their physical and mental health, community, and environment. Additionally, Street Wise plans on continuing our seasonal Mural Series in 2024 and launching a new mural program to activate alleyways and residential areas. 

Since 2017, Street Wise Arts has catalyzed bringing creativity, diversity, and community to our cultural landscape, schools, and city streets. We are extremely close to reaching our year-end fundraising goal of $25,000! Please consider contributing to our year-end fundraising campaign. Your donation will bring more public art and free education programs to the Boulder community in 2024.

Many thanks,
Leah Brenner Clack, Executive Director

Mural Series Highlights 

Mural by Yazz Atmore for the Fall Mural Series

• Five (5) new murals installed during our Summer Mural Series in honor of Community and Collective Healing by Danielle DeRoberts, Moe Gram, Grow Love, Will Barker, and Latasha Dunstion Greene

• Five (5) new murals created by Rob Hill, Yazz Atmore, Jahna Rae, Marcus Murray, and Devin "Speaks" Urioste during our Fall Mural Series in partnership with the Museum of Boulder in celebration of Colorado’s Black Street Artists

Youth Program Highlights 

Mural by Arapahoe Ridge High School students led by Max Coleman

• Programming ranges from after-school programs, in-school artist residencies, panel discussions, artist talks, workshops, and tours

• Arapahoe Ridge High School: Guest Artist Talk and 9-week Youth Mural Workshop

• New Vista High School: 6-week Mixed Media Journal Class, 9-week Animation/Adobe After Effects Class, and 10-week Mural Workshop

• Westminster Public Schools: 6-week Portrait-Making Class, two (2) 6-week Comic Book Creation Classes, and 6-week Fresh Fibers Class 

• Manhattan Middle School: 9-week Mural Workshop and 2-day Intensive Wearable Art Workshop 

• Boulder Prep High School: Watercolor & Poetry Monthly Intensive and Drawing & Painting Summer Intensive Class 

• Friends School: 6-week Mural Workshop and 4-week Street Art Studio Skills Class 

• EcoArts: Summer Mural Workshop 

• School Age Care: Street Art Studio 4-week Summer Camp 

• Ayuda International Exchange: Mural Tour & Art Making Day 

• Center for Visual Arts: Art + Work Artist Panel Discussion 

Community Projects + Events Highlights 

Spray Painting Workshop hosted by Grow Love

• Ten (10) Adirondack chairs painted by local artists for auction and one (1) community chair painted by the public during the 2023 Art Battle at the Boulder Creek Festival

• Two (2) Spray Painting Workshops hosted by local artists UcSepia and Grow Love

• Community Day in honor of Summer Mural Series with mural tours, artist meet and greet, and panel discussion

• Community mural led by Kaylee Bender and button-making activity at Community Art Day hosted by Downtown Boulder

• Three (3) new murals by Marcus Murray, Selah Laurel, and Jasmine Holmes-Piesco and one (1) community art project led by Yazz Atmore and Devin “Speaks” Urioste during the Street Wise x Black Love Mural Battle at [placeholder] festival organized by Downtown Boulder

• New community mural installed by David Ocelotl Garcia at Resource Central

Mural Tour Highlights 

Boulder Arts Week Mural Tour

• Expansion of our tour offerings to include walking tours, private tours, and bike tours

• Two (2) special Boulder Arts Week Tours that included insights from Street Wise muralists and Boulder Alley Gallery artists

• Featured collaborations with Haan Dances during May and June monthly tours and Sanctuary Gallery at the First United Methodist Church during July, August, and September monthly tours

Fall Mural Series: Meet the Artists!

Yazz Atmore @chattyancestors

Yazz Atmore is just a scattered-brain barefoot babe who likes to dance with words, play in the spirit world, and dabble in art magic. She created her own degree from Metropolitan State University, earning a BA in Supporting High-Risk Youth through the Arts. Yazz is a community organizer, creative, and educator in Denver, Colorado, where she continues to mentor and create with young artists as they explore their lives, stories, and passions through the beauty of art.

Constantly inspired by the youth and community she works with, Yazz continues to develop and deepen her own artistry as an analog collagist and muralist. Her art explores and dabbles in themes of spirituality, ancient and ancestral wisdom, nature, and Afro-Futurism through storytelling, collaging, and the building/re-building of worlds. Her work is also heavily influenced by her spiritual journey as she loves exploring the spirit world with God, her Ancestors, and her Spirit Team. As an expressionist intuitive mixed media artist, she creates breathtaking hand-cut collages and digital works, using bright bold colors, metallic paints, and gold leaf.

Rob Hill @robhill.art

Rob Hill is a geometric abstract painter born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and currently living in Denver, Colorado. He holds a BFA in Painting from California College of the Arts. Hill is pursuing an MFA at the Pratt Institute.

Precise line work is present throughout many of his creative works. Hill draws color inspiration from sports teams and 90s television programs including Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and In Living Color. He also finds inspiration in pioneers like Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, Mark Bradford, and Carmen Herrera.

The artist’s 8 years of service in the U.S. Coast Guard influenced his methodical approach to art. His global travel and life experiences inspire his patterns and color usage. While in the Coast Guard, Hill learned valuable skills such as responsibility, consistency, and resilience.

The artist links his admiration for geometric shapes to historic Egyptian architecture, painting, and visual culture. Over time, Hill has applied his geometric aesthetic to fashion design, including denim and leather works, as well as a variety of materials such as glass, wood, marble, and metal.

Hill has created public art projects for the past 9 years, painting on basketball courts, buildings, stores, youth centers, and canvases. He considers himself an artist with deep roots in his community and aims to unify people from diverse backgrounds through the power of art.

Marcus Murray @omega_marcusus

Marcus is a Jamaican-American artist living in Denver, Colorado. His work focuses on storytelling through mediums such as comics, paintings, and digital illustrations. His passion lies in telling stories of his own heritage, fantastical characters, and black futures. When not hunched over his iPad drawing, he can be found attempting to wrangle in his dog, Kali.

Devin “Speaks” Urioste @goodlooksvol.1

Devin "Speaks" Urioste was born and raised in Denver, CO. His work speaks to his values to represent his community, stay true to his culture, forever seek knowledge, and use knowledge as a tool to facilitate critical thinking in his community. Speaks also works as an educator and uses art to create cultural dialogue. The artist wants his visual work to reflect beauty from all different angles. Speaks seeks to make people wonder and ask questions about themselves and others.

Jahna Rae @jahna.rae.art

Jahna Rae is a Denver-based painter, illustrator, and muralist. She uses bold, bright colors, patterns, and sharp contrast with realistic portraits to create dynamic works. Jahna’s experience in portrait painting and illustration allows her to use techniques to visualize topics in connection with self and others through abstract methods.

Detour @detour303

Thomas Evans, a.k.a. Detour, is an all-around creative specializing in large-scale public art, interactive visuals, portraiture, immersive spaces, and creative directing. He creates work where art and innovation meet.

A born collaborator and “military brat,” Detour pulls from every conceivable experience that shapes his landscapes and perspectives. Explaining Detour’s work is no easy task, as ongoing experimentations in visual art, music, and interactive technologies continually expand his practice. Detour focuses on expanding customary views of creativity and challenging fine-art paradigms by mixing traditional mediums with new approaches—all the while opening up the creative process from that of a singular artist, to one that thrives on multi-layered collaboration and viewer participation.

Jasmine Holmes-Piesco @metaphoricalmuse

Jasmine Holmes-Piesco is a Southern artist who creates drawings through a variety of media. She received her BFA from the University of West Florida, and her MFA from Colorado State University.

Jasmine’s works offer discourse on consumerist society and its appetite for devouring Black culture. She uses depictions of staple foods from her Creole upbringing, hair culture, music and textiles to showcase the eternal connections she keeps to her ancestral home. Her work celebrates the many colorful aspects of Black American culture while creating conservation on the multifaceted way it's consumed and regurgitated amongst the populace.

Selah Laurel @selah.laurel.art

Selah Laurel is a self-taught artist who spent the majority of her life in a basketball gym, though since she could remember she had always doodled on everything. She leaned more into her artistic side after tearing her ACL and meniscus in college. ⁠

Selah's style has grown from doodles to more intentional abstract pieces. The artist loves creating faceless people with flowers for hair, keeping things like freckles or a nose piercing but leaving the face somewhat blank in the hope that the viewer is able to feel like they are represented. ⁠

Interview with David Ocelotl Garcia: Community Mural at Resource Central

Join us on Saturday, October 14 at 11 a.m. to celebrate David Ocelotl Garcia’s new mural at Resource Central. The artist will speak about his mural and the ideas behind it. This event is free and open to the public. 

David Ocelotl Garcia recently painted Repollinators, a mural that explores the close connection between the natural world and reducing waste. Street Wise Arts partnered with Resource Central, a Boulder nonprofit dedicated to conservation, to bring this community mural to life. Communication and Program Manager Allyson Burbeck interviewed the artist about his latest project. 

Resource Central’s efforts to divert building materials from landfills through an innovative recycling program inspired Garcia to imagine the effects that this waste would have on the environment if it wasn’t properly recycled. His mural depicts a slew of materials, everything and the kitchen sink - ovens, refrigerators, tires, electrical cables, garden hoses, windows, and doors. Intertwined with these materials are a selection of pollinators like bats and bees, carrying the waste like they carry pollen from flower to flower, plant to plant. Pollination is an essential part of plant reproduction, just as recycling is an essential part of maintaining a healthy natural environment. 

Over the course of the project, Garcia ruminated over the prefix “re,” meaning again or repeat. Resource Central recycles and repurposes materials. Pollinators return to plants again and again during pollination, helping to preserve and restore habitats. Even Garcia’s mural participates in a recycling process, both giving and receiving energy from viewers as they engage with the work and reflecting his belief that art is a manifestation of energy. Repollinators illustrates these important processes. 

The sculptor and painter was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He is a self-taught artist heavily influenced by his family and Mexican and Native American heritage. He aims to create representation for the Latinx community within the art world. In 2007, he completed his first public art project Huitzilopotchli, which was recently restored. Garcia developed his personal style of abstract imaginism, which combines the spontaneity of abstraction with the creativity and perceptions of his own imagination. His style is reflected in his use of vibrant colors and fantastical imagery. 

Garcia’s upcoming projects include Phase 2 of the People’s Bridge of the Sun and People’s Bridge of the Moon for the National Western Center in Denver and a book retrospective of his art career. Visit his website for more information and to stay updated. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Allyson Burbeck

I saw on your website that you talk about [this concept of] abstract imaginism and also how you view art as energy. Could you expand on that?

David Ocelotl Garcia

I believe that art is a manifestation of energy. I don't exactly know where the energy comes from. It's really the life force of our universe, our planet for sure, and it's connected to all of nature, everything that's alive. Being that it's a manifestation of energy, [art] could be very powerful and meaningful. It's a tool I use, an awareness that I have about creating. I think of any public piece that I make, whether it's a mural or sculpture, I see it as being alive and connected to this universal life force, this energy of art. 

What's amazing about it is that it doesn't stop at visual art or arts in general. It drives everything that is creative, but it also drives everything that we might perceive as noncreative. Let's say you're a mathematician or scientist or a bookkeeper, [any role] actually involves a lot of creative energy. But we have decided to perceive art in specific ways throughout history and [we] didn't realize that it comes from the same creative energy. Artists are more in tune with this energy, which inspires them to create art. This energy really has an influence on our reality, on our daily lives, and thus could be very healing in some ways and very inspiring. [This] is why art is so important because it's not just creating something, but rather you're sharing energy that can be very positive. It's very important to, for one, know that it has energy, that it’s alive and, two, to experience it and accept and acknowledge that you are physically interacting with art, not just seeing it with your eyes.

Allyson Burbeck

What attracted you to this mural project at Resource Central?

David Ocelotl Garcia

I have some history in Boulder. I did a piece at the Dairy Arts Center quite a few years back, a mural piece that had to do with environmental awareness. That piece was called The Struggle of Mother Earth.

I've always been aware of Boulder in regard to not only the history and the school but also the community. It seems like the community in Boulder is in many ways aware of our natural environment. I've worked with many people from Boulder who are [environmental] activists. Interestingly, my work has a lot to do with the natural environment. It's very much the essence and fabric of my work the environment, all the animals. One of the things that I love to do with my work is explore the relationship that humans have with the natural environment, whether it's the plants, the animals, anything in between. This project at Resource Central is very much in line with that aspect [of my work], and so [I was interested in trying] to honor what this organization is doing and talk about it in my own way. 

Allyson Burbeck

Would you tell me about the mural you created?

David Ocelotl Garcia

When I get curious about a project, it has a lot to do with the environment and the space. I get inspiration when I go to a place, my mind starts to explore the idea and…the reality of where I'm at. I was very inspired by the work [Reource Central] does repurposing all these materials that otherwise would get thrown away. I find that fascinating and really strong material to create a message and visuals. I [took] inspiration from the work they do, and the fact that they reuse things that don't need to be thrown away. 

That's a social thing, but that also has a lot to do with the environment. I felt the idea in my mind [what] if these [materials] were just thrown into the forest, like how would the animals interact with these elements? Refrigerators, wheels, landscaping materials, wood, all these things. I was imagining if you were to throw that all in the forest, what would the animals do with it? Often in my work, I use a lot of metaphors and symbols. I was thinking of how this organization is reusing or repollinating, giving life to things that are no longer supposedly useful, like how pollinators in the natural environment go around pollinating flowers and trees and this and that. 

The piece I created I called it Repollinators. I like that “re.” We can reuse this, repollinate. It’s an exploration of words. It symbolizes the actual process of animals as pollinators, but it is also symbolic to the organization that is reusing. In the mural, there's a series of pollinators that travel across the wall. There’s a bee, bat, dragonfly, butterfly, and hummingbird - those are the cast of characters. They're carrying…all the different materials in the scene, like [bathroom] tiles, or wood, or a door, or some kind of electrical thing. It's basically an abstraction of materials composed in a way that the pollinators can carry across the wall. Again, it's speaking about the idea that they're reusing this [material]. 

It's open for interpretation too, because everyone has a different reality. I'm curious to hear what some of the stories or what people see in there, how they perceive what [the pollinators are] doing, or what the mural is about.

Allyson Burbeck

I didn't even realize that bats were pollinators.

David Ocelotl Garcia

Yeah, they are pollinators. I'm fascinated by bats. I think they're beautiful. Besides Halloween, they don't have much of a reputation beyond that, but they are such important pollinators, along with other night creatures. They have bad media representation, oftentimes even negative. I purposely try to showcase bats because I think they're so cool and so creatively composed.

Allyson Burbeck

In the project brief, Resource Central wanted the mural to have themes of hope. Could you talk about that?

David Ocelotl Garcia

There's hope because of the work [Resource Central is] doing. It gives hope to the future, right? Because that's what hope is usually - it's about the future. I think one of the things as far as from my perspective is again showing, if you look at the mural, how any one of these pollinators - they're all generally small - could actually carry so much of this material. It's more of a metaphor because these little insects and little creatures can carry all this, [but it’s] also a burden that they have to carry all this when we just throw it away. We're putting all the work on them. The idea of the pollinators carrying all these is a metaphor for the future, like hope, that they have the strength but they need our help.

Allyson Burbeck

You’ve talked about your process for creating a mural and how you approach design. Do you have anything else to add about your mural-making process?

David Ocelotl Garcia

My mural process is something that I created myself because I never trained in creating art. I never went to college for art. Everything I learned has been on my own. I created not only my own style but also my own way of painting, specifically murals. I have my own palette, my own color scheme, and how I compose. The way I explain composition is like composing a piece of music. It's literally the same thing. It's composing your mural. It's a piece of music. You have to be aware of all the different things involved in creating a piece of music and which instruments can play certain things. Composition [of a mural] is a symphony of images instead of sound. That's very critical when I create murals - the placement, scale, how people can see it - those are all things that are involved with mural creation. 

The content has a lot to do with my style of art. I consider myself a Native American. The symbols in my work have a lot to do with where I come from, where my family is from. I use all these [as] the DNA and fabric of my work. I’ve created many different murals for many different people, but it has to be genuine so that means that it's part of where I come from and my perspective. We all have our own reality, but we also have our own way of creating. In the world we live in right now, there's a lot of reproduction and things that are not genuine. It's a very critical time to create art that is meaningful, but also as genuine as the artist can make it. 

Allyson Burbeck

Could you talk about how you envision how your public art affects a space, but also the larger community beyond that space?

David Ocelotl Garcia

Public art is literally that - it’s something that the public should be able to appreciate and engage with and that happens in many ways. Usually, it's visual. You engage visually with it. It's sculptural. It might be something you can touch. Either way, a mural, a public piece is alive. It's an amazing thing that someone can create something from nothing and give it life. Because it's alive, it grows like any plant would, any tree would. But it needs to be nourished and nurtured. It’s nurtured and nourished by the interaction of the public. Art is energy, murals are energy. It's your participation in viewing the mural, and it causing you to think of things. This is the transfer of energy from the person to the wall and vice versa. The more people interact with the artwork, the more it grows. It's important for an organization to have that, but also for the community because the act of engaging with the artwork elevates our creative energy, our creative capacity, which influences everything we do in our lives.

Allyson Burbeck

I never thought about it [like that]. I feel like when I view artwork, it definitely gives me energy, but I've never really thought of it as I'm also giving it energy back.

David Ocelotl Garcia

That's exactly what's happening. That's how it's able to grow. What's amazing is that it then shares that [energy] with the next person that comes to see it, and the next one. Can you imagine? How many people it can influence if that's the case? It’s a very beautiful thing that you could share. You [the viewer] think of an art piece [as] the artist created it, I might love it, I like interacting with it, but you don't think of it as you're also sharing with the artwork your energy, which then gets recycled, then goes back to the next person, and then [it] goes back and forth like that.

Allyson Burbeck

Again, you said recycled, like “re.”

David Ocelotl Garcia

It's exactly that. I think that's what Resource Central, this organization, they're doing what they are passionate about, but they're also [contributing energy]. It's all connected - this energy that we all can feel and that drives our daily lives. It's all part of the same formula. At some point in time, we've decided to disconnect things, but that's only in our minds. Physically [the energy exchange] is still there. We can disconnect mentally from things, but physically, that's not something you do easily.

Allyson Burbeck

I'm curious if there's anything else that you would want people to know about the project.

David Ocelotl Garcia

I hope people can start embracing the mural because it's not just for the organization. It’s also for the community. I hope that it can inspire the community and hope that it’s something that adds color and energy to their lives.