A Museum and Downtown Niwat

 Denver, CO

Downtown Denver

MCA Denver

Today our first adventure was visiting The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver or MCA Denver. We took the bus to Union Station and walked to the museum.  We used our NARM pass to get in for free.  It's a smallish museum with 3 floors and a rooftop garden and café.  When we got there we mentioned our NARM pass and the attendant pretty much just let us walk in without checking our papers.  There was a MCA Denver member behind us and their transition went down the same way and she said something like, "oh it's the honor system, cool".  The first floor featured art by Guadalupe Maravilla.  

The entrance

We wanted to see this lit up at night.

Guadalupe Maraville

Guadalupe Maraville

Guadalupe Maraville and me in the reflection

They had a cool program where you could join a lottery to borrow art.  We didn't find anything that would hang on a wall in our van.

Donna looking at the art you can borrow if you win the lottery

What's a downtown building without bullet holes in the giant glass?  I called this one, "Bullet The Blue Sky".

The next floor was in the basement.  We walked down the cool steps and saw work by Tania Candiani. The big piece was an 8 minute electronic composition that featured video and sounds of nature with music and spoken word.  It was on a really wide screen in a dark cool room so we chilled and watched it.  It was pretty mesmerizing.  

The next floor featured work from Clarissa Tossin. Their work was all about climate change and wasn't overly uplifting.  Art doesn't always have to be uplifting but I enjoy the whimsical side of art more than the side that makes you feel guilty for driving to Denver in the first place.  We did take the bus to the museum so we go that going for us.  The last section was art from Teens.  It was cool and whimsical.  maybe children are the future.  

The stairwells were lit and looked cool

More down

Clarissa also focused on our desire to colonize the moon as an escape from climate change but I think they realize that the climate on the moon isn't that great either.

I did like the recycled Amazon boxes into woven works a lot.  

The building for the museum is really cool with a lot of windows

Now some up for snacks and views

The Teen art section

A view

Donna blending into the art

We stopped by the roof garden and café which was my favorite part.  There were a lot of cool angles and views to take pictures of and my coffee was really good.  

The Rooftop

Me enjoying the rooftop in my new pinball shirt from Pinball Jones!

Our reflection

I liked the angled planters

My delicious café latte that is a little out of focus

Looking into the sun selfie

If you are in the area and have a NARM pass go to MCA Denver.  The building is really cool and it looks like the art rotates quickly.  It will only take you about an hour to see and it isn't that far from Union Station so you can hit up Cooper Lounge afterwards.  

Downtown Niwat, CO

Later that afternoon our friend Julie picked us up and, after meeting Francis, drove us to Niwat to visit Bob and Michelle again.  We are all friends from our Disneyland days.  On Thursday night's in the summer Niwat hosts live music. Rock the Rails brings people from all over the area to celebrate summer.  They have food trucks and sell beer to fundraise for the area.  It was really fun but my allergies hit me hard after walking through the field to get there.  I didn't have any Benadryl so we stayed for about an hour or so and then went back to Bob and Michelle's house.  We played some of their pinball machines and I began to feel better. 

Walking!

People coming from all around

This was before it packed out

The rail that was being rocked

Historic Niwot

A mandatory selfie in front of the Niwot Caboose.

It was another great day in the Denver area.  It's always good getting together with friends. It was our last time getting together on this trip but we assured them that we would be back.  Maybe next summer, not sure.  It's weird to think that we don't know where we will be next year at this time or even next year in February.  Wherever we end up, we will be sure to have fun and tell you all about it.

We went to a distillery yesterday.  Read about it here.