The Dikeou Collection, Downtown Denver

 Denver, CO

Sitting in a porch swing in an office

A Private Viewing of The Dikeou Collection

One of the first things I do when we plan for a city is search for museums.  I also search for free museums.  I like to do free things but also you can find some really cool as well as really funky museums this way. They tend to be off the beaten path unless you are in London or D.C.  The Dikeou Collection is one of those off the beaten path museums.  Devon Dikeou is an American Artist originally born in Denver.  She has a collection of her work on the 5th floor of a downtown office building.  You can go by making an appointment on their website so I made an appointment for 3 when we were in Grand Junction.  We weren't sure what to expect but it ended up being a really great experience and we were the only 3 people exploring the museum on a Wednesday morning.  

It was often hard to tell what was art and what wasn't.  This was art.

We signed in and took a brochure

The first few rooms which were actually offices in this office building were related to garages.

An etching of an image taken during the 70s Gas Shortage

Our self portrait

She collected TV guides.  This was behind a glass door.

This was the actual entrance to the exhibit

She recreated tiles that appear behind where speakers talk at The United Nations

She also recreated tiles from the Trump Towers.  She studied in NY so much of her art is inspired by what she saw there.

Her relative owned a candy and tobacco shop

It didn't take long before we figured out we could interact with the art.  Donna used provided tokens to buy a newspaper that told about some of the artwork.

You could actually send them a fax

There was a jar where you could drop your business card into. The walls were covered with business cards in this office

I don't have business cards anymore

We haven't punched in since before we quit Disney

Donna adding her time card

Donna's fancy time card

She had a display of rolodexes and phone numbers of famous artists and art dealers

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!  It's been a while since I have done this.

We rounded the corner and were in the room with the TV Guides.  You could pick them up and read them if you wanted to

The chosen issues on the wall

A cool old Phonebook Table.  The phonebooks were from NY.

Really cool wall paper that ended on the ceiling in a cool way

An old working refrigerator that I secretly wanted to be Meow Wolf

Tin ceiling tiles on the floor!

She had a room full of sewing kits.  I opened one

She had salt and pepper "Snow Globes"

Years ago they were filled with salt and pepper and you had to shake them to reveal which shakers were in the globes

The first lady is SALTY!

Since we were on the 5th floor, I stopped to look at the view from one of the rooms.

Downtown Denver

16th St. Mall

At one point we were all in a room with a large mirror and we all had our cameras out so we decided to all take a photo of each other taking a photo.  I was hoping everyone's photo would have everyone else but it didn't quite work out that way.  The collaboration still ended up cool IMHO.

Donna's Photo of Gene and Myself

Gene's photo of Donna

My wide screen photo of both of them

After creating our own art we finished walking through the collection.  

Me taking a seat

More mirror photos

In a field of chairs

On the way out we took the stairs down to see the cool old building features like this mail drop

I asked Gene and Donna to pose at the bottom of the stairs

The disused Letter Box

The lobby had a miniature diorama of one of her collections

One of the tiny rooms in the diorama in the lobby

Lunch!

After viewing the collection we looked for lunch along 16th.  We found Appaloosa Grill.  They had great lunch sandwiches and a nice beer selection.

The bar was cool and they had quite a few Colorado Beers

My "Less Dodge, More Ram" Double IPA

Free bus service along the 16th St. Mall

And the alleys had cool art in them (look up)

After lunch we made one more stop at Great Divide Brewing Barrel Bar.  We came here the last time we were in Denver in 2016 for the great beer.  The area has totally changed now.  It used to be warehouses and industrial but now it is high rise apartments and more breweries.

The Yeti is their mascot

They used a lot of barrels to create the décor here

  

This tiny stencil outside Great Divide got my attention

It was another great day in The Mile High City.  We are approaching our halfway point and our schedule is filling up quickly.  We have also started planning 2023.  We were invited to a Disney World trip in January and we are making plans to visit a theme park named after a famous country singer.  I don't think I will run out of things to write about anytime soon.

Want to read about our Hot Springs visit yesterday?  Check it out here.