Who would we be without art?
Can you even imagine life without music, art or performance? That’s a bleak landscape, to be sure.
October is Arts Month and the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region encourages us to try one of about 200 arts and culture experiences offered in celebration. Events are listed online at arts october.com.
“It’s an opportunity for the arts community to come together and celebrate the diversity, talent and richness of our sector, and to collectively raise our voices to tell the broader community what a great arts scene there is here,” said COPPeR Executive Director Andy Vick.
“And to invite the broader community to get involved during October to cultivate connection, joy and passion for the arts throughout year.”
The annual fall initiative, held in cities across the U.S., was founded in 1993 by Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit that works to promote arts and culture. COPPeR held the region’s first Arts Month in 2014. The Artini celebration usually kicks off the month, but has been canceled since last year due to the pandemic.
Activities over the next four weeks are a melting pot of visual and culinary arts, theater, film, poetry, comedy, music and dance.
There also are chances to enter online for giveaway experiences, such as painting with an elephant at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and a $500 voucher toward a performance from Curbside Culture, a COPPeR program featuring small-scale performances by local artists.
“We have a great mix of genres, with a lot of (diverse) representation,” Vick said, “and stuff from Cripple Creek to Fountain, to Monument, and everything in between.”
The month also will include the reveal of Arts Vision 2030, a 10-year cultural plan for the Pikes Peak region organized by COPPeR, Bee Vradenburg Foundation and other creative leaders in the community. From April through July, the public was invited to share their hopes for the community. The finished plan will be made available at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at The Gold Room.
Arts and culture is more important than simply having a few hours of fun — the nonprofit arts and culture sector generates more than $150 million every year in the Pikes Peak region.
“This is the biggest advocacy moment in October,” Vick said. “It’s the biggest arts celebration in our region.”
This content was originally published here.