Niwot and Longmont non-profits find innovative ways to connect artists with the community

For over 35 years, the Firehouse Art Center has been the leading contemporary art center in Longmont, featuring national and local artists with over a dozen exhibitions a year.

Founded in 1986, the center has been a cornerstone of the Longmont Creative District where it was started by local artists to create a space for artists to create as well as exhibit their work.

"Our mission is to bring arts and culture to our community through education, exhibits and cultural events," said Elaine Waterman, executive director of the Firehouse Art Center.

Waterman has been involved with the center for over 10 years, having first taught a children's art class at the studio over a decade ago. In February of 2020, she stepped into the executive director role-a mere two weeks before COVID-19 closures started to go into full effect.

These closures posed a challenge to the Firehouse Art Center's regularly scheduled offerings. The center focuses heavily on education, exhibits, and events, all of which were impacted by COVID-19 restrictions.

Waterman said that they immediately started thinking about different ways to connect with their community. "Because of my background as an arts educator, one of the first things we did was start art classes virtually," she said.

About two weeks after closing, the center started to live stream their children's classes on Facebook. In total, they have put on about 60 kids' classes on Facebook live throughout the summer.

"Pretty quickly, we pivoted onto Facebook and online platforms to try to bring whatever we could of our programming, that we were losing from closing the gallery, online as soon as we could," she said. "We really took our education and our exhibitions online pretty quickly."

Anne Postle, Vice President of the Niwot Cultural Arts Association and owner of Osmosis Art Gallery in Niwot, said she has noticed a similar trend with local artists. "They're trying to make more of an online presence, really reach out to people through social media and through their websites," she said.

Exhibitions were another area where the Firehouse Art Center had to get creative with its offerings. Waterman noted that exhibitions are one of the largest ways they connect artists to the community, hosting about 12 to 14 shows a year alongside smaller pop-up art galleries.

"We were able to shuffle the exhibits we had planned. It was very important to us on the commitments we had made to artists to show their work," she said. Along with that they offered virtual artist talks and scheduled gallery walkthroughs.

"As far as in-person stuff, we were really eager to get the gallery open, but we had to balance that with the community's safety," Waterman said.

Postle said she feels that as the pandemic has progressed, people have become more committed to surrounding themselves with art that they love. "Once people got the stay at home order, people started caring a lot more about how their homes work. We are finding that people are making an effort to wander through the gallery," she said.

And Postle took advantage of the initial shut-down to revamp the Osmosis gallery space, giving it a fresh coat of paint and putting in new carpet. "We're trying to make lemonade out of lemons. And it feels great." The gallery showcases Colorado artists with a focus on artists in the Denver metro area, primarily those in Boulder County.

For events, both the Firehouse Art Center and Niwot Cultural Arts Association had to bring an innovative approach to their offerings as the pandemic progressed.

In Longmont, Waterman said they made the difficult decision to cancel the spring Second Friday ArtWalk in May, one of two major art walks the center hosted in partnership with the city of Longmont each year.

Waterman said the decision to cancel was difficult, but, at the time, they looked forward to putting their energy into their second ArtWalk event in September. "We were going to focus on the strength of the community and how Longmont was coming back even stronger than ever," she said.

But as the spring progressed into the summer, Waterman said they realized they were faced with the prospect of having to cancel the September ArtWalk, an event that usually draws around 5,000 people, as well.

"At this point, everything was being canceled for artists, for performers, for musicians, for fairs, for festivals. There are a lot of artists who depend on that kind of interaction to get their work out to the community, and, of course, for the financial side," said Waterman

Then when the city of Longmont created a downtown "barrier zone" to support social distancing for downtown businesses, reducing traffic on Highway 287 on Main Street to one-lane each way, Waterman and the board of directors for the Firehouse Art Center started brainstorming ideas.

"We decided that we're going to find a way to activate downtown's barrier areas and make them more beautiful, more creative, and more supportive of our creative community because Longmont is a creative district," Waterman said.

What they came up with was a transformation of the twice-a-year, one-day art walk festival into a 10-week, summer-long series of weekend mini-festivals.

"We can have music and art booths and do it in a way that is very small and contained where it wouldn't be that many people, and we could still follow social distancing," said Waterman. "It really has a very small town kind of festival feel."

In what Waterman described as a "little bubble festival," they set up small stages every half block with music, art, and little market places. This has become a very important point of connection between the local artists and the community.

"The creative community-the artists, the musicians-really want to share their art, but they have no way to do it because of all the restrictions on the bars and festivals. We wanted to make sure that they got out there, people saw their stuff, they talked to the community and that they were able to be out there doing what they love and sharing what they love," Waterman said.

Waterman also noted that while COVID-19 has posed it's challenges for the center, it has also presented some new opportunities. "We had lots of ideas but never delved into them until the pandemic forced the issue by closing the doors. So it really upped our virtual game and forced us to use these virtual tools to our advantage."

The Firehouse Art Center has additionally put on three virtual art markets-an idea brought to them by artist member, Amanda Maldonado. "We were excited about it as well because we were looking for ways to support the artist members and our artists, but we didn't really have a direction that we wanted to go, and she gave us that direction and was a big part of getting that started," said Waterman.

The three markets showcased six to 15 artists, each hosting a live stream from their studio so community members could be a part of their process-a bit like an online open studio.

In Niwot, the NCAA chose to adapt the timeline of the "Why Not Niwot?"' juried art show. The show, which normally runs in the spring, extended the deadline for public voting through the end of August, a choice that Postle said had an unexpected positive outcome. "Artists had more time to create and more time to see Niwot when it looks its best. We got more pieces and really high quality art," she said.

In total, they had 38 pieces, and the community cast 68 ballots. "We were able to do it with social distancing. We had so many people come into the gallery with their ballots saying, 'This is so much fun.' And shop owners really appreciated it because it brings people into their place of business," Postle said. The NCAA also hosted a First Friday ArtWalk on September 4, offering another opportunity for local artists and businesses to connect with the community.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2020, Postle noted that although the NCAA won't be able to host any additional First Friday ArtWalks as the weather gets colder, they will continue to explore ways to offer events to the community in safe environments and hope to bring their annual Let's Wine About Winter event back next spring.

In Longmont, the Firehouse Art Center has several upcoming programs including a new partnership with NEST at CU Boulder for a winter residency for artists highlighting how science and art intersect and a dual language Spanish and English art class television series in partnership with Longmont Public Media to debut on Channel 8. The Firehouse Art Center will also unveil a new exhibit to honor the Día de los Muertos to kick off the 2020 Día de los Muertos Celebration in Longmont.

Reflecting on the year to date, Waterman said it has definitely been a team effort. "It was very much a community bonding together, what can we do as creative people in Longmont to celebrate art and creativity and show the community that there is still beauty to be found," she said.

For more information on the Firehouse Art Center, visit http://www.firehouseart.org. For more information on Niwot Cultural Arts Association, visit http://www.niwotarts.org.