New Art in Niwot Sculpture Park

Anne Postle, Jill Whitener and Lisa Rivard are members of the Niwot Cultural Arts Association's Community Corner Sculpture Park Committee, launched in 2018 to create a park that benefits the community as well as artists. Newly donated art has given the park even greater prestige as a home for world-class art.

Working with the Cottonwood Park West Homeowners Association and the Niwot Business Association, the committee has expanded the sculpture park along Niwot Road, where Native American artist Eddie Running Wolf's iconic tree carvings provide a gateway to the community.

The NCAA contributed art known as "Spirit of the River Does Not Live Long in a Drainage Pipe" which was donated by the family of the late artist Scott Reuman. A donation by the Burrell Family Foundation allowed the NCAA to purchase "Waco Curves II" by Rollin Karg, which is also installed in the park.

Several other sculptures were also added to the park, on loan from sculptors. The committee issued a call to artists for submissions, and the sculptures selected are installed at the cost of the NCAA, which agreed to keep the artist's sculpture in the park for 12 months. Once those twelve months are up, the artist can remove the sculpture at the artist's expense, unless the sculpture has been purchased.

Last April, the NCAA undertook a fundraising campaign to purchase another sculpture. "In the last few months, we have fundraised enough money to purchase the sculpture by the Ukrainian artist," said Postle, owner of Osmosis Gallery. "Kore the Awakening" was sculpted by Egor Zigura and was purchased for $25,000. Zigura will be using the money to help himself and his family during the on-going war in Ukraine. "And we have just raised the sculpture to a new permanent location where it has a more dramatic base and it just looks awesome," Postle said.

"And just last week, two new sculptures were donated to the park that were a part of my late husband's collection," Postle continued, referring to Jim Postle. "He passed away in May of 2021 and I promised him that as much as possible, I will keep his collection in places where it can have an impact. He had two beautiful George Carlson pieces that are a great fit for the Sculpture Park."

Those sculptures, "Of One Heart" and "Courtship Flight," have now been installed in the Sculpture Park.

Carlson was honored with a one-man show at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and won the prestigious Prix de West medal for "Courtship Flight" in 1975. His work is in the permanent collections of well known venues, including the Denver Art Museum, the Whitney Gallery at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, and the Thomas Gilcrease in Tulsa. You can now add Niwot's Sculpture Park to that list.

"The Sculpture Park has become something of an asset to the Niwot community for many years," Postle said, "and it will always be growing and changing with the addition of new permanent pieces. And with the rotation of pieces that are on display. I think it's something of a Niwot gem."