Past Exhibitions
Empty Space: A LASP Artist in Residence Program
Closed March 31
Artists Mario Miguel Echevarria, Alexandra Lockhart, and Clark Riley remind us how creativity fuels discovery, breaking the divide between art and science. This program is in association with the University of Colorado Boulder’sTimmerhausfund.
Bubbling Up
Closed March 29
Bubbles serve as poignant symbols on this transformative journey, where stories mend wounds, dispel isolation and call for action. Visitors are invited to contribute their stories and responses, actively participating in the exhibition’s ongoing dialogue.
Relatos de la Madre Tierra, Tales from Mother Earth
Closed Feb. 4
Un experimento de arte colectivo que recrea y recupera los saberes ancestrales para el cuidado de la Madre Tierra. A collective art experiment that recreates and recovers ancestral knowledge for the care of Mother Earth.
Moving Steel Canvases: Railroad Graffiti in Boulder
Closed Jan. 31
Tad Kline’s unique photographs capture his passion for twentieth-century painting, the aesthetic of the railroad cars, and bold graffiti tags. His work examines alteration through weathering, accident, overpainting, and the efforts of the railroad companies to erase the vandalism.
The Boulder Art Association: Celebrating 100 years!
Closed Jan. 30
The Boulder Art Association (BAA) is a Community of Artists. We Talk, Teach, Promote, Exhibit, Support, Explore & DO ART! All are Welcome: all Mediums, Styles, Levels, Ages, Genders, Sizes, Cultures, Creators & Lovers of Art. This exhibit highlights the history of BAA with photos from the Carnegie Archives.
Birds of México
Closed Jan. 30
For his exhibit artist Christian Suárez created several depictions of different birds indigenous to México, in addition to a painting of the Mexican flag. The paintings are done in acrylic and the drawings in ink. The bird depicted on the Mexican flag is Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of time.
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? Celebrating the Life and Art of Steve Jenkins
Closed Dec. 3
A vibrant retrospective of the wondrous work of Boulder Caldecott Honor recipient Steve Jenkins (1952–2021), featuring illustrations from his many children’s books (some in collaboration with his wife, Robin Page), that describe the marvels and magic of animals and the natural world.
Little Creatures
closed Sept. 28
Whether you hate them, love them, or are indifferent — your life depends on insects. Cool Boulder has teamed up with the Endangered Species Coalition and Colorado artists to explore our relationship with invertebrates through art, performance, workshops, community discussions, and more.
Our Wishes / Nuestros Deseos
Closed Aug. 8
Alejandra Abad developed “Our Wishes” in 2020 as a response to COVID-19 during her time as an Engaged Arts & Humanities graduate scholar at CU Boulder. The ongoing project has been displayed as hand-made banners throughout Boulder and Denver. This iteration focuses on banners that reflect wishes of joy to coincide with the library’s One Book One Boulder series related to the “Book of Joy”.
Maker Made
Closed July 30
The maker movement represents the collective energy and ambition of a community of inventors, designers, engineers, artists, craftspeople and tinkerers. Its ethos is a mixture of DIYer self-reliance informed by open-source learning, traditional craftsmanship, new technology and modern design thinking. Crafted in home studios, garages and local makerspaces – the work of these individuals stirs our imagination and provides a glimpse of what we can achieve as a culture of creators.
Cultivating Resilience
Closed June 11
Art and science come together in this exhibition by Amy Hoagland, Summer King, and Jullian Young. In collaboration with local artists, scientists, an elementary school, and Hannigan Air Quality Lab. This exhibition reflects on the unique abilities of plants to survive, thrive, and even improve the air around them after crises. Test an air quality monitor, take home an air-purifying plant clipping, and experience a data informed art environment.
Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) Art Exhibition
closed May 7
BVSD once again held its annual K–8 art exhibition at the Boulder Public Library. Art teachers from all elementary and middle schools will select pieces of art and honor the student artists.
To Have and to Hoard
closed Feb. 5
Joel Haertling, an eclectic character and avid collector who grew up in Boulder, worked at the Boulder Public Library for over 30 years. As a collector of ephemera, found art and personal objects, he brings people together through things. This exhibition will showcase a huge, yet comparatively tiny, cross-section of Joel’s collections and will also delve into his collection process.
Lived Experience
closed Jan 14, 2023
Lived Experience is an analog photography project that elevates the stories of people experiencing homelessness to inspire social change. Unboxed Photography worked in partnership with Feet Forward to distribute single-use cameras and provide an opportunity for folks to connect with their creativity and explore visual expression through the art of film photography. The images were captured on 35mm black and white negative film, allowing all exhibition prints to be curated and hand-processed in the darkroom by B Goodell / Unboxed Photography. Lived Experience is inspired by the Through Our Eyes Project, started in 2016 by Jason Williamson. This project is funded by a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission, an agency of the Boulder City Council.
Quantity of Life: Nature/Supernature
Closed November 27, 2022
“Quantity of Life: Nature/Supernature” celebrates the richness of our natural world through painting, sculpture, printmaking, and collage. Contributors to this exhibition have come together from varied backgrounds and ways of working with a hope of promoting a felt living connection with nature.
The sculptures by Caroline Douglas extol the sacredness of animals and our interconnection with all life. Frank Sampson’s whimsical, narrative paintings depict a personal and fantastical menagerie of creatures. Through painting, Jordan Wolfson dances with the complexity of dense thickets and ravines. Chuck Ceraso’s work reveals his deep, visual, and kinesthetic engagement with the landscape. Sharing her rapport with nature’s spirits, Molly Mohseni’s monotypes, collage, and paintings show us aspects of the living world beyond the apparent. Jeannie DeMarinis explores, through painting, the unseen world of fungi and the magic of soil life. Working from deeply felt memories and dreams, Cara Luneau brings to light some of her own personal journeys in the wild.
Rocky Mountain Rescue: 75 years of Search and Rescue Leadership
Closed November 10, 2022
A photo exhibit and historic narrative of the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (one of the oldest and busiest mountain search and rescue teams in the USA). The photos consist of actual missions and practices from the early 1950s to today. The Rocky Mountain Rescue Group (RMRG) is one of the oldest and busiest mountain search and rescue teams in the USA. RMRG started as a grassroots effort in 1947 and has grown to 200 calls per year. RMRG has been a leader in developing mountain search and rescue equipment and techniques in this field that continues to evolve. RMRG’s all-volunteer professional staff provide services for free 24 / 7 / 365. This equates to 15,000+ hours per year of search and rescue calls, training, and running this non-profit organization.
Kachou fuugetsu Japanese Flower Exhibition
Closed September 25, 2022
The Official Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America Colorado Chapter is pleased to present its annual Ikebana Japanese Flower Arrangement Exhibition. Kachou Fuugetsu (花鳥風月) is a Japanese concept that means to discover yourself when experiencing nature. Kachou Fuugetsu (花鳥風月) is a Japanese concept that means to discover yourself when experiencing nature.
Art Inspired by the Land
Closed September 18, 2022
City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) presents a community art exhibition inspired by our shared open space! The Boulder community has been committed to preserving wild lands in this area for more than 120 years and we all share a proud legacy of community-driven stewardship and conservation. These past few years have been challenging for all. Community members’ lives have been deeply touched. Many have sought solace and support in our beloved open spaces. To honor the comfort and healing that nature provides, this exhibit celebrates our community’s connection to the land.
Library Inspired: The BPL Staff Art Show
Closed September 6, 2022
Using the library collections as inspiration, this exhibition shares artworks created by library staff.
Bird’s Eye View
Closed July 31, 2022
Through a partnership with Open Space and Mountain Parks, Boulder youth have taken an art-science approach to observing local birds and exploring humans’ interspecies relationships with birds in our backyards.
MEXICANIXIMA
Closed July 9, 2022
MEXICANIXIMA is an exhibition of handmade piñatas created by Maribel Arredondo (a.k.a. Mamibel) of Curious Paper Art by Mamibel. Each piñata represents an element of Mexican culture – join us on this trip to Mexico.
Word Into Art
Closed June 22, 2022
WORD INTO ART highlights the versatile and vibrant ways that text and art intertwine. The exhibition featured more than 90 contemporary artists and writers. Using language as a powerful visual tool to reflect on culture, politics, social justice or simply the beauty of the alphabet on canvas, with sculpture, artist books, posters, broadsides, and concrete poetry. Co-curated by Jim Johnson and Jennifer Heath.
Teen Art Exhibition: Photos, Paintings, Pottery and More!
Closed May 15, 2022
Art created by teen artists from Boulder High School. A mix of mediums including photos, paintings, pottery and digital art.
Boulder Valley School District (BVSD)
Closed May 2, 2022
The Boulder Valley School District annual K–8 art exhibition. Art teachers from all elementary and middle schools will select pieces of art and honor the student artists.
Maker Made
Closed March 28, 2022
BLDG 61 is thrilled to present the return of Maker Made, an exhibition celebrating the diverse and inspiring work produced by the makers in our community.
Closed Loop
Closed January 27, 2022
Closed Loop is a term used in relation to the circular economy, one in which materials are consistently reused rather than discharged as waste. The exhibition “Closed Loop” featured the work of artists, community members and businesses who deploy systems of social justice, sustainability and reuse of fiber, textile and apparel materials.
Shinzen no Chika-ra Flower Exhibition
Closed November 21, 2021
This delicious exhibition features plant-rich recipes by The Japanese have long relied on the “Power of Nature” for its restorative effect on mind and body. The Official Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America Colorado Chapter is pleased to present an Ikebana Japanese Flower Arrangement Exhibition so you too can feel Shinzen no Chika-ra and recuperate from the pandemic. Come and be inspired by over 50 beautiful arrangements featuring trees and flowers that will bring you joy, peace and harmony. Be restored by the power and beauty of nature.
Recipes for Change
Closed November 14, 2021
This delicious exhibition features plant-rich recipes by young women with SPEAK for actual meals, for climate awareness, and for arts-based positive social and environmental change.
Tonics For Transformation: An Ecosocial Response to Sustain & Support During Wildfire Season
Closed November 14, 2021
This interactive, socially engaged show will allow space for the community to process feelings of grief related to wildfires and provide tools for supporting wellness in a rapidly changing ecology.
Bigger View(s): Earth, Anthropocene, Beauty
Closed November 5, 2021
The artists David D’Agostino, Jennifer Lord, and Noah Travis Phillips create multi-centered, parallel simultaneous realities that celebrate nature, disrupt humanities extractive paradigms and anthropocene legacies, and suggest that another world is possible.
Love Letters to the Earth
Closed October 3, 2021
Multi-media exhibition by the Arbor Art Collective exploring our reciprocal relationship with the Earth with collaborations between Colorado artists and farmers who are creating food justice and climate-resilient food systems on the Front Range.
Boulder Valley School District K-8 Art Exhibit
closed May 8, 2021
The Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) once again held its annual K-8 Art Exhibit at the Boulder Public Library. Boulder-area 6th through 12th-grade student artwork was on display at the library on the ramp to the restrooms from March 22 through April 15. Following that display, Kindergarten through 5th-grade art was on display from April 17 to May 8.
Recipes for Change
Online
Over the years, Young Womens’ Voices for Climate Change have accumulated recipes anyone can use to create positive social & environmental change. When they say recipes, they don’t mean recipes in the traditional sense- although some of the recipes do incorporate actual food- many are guidelines which can be applied in many different aspects of your life. But they all share a common goal: to nourish & heal our planet.
Bigger view(s): Earth, Anthropocene, Beauty
Online
Featuring the artists David D’Agostino, Jennifer Lord, and Noah Travis Phillips, Bigger View(s): Earth, Anthropocene, Beauty offers parallel simultaneous realities of the multi-centered networks of Nature. Questioning dualistic understandings both formally and thematically, the art is not human-centric, rather it opens feeling-ways into new modes of being with(in). The artwork conjures feelings of harmony, beauty, sublimity, grief and interconnection. We posit this as a way forward through the Anthropocene.
Build a Better Book: Stories for Your Senses
closed February 2, 2020
The University of Colorado Boulder’s Build a Better Book project works with library makerspaces (including BLDG 61) to engage youth in the design and fabrication of more inclusive media, including picture books and games for children who are blind or visually impaired. This exhibition featured art created through the project, along with the tactile artwork of Ann Cunningham, Colorado artist and art educator at the Colorado Center for the Blind, including several multi-panel stories.
Street Wise
closed December 1, 2019
“Street Wise” showed culturally inspired street artwork from diverse perspectives reflecting our current social, political, environmental climate through the eyes of artists. The project included both work inside the gallery and outside street installations throughout the City of Boulder, as well as workshops and community events. Curated by Leah Brenner Clack.
Under- & Overstories
Closed September 29, 2019
NEST (Nature, Environment, Science & Technology) Studio for the Arts proudly presents work at the intersection of science and art. With more than twenty exhibitors, this collection of work addresses the paradox of scale held within the microscopic and the cosmic, the single-celled organism and the ecosystemic.
Elements – The Boulder Potters’ Guild: 50 years and counting!
Closed August 4, 2019
This exhibition is a celebration of the successes of the past and vision for the future for this creative community. It will showcase guild members’ current work in clay. Guild members will show their finest ceramic pieces, functional and sculptural. A key element of the success of the guild is education. Ephemera, photos and written history will highlight the legacy of the Boulder Potters’ Guild workshops and classes.
Living in Nature City
Closed June 9, 2019
WORKac, the architects for the north Boulder branch library, unveiled their design for the new building in an exhibition that also featured a number of their projects around the world over the past fifteen years.
picture by Lauren Click, Office of Arts and Culture
Outbreak by Nicole Banowetz
Closed June 12, 2019 Conoid, Main Library
The forms in Outbreak are based on microscopic bacteria and viruses. These forms are beautiful, complex, playful and menacing as they replicate and fly around the conoid, seemingly trying to escape into the world. The work makes us question our complex relationships to the microscopic world. This exhibition is being presented in conjunction with CU’s Conference on World Affairs, which ran April 9-13 of 2019 with several sessions taking place at the library.
Boulder Valley School District K-8 Art Exhibit (BVSD)
Closed Aril 28, 2019
The Boulder Valley School District will once again hold it’s annual K-8 Art Exhibit at the Boulder Public Library. Art teachers from all elementary and middle schools will select six pieces of art and honor the student artists who created what art at the reception. All are welcome to enjoy this event which has been an important part of advocating for art in public education over the past decades.
Maker Made: Works Presented by BLDG 61
Closed March 29, 2019
This show celebrated the work of designers, scientists, artists, engineers, and craftspeople that comprise our maker community. Showcased work will include printed materials, three-dimensional objects, kinetic, and interactive projects. Video from exhibit opening.
A Celebration of Jomon
Closed March 31, 2019 Arapahoe Ramp, Main Library
Learn about the artists working to resurrect ancient Japanese pottery traditions from the Jomon period – a peaceful era that lasted for ten thousand years and is making a revival in modern Japanese art. This exhibition was in collaboration with Studio Arts Boulder, coinciding with a special program series with visiting Japanese Jomon artists.
Art of Data
Closed February 3, 2019
The City of Boulder has a renewed focus on innovation that is being driven by a citywide effort to enhance data-driven decision-making and innovation. This show will celebrate art created by the community, inspired by the City of Boulder’s Open Data Catalog and other public City data.
Yarn-fiti: A Community Takeover
Closed November 21, 2018
Yarn enthusiasts of all types took over the Canyon Gallery with an immersive installation of yarn projects. This exhibition was comprised of community submissions, which have been collected throughout the year. Visitors had the opportunity to add their own work throughout the show.
Ikebana Showcase: Life in Edo Japan – Flowers and Scroll Paintings from the 18th Century
Closed October 21, 2018
The Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America presents their annual exhibition of ikebana flower arrangements. An introductory class in Ikebana was offered to the public and an arrangement demonstration was also be held in the Canyon Theater.
Wish You Were Here: The Sweaters of Sam Barsky
Closed October 14, 2018
Maryland artist Sam Barsky knits sweaters of iconic landmarks and then photographs himself wearing his work at those locations. This exhibition shares a collection of Barsky’s freehand sweaters, along with photographs of his travels, exploring his creative process. As part of the exhibition, Barsky has designed four Boulder and Colorado-specific sweaters, which are patrons were able to borrow with their library card.
Photo by Lauren Click
Slow Mover
Closed August 19, 2018
Slow Mover, presented by artists Matthew and Lisa Bethancourt of Mouse & the Billionaire was a series of traditional and interactive artworks that invited viewers to reflect on the slow movement of time. Living with artwork over time can be powerful and is very different than seeing something for a few minutes in a public context. For this reason, selected works were gifted to interested individuals over the course of the exhibition. Visit mouseandthebillionaire.com for more information.
Chair of the Board
Closed July 15, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
Chair of the Board examines the influence of publicly available maker technologies on contemporary design practice. A diverse range of Boulder area design professionals were tasked with creating a chair from a single sheet of 4×8 plywood. The resulting unique designs are an experiment in the emergent micro-production phenomena. Created by library maker-in-residence, Steve Bullock, this exhibition is produced with the resources available at the library’s makerspace, BLDG 61.
Facing Rocky Flats
Closed June 10, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
The former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site is slated to open as a national wildlife refuge in the summer of 2018. Preceding the planned opening, this group exhibition looked at the past, present, and future of this contentious site. This exhibition also featured one-on-ones with a living book: a person who has had direct experience with Rocky Flats.
Boulder Valley School District Annual Showcase
Closed April 22, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
An annual celebration of work created by elementary students from across the Boulder Valley School District.
Pink Progression
Closed March 24, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
On January 21, 2017, history was made when over two million people joined the historic, global women marches. During the marches, pink created a strong visual statement representing unity and empowerment. Inspired by the marches, this exhibition highlighted the work of over thirty local artists who used the color pink as a unifying element. Pink Progression had a simultaneous exhibition at the Denver Public Library from March 2nd through June 29th, 2018. For more information on the exhibit and to participate in Pink Progression’s postcard call for entry go to pinkprogression.wordpress.com
Why Cats Have Skinny Pupils: Jack Collom & the Writings of Boulder County School Children
Closed February 11, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
Jack Collom (1931-2017) began teaching in poets-in-the-schools programs in the mid-1970s nationwide (and abroad), a practice he continued for the rest of his life. He taught thousands of school children of all grades in Boulder County and wrote the book Moving Windows about teaching poetry to children. His boyish (even in old age) joie d’écrire was infectious and generations of students have been exposed to, “infected with,” poetry as a direct result of Jack Collom. This exhibition was a sampling of that poetry.
Maker Made: Works Presented by BLDG 61
Closed January 28, 2018 – Canyon Gallery
This show celebrated the work of designers, scientists, artists, engineers, and craftspeople who comprise our maker community. Showcased work included printed materials, three-dimensional objects, kinetic, and interactive projects.