Members from the Northern El Paso County Watercolor Group are happy to be bringing their talents to the Garden of the Gods Visitor Center.

Professional watercolor works in a great variety of subjects, sizes and prices; all featuring the beauty of the Pikes Peak Region.

Find decor for the autumn season or a gift for the upcoming holidays.

Ben is an ex-CONN. He was born, raised and worked in Connecticut until he and Raynelle, his lovely wife of 52 years, retired out here to be near her family, thereby allowing Uncle Ben to teach nieces and nephews some bad habits, and get away with it!

Soon after arriving here, Ben's brother-in-law Dan Stuart got him to volunteer as MAC's Project Liaison in converting/transforming an old livery stable into Venue 515. This project enabled Ben to become acquainted with many artists, all of whom became very close friends.

After Venue 515, Ben was involved in creating the Manitou Springs Arts Council. MSAC became responsible for public art projects, the most prominent one being "Art on the Avenue" which has brought and continues to bring numerous wonderful sculptures to Manitou. In 2014 Ben was honored with a MANNI AWARD for his volunteerism.

Ben always had a passion for painting. Back east, he mostly worked with Benjamin Moore using color palettes selected by Raynelle to change the color of the walls in their house. Although he painted a pieces of art back in Connecticut, shortly after arriving here Ben became enchanted with the beautiful landscape in Colorado and decided to capture that via a new hobby in retirement. He took a few art lessons from Tina Riesterer and started dabbling.

This show exhibits artwork Ben has created over the past 25 years. It includes some paintings on loan from family members and friends. He wishes to thank them for allowing him to borrow them for this exhibit. He also wishes to thank these family members and friends for remembering to dust off his paintings and hang them in advance of whenever he visits them.

Fountain Creek Nature Center hosts a Rotating Art Exhibit which features the works of a local artist or photographer. All items are nature-related and local to Colorado. These pieces can be purchased to support the creative and El Paso County Nature Centers in their mission of connecting people to their natural and cultural resources.

Mary Madison of Black Forest is the featured artist for the month of October.

Come check out her unique tapestries and fiber-art creations before they're gone!

Come out and enjoy the historic pumpkin patch at Venetucci Farm! Pumpkin Fest is every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in October.

Celebrate fall with the pumpkin patch, hayride, games, concession, makers market, farm animals and more!

• Bring a wagon to transport to your car! We have a limited number of wagons available.
• Farm animals will be there on Saturday and Sunday.
• Makers Market and Farm Store will be open Friday - Sunday.
• Concession stand and food trucks will be there Friday - Sunday.
• The farm flowers will be available for purchase up until the first frost of the year, which is typically around October 15 but we can never fully predict this.
• There are many decorated photo areas ready for you to get great fall memories.

An Art Show for Suicide and Mental Health Awareness.

I'll Be There. This powerful exhibition of local artists including Lance Green, Don Goede, Bill Young, Kim Nguyen and more, shines a light on mental health and suicide awareness, featuring poignant artworks reflecting the struggles and triumphs often kept behind closed doors.

Each piece serves as a reminder that no one is alone in their journey—together, we can foster understanding, empathy, and connection. Join us for an evening of inspiration, conversation, and community as we celebrate resilience and support mental health initiatives.

Mark your calendars and be part of the movement. Your presence matters. Let’s create a dialogue, spread awareness, and inspire hope.

Every October is Arts Month. Every October is our Benefit Month at Academy Art & Frame Co. with a show dedicated to supporting a non-profit organization in our region. Heartbeat, a Colorado Springs organization that’s mission is to offer empathy, comfort, relief from isolation, and to role model healthy adjustment to the loss in a safe, judgment-free environment to anyone touched by suicide, will be the art exhibits beneficiary this year. 20% of all sales from the show will go to Heartbeat. Because together, we can be there for one another.

We asked these artists to create works in homage to the weird and wild. They have created contemporary interpretations of classic horror tropes, monsters and beasts, hauntings and Lovecraftian visions of what lies beyond the borders of normalcy. Mediums range across ceramics, metalworking, fiber, painting, drawing, mixed media assemblage and more, incorporating a notably broad variety of styles.

Samhain is a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”. It is an Autumnal pagan festival of Celtic origins. It is time to welcome in the harvest and usher in the dark half of the year.
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Infra Red Photography by Sherri Mabe.

Original Mixed Media Wall Art by Tylan Toyer.

Feather Masks by Julia L. Wright.

Ceramic Art by Maggie Quinn.

Samhain was seen as a liminal time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could more easily be crossed. This meant the aos sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into our world. Many scholars see the aos sí as remnants of pagan gods and nature spirits. At Samhain, it was believed that the aos sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink would be left outside for the aos sí, giving way today to “trick or treat”.

This year we celebrate with food, drink, and ART!

Alhamdu | Muslim Futurism is an evolving multidisciplinary exhibition and archive created by MIPSTERZ featuring a variety of work from paintings, photography, illustrations and sculptures to installations, digital media, soundscapes, film, virtual reality, and interactive experiences. ALHAMDU—an exhibition three years in the making at the Fine Arts Center—explores Muslim Futurism, a cultural and artistic approach that learns from Afrofuturism, a movement visualizing alternate and liberating futures of Black bodies. Muslim Futurism also incorporates ideas drawn from global resistance and liberation movements (e.g., Palestinian, Sudanese, Rohingya, Uyghur—to name a few), as well as Islamic understandings of love and justice to imagine a flourishing Muslim future for all. This immersive art exhibition and associated programs explore five themes: imagination, identity, community, resistance, and liberation. Each theme is explored from an artistic, community, and academic lens considering what “Muslim Futurism” means, draws from, and works toward.

About MIPSTERZ
MIPSTERZ is a non-traditional arts and culture collective for emerging Muslim, Muslim-adjacent, and allied creatives. We enable and amplify creative voices by presenting and producing cultural alternatives. MIPSTERZ helps marginalized creators build, collaborate, or experiment with diverse folks who share a common connection to a larger tradition. The collective has featured work in popular media and academia to museums and art spaces—bringing multi-dimensional third-culture-inspired voices and stories to the forefront. Learn more about MIPSTERZ

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program. The mission of the Building Bridges Program is to support national efforts, working with U.S. Muslims, to increase mutual understanding and well-being among diverse populations for the benefit of building stronger, inclusive communities. Support for ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM at the Fine Arts Center is provided by the Catharine and Bart Holaday Endowment for Interactive Art.

The Manitou Springs Heritage Center and Museum announces its featured exhibits,  “Van Briggle: What Is the Manitou Connection?” and "The Garden of the Gods Pottery".

See one of the largest exhibits of Van Briggle pottery in the Pikes Peak region. Learn more about Artus and Anne Van Briggle’s creation of this iconic and award-winning pottery works and its connection to historic Manitou Springs. See dozens of beautifully designed pottery creations crafted by America’s longest-running pottery works, Van Briggle Pottery.

Eric Hellman was hired by Nemadji Pottery and Tile to create and design its first line of  Nemadji Pottery. Hellman designed pieces "glazed" by floating oil-base colors on water and dipping his pots into this concoction. At his pottery works known as The Garden of the Gods Pottery, he was one of the early craftsmen in the Colorado Springs area.

Visit our free museum. For more information, call (719) 685-1454, email: ManitouHeritage@gmail.com, or visit www.manitouspringsheritagecenter.org

Su Kaiden Cho

"Being...with" investigates the subtle interplay between presence and absence, connection and isolation, and the quiet spaces where meaning is both formed and undone.

April Lavely-Robinson

This exhibition is a collaboration with my shadow. Because if I am to be whole I must invite all the parts of me to the table.

Clark Valentine

My work explores the phenomenological experience of mark making. In my drawings, each mark becomes a unique repetition of the mark before it

Karen Mosbacher

Putting on a well-designed and well-fitted dress can evoke confident emotion, increase self-esteem, and reduce stress levels.

Pam Holnback

Light and color are the focus of what I capture in my oil paintings of the sky.

“The Photography of E.S. Curtis and Roland Reed-Historic and Contemporary First Nation Images” 

The Manitou Springs Heritage Center and Museum proudly announces its exhibit, “The Photography of E.S. Curtis and Roland Reed-Historic and Contemporary First Nation Images”.

Celebrate our town’s diversity and Indigenous communities during Indigenous People’s Weekend in Manitou Springs with this community-building exhibit that contrasts and compares historic and contemporary First Nation photography.

Experience the iconic photogravures of Curtis and Reed and contemporary images as seen through the camera lens of indigenous photographers, Amanda Jones, Manny Hawkwing Pulido, Kenny Frost and world-famous filmmaker, photographer and lecturer Larry Cesspooch.

Mr. Cesspooch will be leading the Opening Ceremony. These First Nation Images are representative of the photographers’ tribes, families, friends and the landscapes and depict their way of life and communities.  See our collections of kachinas, fetishes, pottery and artwork of indigenous peoples living throughout the West.

About the exhibit:
Mood is a small collection of new work by Becca Day that celebrates how making art can both lift mood and express mood in the finished results.

About the artist:
I am a self-taught painter from Colorado Springs, working mainly in oil and acrylic mediums. I have been making art in many forms since childhood, and abstract painting has been my focus since 2015.
As an abstract painter, I’m interested in the internal world, and how it can be expressed in visual form. I seek to make peace with unknowing and uncertainty, both in my everyday life and within the process of painting. My work is exploratory and meditative. I paint intuitively, using oil and acrylic paint and gestural marks, employing varying thicknesses of paint and many layers. To form a composition, each mark made informs the next in an intuitive evolution of shape and texture making. A composition feels successful when I can create organic abstract forms based on ideas that language doesn’t cover, yet somehow feel familiar.

Show Description:

This collection of porcelain and stoneware sculptures emerged initially as a tribute and reflection of what I find the most inspiring and aesthetically pleasing: the shapes that define the human influence on the American Southwest landscape. As a descendent of homesteaders and cattle ranchers along the Colorado/ New Mexico border, I’ve spent the summers of my life in the most beautiful and expansive landscapes of the Southwest. These places, especially my family ranch, have held me, comforted me, and brought me back home to myself over and over again. This work explores the relationship between self and place, of nature and human domination, and ultimately of what it means to be and feel “at home”. Creating this collection allowed me the time and space to adopt the concept that the most sacred home we can find, foster, cultivate, and nurture - is the home within ourselves. The lighting element was the focus of this work from the beginning, because home is the place where the light is left on to welcome us when we return. This life requires us to be vigilant in maintaining that our inner light, the light within, always stays on, no matter how dim it may flicker at times. We must keep the faith in ourselves enough to keep our own light on, for ourselves and for the world. We must shelter and protect it, but not so much we suffocate it; much in the same way early homesteaders preserved the fire that burned in the hearth of humble homes and provided light and warmth to nurture families. Those fires are why I’m here today, and so this show is dedicated to my family and our beloved Stonewall ranch.

Artist Bio:

Alison Santa Maria is a ceramic artist and sculptor working mainly with porcelain.A native of Colorado Springs, she has a profound love and appreciation for the landscapes, shapes, and colors that define the American Southwest both natural and architectural. A natural born creative with a curious spirit, a knack for nuance, and an appreciation for all art forms, Alison began working with clay in 2018 at the request of her best friend who wanted to give her a private wheel-throwing lesson (coupled with tequila). What began as a silly new experience, soon became a driving force in her life for learning, exploration, curiosity, patience, and surrender. She began sculpting in 2021 and is largely self-taught. Professionally, Alison is a passionate Dyslexia Therapist who owns a private practice that serves to identify and remediate children with dyslexia in our community. She also owns an independent potters studio which allows other budding artists and hobbyists to pursue their creativity with clay. Lastly, she and her husband host 70’s themed disco dance parties periodically throughout the year. When she’s not working at one of her many jobs or businesses, Alison enjoys traveling, spending time with her many friends, recreating in the great outdoors with her husband, and snuggling her adorable and goofy dog, Hoagie Daniel.

About the Exhibit:

This show includes a limited number of screen prints and artisan frames which take you on an adventure through neon west Texas and along Route 66.

Artist Bio:

Caroline Clark is a Colorado Springs based artist who uses a combination of digital and traditional printmaking techniques to celebrate the natural world. Her work is featured in multiple well known graphic design applications such as outdoor gear, concert posters, and home decor. Her colors and digital drawings have attracted national attention and are loved by many.

The exhibit explains the role railroads have played in the development of our town’s history through our presentation of images, artifacts and video.

Learn about the five railroads that served our town including Manitou’s Lost Railroad and the railroads that helped build the West. The Denver & Rio Grande Railway with its Manitou Spur and the Colorado Midland Railway brought tourists from all over the country to visit Manitou Springs. Tour Manitou and the Pikes Peak region while experiencing video rides on the Manitou Incline, the Red Mountain Incline Railway and the Pikes Peak Cog Railway.

Drawing inspiration from her early fall hikes and mountain adventures, her recent canvases are almost giddy with color and movement.

"The Aspens Show- New Works" continues through the end of October at Laura Reilly Fine Art Gallery and Studio and online at laurareilly.com.

Teachers, alumni and visitors come see why Manitou Springs is much more than a tourist attraction.

The exhibit features Manitou Springs High School stories which focus on “Then and Now” themes and community building. Stories include “100 Years Ago (1924 – 2024)”, a school building history timeline, then and now prom dress fashions, cheerleading and technology. Also included are a Manitou family spotlight for the Zellhoefers, a tribute to Professor Richardson and class photo slideshows. This exhibit ties the past to the present for kids, parents and grandparents while promoting our city’s unique sense of community.

UPDATE: Online only on www.truenorthartgallery.com until further notice due to a fire in a neighboring business. Future gallery hour updates will be posted on website.

Each member artist, along with several alumni members, share their interpretation of the theme "portrait" in the gallery's first group exhibit. Artists use their own medium, some stretching beyond their normal aesthetics, to create work in this theme.

Creepy Crawly Collections

Agents of Care Gallery
The event is a drop-in program that is free and open to the public.

Get tattooed by any of the hundreds of artists in attendance (who come from across the U.S. or even around the world) in any style you choose!

Some artists you may even know already, like Anwon Boneface Johnson (Ink Master seasons 8, 9 & Grudge Match), Mystical Mike (Ink Master season 3). or Charles Whitfield (VH1.) But if tattoos aren’t your thing, this event is still for you; browse amongst our many vendors selling everything from clothing and jewelry to oddities, art, and more.

Or take in the live entertainment, which includes sword swallowing, sideshow acts, burlesque, even human suspension!

Attendees can also participate in tattoo contests with their new or existing tattoos every day of the festival.

Something for everyone, so why wait?

Join the fun and get some ink at the First Annual Colorado Springs Tattoo Arts Festival!

Herkimer (the huge Beetle on the side of highway 115) invites you to explore The May Museum this October! For the first time in history, you can visit our World-Famous insect collection during the spookiest time of year!

• Bug/creepy crawlers themed Face Painting by local artist Twisted Tree Studio!
• Bug/creepy crawler themed candy.
• Our wonderful gift shop will be open.
• All our staff will be in costumes.
• Your costumes strongly encouraged.