Colorado Springs box factory site of new artist residency, receptions
Apr. 9—Imagine making art in a box factory.
A machine spits out 500 boxes per minute in the 100,000-square-foot building as you imagine your large-scale installation into reality in a corner room.
This 400ish-square-foot space is the home of P.E.A.R. Gallery, the new artist residency at Packaging Express, one of the last independent custom corrugated box manufacturers in Colorado, off Garden of the Gods Road in northwest Colorado Springs.
"We're always looking for unique and creative ways of giving back to the community," said Packaging Express owner Matt Davis. "Artists don't have space and we had some extra space and it just made sense. Hopefully, artists can think bigger than they thought they could. We want the space to be used for people with bigger projects."
Longtime Springs artist Wendy Mike is the first to inhabit P.E.A.R. (Packaging Express Artist in Residence Program). Since the fall, she's worked on the packing tape and Saran wrap casts of human figures she's become known for over the last decade. Her new 14-foot-by-20-foot sculpture features five life-sized female figures in various rock climbing positions on what looks like a slab of red rock. The installation was commissioned by Denver's Nancy Noyes Art Design for the fourth floor of Centura's new orthopedic hospital, St. Francis Hospital — Interquest.
A free reception from 5-7 p.m. Friday will launch the new residency and preview Mike's installation before it's installed at the hospital in early May.
To create her pieces, Mike wraps real people in rolls of tape, working in sections, then cutting the tape with surgical scissors and allowing the cast to slip off. She reassembles the sections to form each gossamer figure. For her piece, dubbed "Transcendent," she used an experienced local rock climber recommended to her by the owners of CityRock.
"The postures are almost distorted, not grotesque, but pretty gnarly," Mike said. "As an artist devoted to anatomy it's been an amazing experience of what's possible for the human form. Given the placement of the piece and what it will be doing in the hospital, in terms of being there for people who are in a position of vulnerability, I wanted something that was transcendent."
Lauren Ciborowski, who shuttered her downtown gallery The Modbo in 2021, will help select artists for the residency. The goal is to provide a space where they can work for free on projects that require more space than they would normally have access to for four to eight months. Each residency will end with a closing reception. To apply go online to packagingexpress.net/artist-in- residence.
"It's a great space, but for a specific use," Ciborowski said. "It's not for a painter. It's an industrial space great for someone with a big project to work on with a finite time limit."
