Attending The 3rd Annual Fall Arts Invitational At Cheesman Park

My sister Susan and I attended the Fall Arts Invitational at Denver's Cheesman Park yesterday afternoon, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Cheesman Park has a major annual art show during the summer, which has been named one of the top 100 shows of the decade, while the fall show is sponsored by a company called Colorado Art Weekend, which hosts a dozen of these shows throughout Colorado, and so I was not expecting this fall show to be as impressive as it was. And yet there were over 120 Colorado and nationally touring artists displaying their work. 

Cheesman Park is very beautiful, a wonderful place to host an art show. It was originally a cemetery, and the process of converting it from a cemetery to a park did not go well. The city hired an undertaker to provide a fresh box for each body and move them to Riverside Cemetery, just to the north of Denver, for $1.90 each. However, he began to chop up the bodies and put them into 3 smaller boxes to make more money. When this was discovered, the city fired him and decided to let the remaining bodies stay where they were. And not surprisingly, the spirits were not pleased. There are numerous tales of ghostly sightings after dark in this park. You can find an interesting account of the park's history at https://www.legendsofamerica.com/co-cheesemanpark/. In any case, it was a pleasant day and not too hot, and neither Susan nor I felt or saw a single ghost. Although I would strongly advise against strolling around the grounds on Halloween. Better safe than sorry.

There was a large variety of art at the festival, which included paintings, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and many other art forms, including photography. Most of the photography booths featured Colorado and western landscapes, although I did see one booth with photographs of Chicago and several with European scenes. There were also several photographers featuring wildlife photographs, including Matthew Ross, whose work I thought was especially good. You can check out his photographs at https://www.mrossphotography.com/. All in all, a very nice way to spend a pleasant fall afternoon.