Visiting With Carol At The Fall Arts Invitational At Cheesman Park

I was driving down 8th Avenue here in Denver yesterday afternoon and began to see signs saying "Art Festival," with an arrow pointing straight ahead. And straight ahead was Cheesman Park, where the Cheesman Park Art Fest takes place every July. I missed that event this year while I was in Florida, but when I got to the park, it looked exactly like the same festival was taking place this weekend. Evidently an organization called Colorado Art Weekend sponsors these events in various Denver neighborhoods during the summer and fall, and I must say, I was very impressed with the Cheesman Park version. The July event has over 150 artists displaying their work, while this one had a very respectable120, including, I discovered by accident, my friend and former University of Denver Bookstore colleague Carol Till, seen in the photograph on the left. Carol is a very talented printmaker and etcher, and began working full-time on her art after the DU Bookstore was outsourced to Follett Higher Education Group. And it was fun to catch up on what each of us has been up to lately. Be sure to check out her artwork at https://www.instagram.com/carol_till/.

I did not know this event was happening this weekend, but word must have gotten out, because there were a lot of people there. The booths occupied both sides of the ring road at the south end of the park, and I was happy to see a number of booths featuring photography, too. The festival also takes place today between 10:00 and 4:00 and is definitely worth attending. Cheesman Park, by the way, was once Denver's first cemetery, and was later converted to a park. Unfortunately, the person hired to move the bodies to a different location, who was paid by the coffin, decided to make more money by cutting up the bodies and putting the remains in more than one box. When the city fathers found out, they fired him, and left the remaining bodies where they were. Not surprisingly, there are many reports of supernatural activity around there, and I have to wonder if the security guards who watched over the booths last night experienced anything unusual, or if they even wound up staying there. Guarding the booths from thieves is one thing, but from ghostly spirits is an entirely different matter.