New Littleton mural celebrates the performing arts

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

What used to be a giant cinder block wall in an alley behind the Town Hall Arts Center is now downtown Littleton’s largest masterpiece.

e new mural, titled “A Celebration of the Performing Arts” by Michael Ortiz, pops with color and shines a light on the value of music, dance, theater and other forms of performance that take place inside the building.

e mural is the rst in Littleton to be funded by the city, after Littleton sta requested funding for a mural program during 2022 budget planning, said Jenny Hankinson, curator of collections at the Littleton Museum. e mural program aims to augment the Arts and Culture Commission’s e orts to spotlight arts and culture programs around the city, she said.

is mural cost $15,000, plus extra costs for priming and other preparation, said Tim Nimz, Littleton Museum director and sta liaison for the Arts and Culture

Commission.

“ is is really exciting,” Nimz said. “ is is the rst one of these city-sponsored murals, so we hope it’s the rst of many. But this was a great kicko and a great accomplishment for the Arts and Culture Commission.”

Hankinson said the commission and museum have been talking about starting a mural program for over a year. After choosing an artist and working on a design, the team got a lift and started priming the wall early this spring.

Ortiz, the mural’s Denver-based artist, said painting the mural took him two to three weeks. He said the design was inspired by Littleton’s performing arts scene, mixed with his personal style which involves a lot of abstract geometric work, often mixed with gurative shapes.

“Kind of getting an idea and doing research of what Town Hall does … really inspired me to go in this direction as well,” Ortiz said. “Hanging out here every day and seeing that there was a real active performing arts community was really fun to be around.”

At about 35 feet tall and 50 feet wide, the painting depicts several gures playing instruments, dancing and singing, woven together with bright, geometric shapes in reds, yellows, oranges and blues.

Arts and Culture Commission

Chair Kate Eckel is hopeful the mural will catch the eyes of community members, no matter who they are.

“We want people from all walks of life … to be able to look at art and say what it means to them and how it touches them,” she said. “If a 15-year-old could do that, if a 7-year-old could do that, if an 80-year-old could do that, it starts to really de ne the actual culture within the city.”

With the passage of the Lodger’s Tax last year, Eckel said the city has “a direct revenue stream to arts and culture,” and hopes it will be used to support more murals in the future.

To learn more about murals in Littleton, join a May Littleton Mural Crawl, hosted by Tell Me More Tours in partnership with e Littleton Museum.

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