Hopefully you're planning on "The Poet Spiel... Also Known As" tomorrow night at the Business of Art Center.

Spiel, who we profiled last week, will give a one-man performance featuring his poetry both new and old. While you're there, though, be sure to explore the artwork, which is a beautiful selection from throughout Spiel's career.

The show begins with this drawing, a self-portrait documenting Spiel's struggle with migraines. Normally it hangs in Spiel's studio, which makes it feel all the more personal given its medium. (I find drawings, given their simplicity, and the way they highlight an artist's signature line, to be highly intimate.)

• Edie Adelstein

Nearby hangs "This Means Nothing," which is a revamped version of "can we talk about sex?" the work that was removed from the Colorado State Fair art exhibit last year amid controversy. Here, Spiel added a background paper quilt, similar to the show's titular piece "for dying out loud." Spiel explains "Nothing"'s sort of provenance in great detail on the work's information card.

• Edie Adelstein

Other works include a print from Spiel's Consider Your Confines exhibit, which keeps with Spiel's intense and indelible spirit. There are two bread sculptures as well, one of which is made from real white bread piled in a sickening tower bulging with what looks like petrified whipped cream.

Imagine that kind of feeling in word form, and you'll get an idea of what to expect from "Also Known As." And as we've said before, it contains explicit content, and no children will be allowed to attend.

Some news, events and the word on the street:

First Fridays could return to downtown, according to sources. Rallied by Gallery 113, which will start its own First Friday openings June 1, there's hope to pull together a cohesive multiple-business/gallery event like those happening pretty much everywhere else (see Old Colorado City, Monument, Manitou Springs, Pueblo and Woodland Park). Check back for further news.

Elsewhere downtown, a project called SCAMP (Summer Community Art and Mural Program) is underway. A collaboration between Concrete Couch and the City of Colorado Springs, participants in this summer-long undertaking will build benches, paint murals and host a circus camp and performance.

To start, SCAMP is working on an art bench in front of CityRock the week of May 21. Like the other projects, volunteers will meet mornings over the course of four days to build it.

Visit concretecouch.org for more information and to sign up.

As reported by the Colorado Springs Business Journal in March, Mardosz Fine Art is a new gallery opening near Cottonwood Center for the Arts. Run by husband-and-wife team Chuck and Diana Mardosz, the gallery will grow out of an old auto repair garage at 109 S. Corona St., and perhaps signal the beginnings of an arts district in the area.

• mardoszfineart.com
• Mardosz Fine Art, in the auto shop stage.

According to a recent e-mail, Diana says they hope to open by the end of May and host a grand opening in June.

In less local news, Laleh Mehran, a Denver artist who showed at GOCA 121's Ways of Knowing exhibit late last year, has an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum's Fuse Box opening May 30. For Ways, Mehran and fellow artist Chris Coleman built a device that drew soft Islamic-esque designs in black sand using a motor, track and pendulum with a long, sharp tip. The piece, however, was programmed to change its speed when it sensed motion. As the track moved faster, the pendulum swung harder, and distorted its design pattern.

At the Fuse Box, Mehran's site-specific show Men of God, Men of Nature combines both installation and performance, and focuses on the "complex, often disavowed intersections between politics, religion, and science." Read more on Mehran's website here.

• Laleh Mehran
• A detail of "Men of God, Men of Nature."

Finally, this Saturday, the Pikes Peak Derby Dames will hold a silent art-auction fundraiser during their doubleheader bout. Items are all made by the Dames themselves, from handcrafted jewelry to photography and painting. The art will be on display for bids beginning at 5 p.m., with the winning bids announced during halftime of the second bout. Visit pikespeakderbydames.com for more info.

• Cottonwood Center for the Arts
• The new Cottonwood on Tejon.

If you've walked Tejon Street recently, you might have noticed that Cottonwood on Tejon, an offshoot of the Cottonwood Center for the Arts, has moved to 214½ N. Tejon St. in the old LuLu location.

The team has spent the past week moving the store from its former location down the street, which had been gifted to Cottonwood by donors who wished to remain anonymous. Cottonwood stayed there 18 months, but now the space has been leased to a paying renter, forcing the satellite gallery to vacate. However, another anonymous donor stepped in and gifted the 214½ storefront to Cottonwood.

“It was never an understanding that we would find another place," says Cottonwood executive director Sandy Murphy. "We were just very lucky.”

Friday night brings the first part of a grand opening weekend. A reception will run from 5 to 8 p.m. and feature artist meet-and-greets, refreshments, live music, gifts and giveaways.

Murphy says the artists who volunteer and show in the shop have made some valuable sales during this rough economy. She remains hopeful for growth in the new location.

“The economy is changing slightly, so anything is possible. If it turns out to be a better retail location for us and we can grow our art sales through it, who knows? The new [executive director] might decide to make it a dedicated art space that is a Cottonwood space.”

About the new ED? Murphy has stepped down from that position for which she volunteered 18 months ago. Murphy was an interim ED following Kay Jeansonne's leave, then approved by the board as a permanent head of the organization.

“I really feel that Cottonwood has had immense growth in the last 18 months, and I feel like it’s time for someone else to grow it to the next level.”

Murphy officially stepped down April 20, but remains ED until the board finds a replacement. A metalsmith and jeweler, Murphy will keep her studio at Cottonwood, and teach classes there, but also plans to travel and give jewelry workshops on the road.

• Ceil Horowitz

Ceil Horowitz is on No. 48 on her journey to 100.

One hundred paintings drawn from a life recording live music in the subways of New York City. The local artist (whose most recent show we previewed here) has been traveling to the Big Apple for a few years now to paint.

Horowitz — who's known locally for painting or drawing at shows of her favorite band, Grass It Up — says she usually executes about 10 paintings per visit to NYC, where she lodges with her son.

She's just started a blog at ceilhorowitz.com to document her work and her progress. Day 1's entry, from April 15, begins: "While descending into the NYC Subway for my first day of painting I planned my strategy. First go to 14th, the L, stop at every stop on the L till I find music. If the musician is in mid set try to set up another day to paint."

• Ceil Horowitz

Each day she sets out to a different location, sometimes late at night if she's heard of a particular "concert." And although she makes much mention of officers in her post, it seems like a rather gutsy endeavor for the petite Horowitz. Interestingly, she says she has yet to encounter another artist doing what she is, at all.

On Monday, Day 18, Horowitz called us after a morning in the subway where she met a musician named Max:

Visually the train goes right into Max’s chest. His white lined guitar case looks like a protective shelter for his tips and sweater. Tips remain low. My painting moves forward. Max plays only originals, no covers. With head out the subway train window a conductor yells to Max, “That’s how you get to Carnegie Hall, keep practicing!”

Here's the painting featuring Max, still in progress:

• Ceil Horowitz

Last year, Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church published a lovely volume of photographs and stories of its 48 stained glass windows. (Read more about it here.)

If you haven't already seen them in person, drop by the church on Monday, May 7, or Sunday, June 3 for a chance to tour the church and meet the co-authors of the book. Monday's event runs between 5:30 and 6:15 p.m., while June's is still TBA. (That day, the church will celebrate its designation on the National Register of Historic Places.)

Co-author Phyllis Kester advises visitors to bring binoculars or opera glasses as well as a copy of the book (available here), which will not only supply descriptions, but a map of the windows.

Further demonstrating its impressive versatility and reach, the Denver Art Museum will unveil a 65-piece retrospective of African artist El Anatsui.

Born in Ghana, Anatsui is considered one of the world's leading figures in contemporary art, the DAM's press material says. Indeed, Anatsui has shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Venice Biennale and the Hayward Gallery of London.

• Jane Katcher / Peter Harholdt
• "Oasis," 2008, aluminum and copper.

His retrospective, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You About Africa, is organized by the Museum for African Art in New York and debuted in 2010 at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The largest collection of Anatsui work ever assembled, the exhibit spans about 40 years worth of work, and includes huge floor-to-ceiling wall pieces, large-scale installations and sculpture made from wood, ceramics, metal scraps and other found materials. One turning point in his career came in the 1990s when he switched from hand tools to a power saw, changing the execution and spirit of his work.

The DAM will be able to give the traveling show its own spin as well, as it commissioned a huge piece from Anatsui back in 2008. "Rain Has No Father?" is a tapestry made from found liquor-bottle tops and copper wire.

When I Last Wrote opens Sept. 9. Read more about the show after the jump.

So you read our cagey preview of this documentary-meets-art-show happening at the Modbo and S.P.Q.R., but you want to know more.

Take this, a broadsheet/press release with all the background on the warring countries and links to the "historical societies" putting on the exhibit.

And to give you a better idea of what to expect, visually, here's an image from the show, by Modbo Collective member and gallery co-owner and curator Brett Andrus:

It's no wonder E.O. Wilson, author, biologist, researcher and numerous other titles bestowed upon him, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He's known for popularizing the term "sociobiology" or even being the father of it, for crying out loud.

But at 82 years old, the man has something else going for him: He can write.

Obviously I just joined the party, but not since Yves Alain Bois have I gotten so invigorated by an academic article. In this case, "On the Origins of the Arts" which Wilson wrote for the May/June 2012 issue of Harvard Magazine, an extraordinarily lovely feature on the development of the arts in human history. (I found the article courtesy of Longform.org.)

• Photograph courtesy of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Regional Direction for Cultural Affairs, Rhône-Alpes region/Regional Department of Archaeology

Beginning with our physiological components (the senses) and moving onto early forms of artistic expression (cave paintings, jewelry) and then finally music (a possible offshoot of language), Wilson discusses the ways art and aesthetics grew more pronounced and specialized.

It starts this way:

The creative arts became possible as an evolutionary advance when humans developed the capacity for abstract thought. The human mind could then form a template of a shape, or a kind of object, or an action, and pass a concrete representation of the conception to another mind.

In this particularly lovely passage, Wilson demonstrates the way art influenced feelings of fear and bewilderment:

Burials began at least 95,000 years ago, as evidenced by thirty individuals excavated at Qafzeh Cave in Israel. One of the dead, a nine-year-old child, was positioned with its legs bent and a deer antler in its arms. That arrangement alone suggests not just an abstract awareness of death but also some form of existential anxiety. Among today’s hunter-gatherers, death is an event managed by ceremony and art.

Along the way, Wilson also talks about the similarities between the humanities and the sciences, which he compares by way of juxtaposing the writing of literary authors and scientific researchers. Each with an entirely different motive in mind, Wilson says, "Innovators in both of two domains are basically dreamers and storytellers. In the early stages of creation of both art and science, everything in the mind is a story."

Last week, Rodney Wood announced he would return to Colorado Springs this June for a new show spanning the Millibo Art Theatre, the Modbo and S.P.Q.R.

• Rodney Wood

Just don't expect the usual opening-showing-closing routine. Wood plans to host two premiere events at the MAT before opening with a more traditional reception at the alley galleries. The solo show, Galerie Vivante, will be unveiled June 1 and 2 on the stage at the MAT and then open at Modbo/S.P.Q.R. June 8 (running through June 29.) The MAT events will allow audiences to hear Wood speak on his inspirations, processes and thoughts as well as meet the artist and his models.

Wood puts it this way in his release:

Before the days of the commercial gallery, artists had few options for showing their work. Unless they were fortunate enough to be invited into an institutional exhibition, they mostly were compelled to have a "Salon Show". This had limitations. At some point in the mid-1800s the "Vivant" was invented. Artists would unveil their work on a theater stage. This type of event allowed the artist to share their art along with info, stories and thoughts about inspiration and process. So, this evening shall serve as the opening "Ta-da" for the "Galerie Vivante" exhibitions.

Seats at the MAT shows are limited, and will cost around $8-$10. They should be available through the MAT beginning in May.

For more information, read the whole release here. Read more on our coverage of Wood's last local show here.

We've talked about third places here at the Indy before, last summer when Bryce Crawford reviewed Gold Hills Java:

Few things contribute to personal happiness like a solid "third place," a neutral, public gathering spot. With home being the first and work the second, a third place fills the need "for people to gather easily, inexpensively, regularly and pleasurably — a 'place on the corner.'"

That void is usually easily filled by a watering-hole type of place, like a coffee shop, but what about a museum?

Sangre de Cristo Arts Center is giving it a try. Monday it announced that it's converting the Hoag Gallery into the Third Place where each month an artist will inhabit the space and cavort with the public.

"Rather than viewing art on a wall, visitors are invited to make themselves comfortable in the studio, socialize, visit with the artist, and watch the creative process live," reads the press release.

Artists, both new and established, will float in and out of the space through their month, but be reliably on site from 5-10 p.m. on the first and third Fridays of the month with guest musicians.

Third Place kicks off May 1 with Sophie Fernandez Healey and Javier Flores, where they will begin work on a mural called "How the West Was Won." The Yarn Bomb Brigade of Pueblo will move in for June and painter Ann Yaeger in July.

Read more about Third Place at facebook.com/pueblothirdplace and read the press release after the jump.

Eric Bransby's mural in the long hallway of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center does an uncanny thing: it warms up the entire space. From where it's lodged above the black donor wall near the end of the hall, it projects a sense of color and movement far beyond its own boundaries.

• Matthew Schniper
• The mural and its public.

Over a year in the making, the mural (which we've written about here, here and here) was finally completed and installed last week, commemorating the FAC's 75-year history and multidisciplinary approach. Figures like Boardman Robinson and Martha Graham appear throughout the 30-foot piece, as well as artists in a studio, musicians, dancers and actors.

• Matthew Schniper
• A detail with dancers and Graham.

A huge crowd filled the hallway and lined the grand staircase for the Friday afternoon unveiling. Numerous donors, photographers and members of the public huddled in to see Bransby, as well as his assistant, Trevor Thomas. FAC president and CEO Sam Gappmayer spoke, followed by museum director Blake Milteer, who pointed out that Bransby's late wife Mary Ann also appears in the mural. She's one of the artists drawing from a live model on the left half of the piece, standing at an easel. (See a detail in this in-progress post; she's in the last image.)

• Matthew Schniper
• Bransby, Gappmayer and Milteer.

Bransby thanked Thomas as well as his other assistants, who helped mix gallons upon gallons of paint for this project, which was by far the most colorful — literally — of his career.

• Matthew Schniper
• A shot of the wall from above, with Bransby.

Interestingly, Milteer pointed out that the Bransby work stands within sight of Frank Mechau's running-horse fresco in the FAC courtyard. It's a fitting tribute to the institution and its lineage of murals.

Last year, the Green Box Arts Festival hosted Jason Hackenwerth and the Keigwin + Company dance group in Green Mountain Falls. They were the subjects of this cover story, which also mentioned how Kirkpatrick Oil CompanyKirkpatrick Family Fund came to fund the festival.

This year, Olafur Eliasson of Germany will build an installation with halogen bulbs, steel stands and a fog machine "to create a floating cube" in the Sallie Bush Community Building in the new Green Box Workshop (formerly the Falls Motel), for display between June 21-23, Kirkpatrick's Ross Powell writes via e-mail. Artist and designer Ben Roth will use dead trees from the area to make a statue, he adds.

Other performers include "world renowned fiddle sensation" Kyle Dillingham, who will play June 30, the Oklahoma City Ballet, who will perform June 25, and the Keigwin company on June 29.

Other Green Box events include classes, such as a youth theater workshop, creative writing, floral arrangement and more are available online. There's even a peek at the 2013 festival artist, so mark your calendars.