We worked on numerous projects that took us outside of our home state of Colorado this year so getting to work with New Mexico based artist Paula Castillo on her series of sculptures for the shared Denver Art Museum and Denver Central Library Campus has been a real treat. Paula was selected in early 2023 through an open call facilitated by Denver Public Art to create three iconic works for the shared campus adjacent to Civic Center Park.
“The vision for these three pieces references how the nations that blanketed the North American southwest played an integral role in history’s most pivotal cultural transformation: the creation of a New World culture out of Indigenous peoples’ long encounters with European, African and Asian nations.”
Equis
The first sculpture, entitled Equis, was installed in May 2024 outside of the Denver Central Library near the intersection of West 14th Ave. and Broadway. Equis, a significant beacon made from stainless steel and dichroic glass, not only succinctly communicates the Indigenous American intersection with the 16th-century Columbian exchange but also serves as a symbol of the library's active commitment to community equity as evidenced by the library's notable community-oriented renovations.
The journey of the X beacon began with a deep dive into the Uto-Aztecan Nahuatl language, learning to pronounce the word Xicalcoliuhqui, which references Castillo's sculpture Glyph outside of the Denver Art Museum's North Building. This linguistic exploration revealed a fascinating connection-the Nahuatl 'sh' sound was equivalent to the Latin X of the 16th century. The X, a mystical and historical symbol, fittingly translates to 'all are equal' in Spanish, encapsulating the beacon's profound message of inclusivity and equality.
Fast forward to the 21st century and X's journey has amplified this sentiment, resonating with contemporary issues of inclusivity and equality. Latinos in the 90s started to cross out the 'os' in Spanish plural nouns like Latinos. Then, instead of crossing it out, eventually replaced it with an X to create grass roots inclusive language. X also historically marks the spot on the map where the treasure is. Equis is a perfect symbol for the Denver Central Public Library, the most community oriented civic site in all of Denver with its astounding 2,800 daily visitors. Elegant, playful, and human scaled, Equis faces the state capital in an acknowledgment of the critical relationship between democracy and equality.
Glyph
The second sculpture in the series entitled Glyph was installed in September 2024 outside the entrance to the Denver Art Museum’s Ponti building at the corner of West 14th Ave. and Bannock Street.
This work elevates a metamorphosis of a Meso-American motif in conversation with the reinvigorated Ponti building and the Beaux-arts narrative at Civic Center Park. Glyph is inspired by the Meso-American Xicalcoliuhqui and the Greek-Key glyphs. Xicalcoliuhqui is the most ubiquitous of the Meso-American glyphs. Even the Puebloans in Colorado used it. Uto-Aztecans applied it so extensively that the cost of adding it to public facades was often ten times more expensive than the buildings themselves.
The Greek key, a Greek and Roman motif, and Xicalcoliuhqui are almost identical structurally. When Spanish Colonialists first saw Xicalcoliuhqui in the Americas, they called it ''greca.'' The Greek key is still in evidence today in classicizing architecture, as seen in several places in Denver's European-inspired Civic Center Park. These two symbols are literally, together with other design features, signs of community building. We know that Denver's 19th-century Beaux- arts movement used public space embellishment to inspire community order, dignity, and harmony. Some scholars suggest that the cultures that used Xicalcoliuhqui used it more directly like a New Deal public works method for mass employment.
Although these differences are interesting, the purpose of the Glyph is not to compare approaches to community building. Conceptually, this creative variation of Xicalcoliuhqui, heightened and face-to-face with the community-oriented neoclassical Civic Park, creates a perfect opportunity to rethink what it means to belong and be a healthy community in the American 21st century. This conversation of inclusion feels essential in this historical community space of Denver.
Trestle
The final sculpture in the series entitled Trestle will be installed on the plinth at 12th and Acoma facing the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building in 2025. For this site, Castillo designed a truss-like gateway to illustrate how global actions build community and intertwine us. In this sculpture, a railroad bridge is used as a metaphor to remind the viewer that the railroads transformed Denver from a small town to a large and vibrant city.
Thousands of hummingbird feathers fabricated out of stainless steel will be welded to the hummingbird-inspired trusses to reference the psychic link between the arc of Mexican labor and immigration on the railroads and the story of Denver’s emergence as one of our great American cities. The hummingbird-inspired vision connects the last piece of the story with the first through an Indigenous reference to the hummingbird—revered as a healer and associated with critical community-building traits like harmony, persistence, and integrity.