Yes, you read that right! We are sharing our awesome local event, Bordo Bello with a brand new audience this spring. 

AIGA Colorado is a chapter of a national organization: AIGA, the professional association for design. We are one of 66 chapters around the nation and our headquarters is located in New York City, on Fifth Avenue. Part of the location is the National Design Center that features a gallery open to the public throughout the year.

Recently we have been asked by AIGA’s national office to showcase our extraordinary event, Bordo Bello in this space! Hot diggity dog!

It means that we have a wonderful opportunity to highlight our creative community and all that Bordo Bello represents to a national and international audience. We are so proud of everything we have achieved with this event and it is a true honor to be able to bring our event to NYC.

To do this we are having a hybrid exhibition that is part silent auction & fundraiser that features new artwork and part retrospective with artwork from previous Bordo Bello events.

This exhibition is like no other we have done with Bordo Bello in the past. It will be up for more then one night! The exhibit opens April 22 – July 3 – and has a opening reception on Wednesday, May 8th where we will bring our energy and excitement to NY to host this fundraiser.

Something that is also unique about this opportunity is for us to collaborate with other chapters. We have been closely working with AIGA NY to get volunteers, promote and host the event. Also a new feature of the fundraiser is that money raised will go back to each artist’s local AIGA chapter – something no other chapter or event has ever done – to fund their local mentorship activities.

This was so hard! To curate the decks from previous events we reviewed all the works from the past 5 years, pulled some of the most admired and desired, see if we knew who might own them and went from there. We didn’t find all the decks we wanted for the show, but that is ok – we have a very amazing set of pieces by a wide variety of artists.

For new artwork, we asked some of the artists locally who have consistently been an integral part of Bordo Bello’s success for multiple years.  National artists were also chosen from across the country with the same intent – artist & designers we are inspired by and want share our experience with!

What is awesome about this opportunity is we get the chance to display these skateboards in a true museum fashion – and have it be available for thousands of people to see. People who would have never been able to see these pieces, now can. It is also a huge opportunity to show our artists in an art gallery on Fifth Ave. In addition – this show will be up and celebrated during NYC’s Design Week!

So, the exhibit will be up for about 10 weeks. April 22- July 3. Some features of the exhibit will include a Book Wall – where we have taken our catalogs from the past 2 years and mounted them so people can check out the decks that we couldn’t bring to the show. The I Heart Denver Store was incredible in assisting in the development and execution of this process.

We also created a mini skatepark – using TechDecks and their system – for people to play with while visiting the exhibit. Just for fun we also branded some mini skateboards with Bordo Bello’s official deck art from the past shows. We want to thank Design Platform & Soapoint Graphics for their help in making this happen.

And the most exciting thing is, we have partnered with Mohawk Paper to create a substantial window installation with local artists Harikrisnan Panicker and Deepti Nair.

We couldn’t bring this to NYC without having some fun during our opening night! The opening reception & silent auction will be Wednesday, May 8th. We would love to see Coloradoans make a mass pilgrimage to the event. But in case that can’t happen – we will be offering some of the new decks to be bid on via eBay, as we normally do.

We are thrilled to be throwing a party in conjunction with AIGA/NY and work with them to make this happen. AIGA Colorado is looking forward to sharing this experience with a brand new audience. So per the usual, Bordo Bello is doing it’s thing – going big and celebrating it’s creative community.

You may be asking. Are we having a Bordo Bello in CO this fall then? Probably not – much of the team has been focused on this event this calendar year. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen! We are currently looking for an event director for a Fall or Spring event – so if you are willing to participating at that level, please let us know.

AIGA Colorado can not tell you enough how proud and honored we are of all of you who helped us make this happen. It is all of your excitement, energy, time, inspiration, and talent that has brought Bordo Bello to a national level.

AIGA’s national design center has never seen anything like what we are bringing to them. Our chapter has been able to bring together a collection of artists that would never have been shown together – or maybe at all – in a gallery setting. This collection is an important testament to what our community offers in collaboration and collective enthusiasm for improving our world around us.

Thank you for making it happen and we are honored to represent these efforts and be AIGA Colorado.