The entrance of Carbondale is getting a makeover: the Gateway Public Art Project begins later this week, a news release from Carbondale Arts states. 

Five muralists from Colorado will be painting over the course of the next two weeks onside at the new Central Self Storage on Colorado Highway 133. Later this year, sculptures by three Roaring Fork Valley artists will be installed, the release states. 

Architect Andi Korber states, “To be annexed into the town, the project had to offer something of lasting benefit to the community. The benefit here was a combination of public sidewalks (where there were none) with an outdoor art gallery scaled for the entrance to town. This gallery space was built into the architectural form of the project because we understood that requirement from the beginning. The art walk informed how we developed the walls; the building is a gallery – it’s not like anyone is painting a leftover wall of a building as an afterthought. It’s designed, from the moment the pencil hit paper, to be a rotating gallery of murals.”

This installment project has been years in the making, the release states. Amy Kimberly, the acting Executive Director for Carbondale Arts during the project’s inception in 2020 said, “I was lucky in that there were several of us like-minded folks who saw the value of connecting development to the arts to create better projects. The entrance to Carbondale has been an area many had been looking to improve for a while so when this opportunity presented itself, we jumped on it.”

An artist meet-and-greet event at Mountain Heart Brewing is happening on Wednesday and the community is invited to attend. The event will go from 5:30 to 7 p.m, the release states. 

For more information about the project or the Carbondale Creative District, visit carbondalearts.com.