On Friday, I decided to visit the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where I’d last been sometime during elementary school.

Fondly remembering elementary-scho0l assignments to draw various Native American baskets and pottery pieces at the museum, I brought my colored pencils and sketchbook. Which turned out to be a bad idea….

At the front desk, I was informed that admission was half the usual price because the entire first floor was closed. “They’re installing the exhibition for the 75th, but you can still see Emilio Lobato on the second floor,” said the woman at the desk, assuming that I knew about both the 75th and the Lobato exhibition, neither of which was an accurate assumption.

In fact, I was miffed: I’d been on the website the previous day to check hours and fees, and no mention of closed galleries had been made. But I paid my $5 and crossed the hallway to the Tactile Gallery.

I enjoyed examining the various sculptural pieces on display there. Favorites included the armadillo (unfortunately, I forgot to document the artist’s name and the work’s title):

Bear by James Kempes (ceramic):

Butterfly Maiden by Paul Hathaway (bronze):

Coiled Snake by Joan Benjamin (stone):

After I left the Tactile Gallery, I wandered around, trying to find my way to the second floor. The woman at the desk had not offered me a map, nor could I find one in the rack of brochures. I climbed one staircase and found myself outside a lecture room; the short hallway I stood in ended at an emergency exit. I went back downstairs, stood at the desk, and waited as the woman working chatted with a coworker. After several minutes, she decided to stop ignoring me.

“How do I get to the second floor?” I asked.

She pointed me down the long hallway in which the entrance was located. At the east end, in the sunlight, were several intriguing sculptures. This was my favorite, but I couldn’t find a placard with artist or title info:

Several similar pieces were scattered over the grass outside.

Upstairs, I discovered that Emilio Lobato is a local artist (he studied at Colorado College and has a studio in Denver). His exhibition, Mi Linda Soledad (My Beautiful Solitude), is, I believe, his first retrospective. I very much liked some of his work (pictured below, images from Figurative Series) and didn’t quite…well…get some of the other pieces.

Apart from Lobato’s work, some pieces from his personal collection, and a short hallway of “cowboy” paintings, there was nothing else to see at the museum. The rich Western and Native American collections I remembered from childhood must have been in storage. I don’t know if they’re slated for the 75th anniversary exhibitions or not. What I do know is that the gift shop had a far more diverse assemblage of items and artists than the museum proper. And I had a pretty sore side and back from lugging around a heavy sketchbook and colored pencils that I never had the chance to use.

Later, I mentioned to a security guard at the Pioneers Museum that I hadn’t been impressed with the customer service at the Fine Arts Center. He said he’d had a similar experience and had told his wife he planned never to return. “They acted like they were too good to take my money; they didn’t even say hello or thank you,” he said. Fortunately, my experience at the Pioneers Museum was far better.