Conversations with the Inspiring Nikki Pike

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nikki Pike.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was sixteen, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being grounded for a month. After moping around, I raided my father’s tool shed and found a grinder and used it to remove the paint from my 1971 AMC Gremlin. I saved my money for spray paint to transform that beast of a Gremlin into a zebra.

After high school, I landed a job at a tiny start-up, Real Education, which allowed students to attend college online– what a groundbreaking idea! It was 1997 and I was eighteen. It was at Real Education that I first dove into computer stuff: tech support, basic coding, video and audio, the Adobe Suite, Flash.

Eventually, I enrolled at Colorado State University where I studied graphic design… until I got sick of staring at computers. Hello, Fine Arts! Typography led to figure drawing, which led to painting. After I got kicked out of a painting class for driving my car over my canvases, it became clear that sculpture was my true love.

Mid-way through college I transferred to the University of Colorado Denver, where I found a work-study position that hooked me up with keys to the art and shop facilities. Working around the clock, I became savvy in the wood and metal shops and became the student forewoman in the foundry. I cast metals bronze, aluminum, and even lead, along with plastics, resins and fiberglass.

My portfolio got me into the University of South Florida’s Masters in Art Program. I learned to use my skills as a fabricator to extend my reach into the community. My mother and father have always been true humanitarians. I was raised to give back, serve others, and to never think of myself as more important than any other human being. Our home was surrounded by forests, fields, dirt roads and wide-open spaces. My father exposed my siblings and I to the magic of imagination through snipe hunting, sending us on scavenger hunts, and piling us into our gray station wagon to find the end of the rainbow. Throughout my life, I volunteered at hospitals, food banks, and orphanages. In graduate school, I wrapped service into my art practice.

My graduate studies were interrupted by a lifetime opportunity to live overseas in Macau to be a member of a team painting a 375,000 square foot ceiling mural with Sky Art  run by mentor and friend Karen Kristin. I took a leave of absence and spent the year as the Color Orchestrator. I maintained the design and color map, invented colors, mixed hundreds of gallons of paint, and hid plastic dinosaurs in the paint to surprise my Chinese cohorts. I made friends with talented young Chinese artists, mingled with the Macau Symphony, traveled to Hong Kong on the hydrofoil every weekend, and walked the Great Wall of China.

Though it was a magical time, I was appalled by the intense racism within Chinese culture and the true inequities that women face with the traditions and systemic layout in the region. I witnessed the despicable ways of the sex trade system and watched my male colleagues participate in the terrible mistreatment of girls and women. Though I felt helpless at the time, my exposure to world cultures would deeply impact my work.

I also spent time in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia where I paid my respects and learned about those lost in the killing fields under the Khmer Rouge and witnessed the generation of orphans left behind from the genocide. I explored the magnificence of Angor Wat, and did my best to respectfully share in the fine delicacy of eating an egg that had been fertilized still in it’s shell and carefully served with the tiny bird scooped up in a spoon, bones crackling in my mouth.

After I returned to America (which was a whole different kind of culture shock), I finished grad school. I’m especially proud of my master’s thesis work: Gardens in Roam, which merged my fabrication skills with my sense of ethics. The project was inspired by a local orphanage, The Children’s Home, where I had volunteered for a year. The kids and I played, planted gardens and created art. My thesis evolved from this experience. I invited seven people each to adopt a plant and nurture it. Each participant became a farmer and a foster parent of sorts. After the participants successfully grew their plants to fruition, I visited their respective homes and cooked a meal using the vegetables they’d sown and grown. This was perhaps my most successful work in the social arts, shifting the passive art viewer into a participant. And it was delicious!

After graduation, I secured an instructorship returning to Colorado at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. I taught there for five years before shifting to the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs where I currently teach. Alongside my work as an instructor, I have built a career making art, building sculptures, and pursuing service and community art projects.

Since the Trump Regime, I have found myself harkening back to my design days. Though I don’t consider myself a wordsmith, my work has leaned toward text-based signs that are direct response and protest to the current administration. For example: YES means YES, WE, and is this land your land?

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
As an adopted person, I’ve enjoyed stability and love from almost the very start.

If I could give advice to my younger self, I would encourage myself to have confidence. I would reinforce my self-worth, give myself permission to acknowledge the sort of subtle injustices and inequities that could stop me in my tracks, and then tell myself to push forward. The sculpture world was and still is dominated by males. The consequences can range from annoying (sculpture tools are designed for men’s hands) to insidious (use your imagination). Over time, I’ve realized that I am as capable as any of my male counterparts, and many of them have realized that as well. It’s not always easy, but I’ve learned to navigate and transcend sexism, microaggressions, and the rest of that garbage.

For young women carving their own path, I would say: trust yourself, use your instinct, and build a strong community to help empower you and guide you along the way.

Some of the simplest things have helped me be successful: work hard, have fun, turn your music up!

What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?
I am proud to announce that any minute, I will be breaking ground to build the artist studio of my dreams. I’ll kick open the studio doors in the Skyland Neighborhood just north of City Park, in 2020. Leading into my grand opening is my life’s biggest commission, for Arts and Venues Denver. I won the invitation to place a permanent outdoor sculpture on the premises at the Museum of Nature and Science on the property line of City Park. In 2017, I was fortunate to install an outdoor permanent interactive artwork, Musical Churns, in collaboration with Thomas Dodds and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the Dairy Block pedestrian-zoned alleyway in downtown Denver. The Musical Churns were inspired by my Sound Totems series– musical boxes hidden in trees that feature underrepresented local musicians. I have developed the series to now include a customizable indoor version of the Sound Totem. I initially sold one to the Elizabeth Hotel in Fort Collins, and lately, folks have reached out to acquire one for their home or business.

It would be great to hear about any apps, books, podcasts or other resources that you’ve used and would recommend to others.
The most recent and highly influential books I have read is a the Strattford County series by local author, Gregory Hill: East of Denver, The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles, and Zebra Skin Shirt. I also find myself reaching for the Tao Te Ching and The Gift, by Sufi poet, Hafiz. One of my all-time favorite authors is David Sedaris, especially Me Talk Pretty One Day and Holidays on Ice. Holidays on Ice may have inspired me to invent a new holiday: Pizzagiving, a substitute for Thanksgiving. Pizzagiving is my way of celebrating family and community with a dish that has nothing to do with the mistreatment of native peoples, and which tastes a hell of a lot better than turkey. I get to work with many incredibly talented musicians in Denver. Some of my favorites: Land Lines, The Babysitters, Manotaur, Gora Gora Okestar, Charles Burrell, Sonnenblume, Native Daughters, and Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore. Most of all, I urge you to visit RedLine, a contemporary art center that essentially launched my career here in Denver – with a special thanks to Louise Martorano who is endlessly supportive.

Pricing:

• Sound Totem Corporate – $5000
• Sound Totem Small Business – $3500
• Sound Totem Individual – $1750
• Sound Totem Friend/Fellow Artist – $1000
• Sound Totem Mom – Free

Contact Info:

• Phone: 7204096659
• Email: nikkipikeart@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kurlsofwonder/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kurlgirllove
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kurlsofwonder
• Other: http://nikkipike.com/

The Gremlin, incidental artwork built as a teen in confinement. circa 1994

Sound Totem, 1 of 5 placed in Denver public spaces and parks

customizable Sound Totem for your business, home, or as a gift.

Aurous Trove, Breckenridge, CO, 2017

this land, Acquired by the University of Wyoming Art Museum, 2018

WE, temporary art installation and performance series, 2019; (sculpture available for purchase)

YES means YES, exists in forms: light box 30x30x6″, serigraph, and giclee print 30×30 (all available for purchase)

Image Credit:
Joe Friend Photography, headshots.
Nikki Pike, WE (Temporary Monument to Denver), 2019, Colorado Convention Center Plaza
Produced by Black Cube and The Denver Theatre District
Photography by From the Hip Photo

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