"This wall will never be just about Tava House," Derek Waggoner, chief executive officer of Tava House Properties, told the Pikes Peak Courier in The Gazette after the Oct. 17 unveiling. "It is about giving local artists a highly visible canvas and giving our community something new to experience, photograph, share and talk about."
That wall puts art back on the sidewalk for Woodland Park's First Friday Art Walk. The walk began in 2020 to help artists and businesses during the COVID shutdowns. At first people walked outside to see the work, then the art moved into shops and galleries as restrictions lifted. Six new murals now sit on the outside of a building at 120 S. Center St. On Friday, Nov. 6, the walk passes them for the first time.
A wall built to change every year
The mural project is designed to turn over. According to Tava House's Oct. 12 announcement, a new group of artists is expected to transform the outdoor wall each year, and future collections are planned to be unveiled alongside America's Mountain Festival. That makes the collection on the wall today the first in a planned series.
The canvas is the large concrete wall on the west side of the building. More artwork sits at the Taproom entrance. Tava House opened in May 2026, and its history page says ground broke in September 2024. Gayle Gross, one of the muralists, told the Courier that the site had sat empty for nearly 20 years. "Tava House was built on an area where the community once gathered," she said.
That history shaped her piece. Gross painted a multicolored butterfly titled "Renewal." In the Courier, she said, "Many cultures and religions see the butterfly as a sign of spiritual awakening, resurrection, or a fresh start."
Seven murals, six of them outside
Seven artists took part in the first collection. Six murals are on the outside of the building and the seventh is in the restaurant on the lower level. The artists include Gayle Gross, Lois Sprague, Danielle Stuut, Alexander Sorrels and Julie Cutting, plus two more local painters. Tava House didn't ask for one shared style. Each artist got their own section of the wall, and the subjects run from Colorado aspens, wildlife and Western imagery to contemporary celestial art.
Lois Sprague's piece is called "Love at First Sip." It features what's poured inside, like craft beer, and the title refers to people gathering as a community. Her name ties the new wall to the oldest large mural in town, and that connection gives the Nov. 6 route its shape.
Why this First Friday reaches both ends of downtown
Sprague also painted "The Story of Us: Ute Pass Heritage to 1960's," a 145-foot mural on the west wall of the Ute Pass Cultural Center at 210 E. Midland Ave. It dates to 2015 and shows scenes of Ute people, pioneers, the Wildflower train, baseball and the Ute Pass Rodeo. She refreshed the work this year, and The Gazette covered the touch-up in June. The Courier's October story said she had refreshed the entire work.
So right now, one artist's freshly restored 2015 mural on the east end of Midland and her brand-new piece at Tava House are both fresh paint. And the art walk starts at the gallery run by Gayle Gross, the other painter whose mural on the new wall the Courier described.
The walk got a second boost on Oct. 17 as well. Tava House opened a Woodland Park Art Gallery location in its River Room, with plans to join the First Friday Art Walks. The Woodland Park Art Gallery isn't one building. It's a "town gallery," with art hung on the walls of businesses across the city. The expansion builds on Gross's goal of taking the gallery experience beyond a single room. After Nov. 6, Tava House is both an outdoor stop and an indoor gallery stop on the same visit.
The First Friday format itself is only about a year old. Woodland Park joined the region's First Friday art activities on Oct. 3, 2025. The walk now runs on the first Friday of each month, with a new theme every month and a prize drawing every quarter.
A west-to-east route for Nov. 6
The walk generally runs 4 to 7 p.m. "most months of the year," according to Reserve Our Gallery, which lists the Nov. 6 date. Going by street addresses, the stops below run from west to east.
- Reserve Our Gallery, 400 W. Midland Ave. The walk starts here, with a free sketchbook or craft project for kids of all ages. The gallery is usually open noon to 4 p.m. but stays open until 7 on First Fridays. At each stop on the route you pick up the next part of the project, so it's finished by the end. Grab the printable art passport here or print it at home. You get it marked at each business, and a completed passport goes into a drawing for a door prize.
- Tava House, 120 S. Center St. Start outside with the six murals on the west wall and the art at the Taproom entrance, then head in to the River Room gallery and the seventh mural on the lower level.
- Ute Pass Cultural Center, 210 E. Midland Ave. End at "The Story of Us" on the building's west wall. At 145 feet, it takes more than a glance.
The Woodland Park Art Gallery's other host businesses can fill in the walk between those stops. Reserve Our Gallery's venue list names Solid Grounds Coffee Roasters, Great Outdoors Adventures, The Cowhand, Smith & Western, Mountain Home Decor, Woodland Park Garden Gallery and Art Above the Clouds, along with Eichman Gallery at 710 W. US 24. On walk nights, host venues serve refreshments. Reserve Our Gallery says artists set up to demonstrate their work, and businesses hand out coupons for a return visit.
Prefer not to walk the whole route? The gallery sponsors a shuttle, and a group of twelve can reserve a time by calling 719-401-2301.
Staying for dinner on a Friday
Because the walk lands on a Friday, Tava House's full schedule is open that night. The Taproom serves daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. with open seating. Firebrand Chophouse is open Thursday through Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m., and strongly recommends reservations. Bar Above the Clouds runs Wednesday through Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m. A walk that ends at 7 leaves two hours of dinner service. If you want Firebrand, book through the Tava House site before you go, since the art walk crowd will be passing the door.
Nearer the start of the route, The Woodland Social at 110 W. Midland Ave. opened over Independence Day weekend, per The Gazette's July coverage. Its hours were still being adjusted at the time, so check them before planning around a table there.
Gallery and restaurant hours change with the season, so check the current times with each venue the week of the walk.
Fifteen days later, another reason to come back
The art walk's coupons are built around return visits, and November gives you a second date. The Woodland Park Farmers Market holds its Holiday Market on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Shining Mountain Golf Course. The market says it's moving to a larger location for the event. If you see a piece in a host business window on Nov. 6, the following weeks give you time to return during the town gallery's guaranteed hours, noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Tava House plans to unveil future wall collections alongside America's Mountain Festival, with a new group of artists expected each year.
A shared mural wall, a gallery spread across local businesses and a monthly walk show where Woodland Park's downtown is putting its energy this year. At Colorado Springs Collective, we follow those changes block by block, and they shape how we talk about value in Teller County. If you'd like to know what your Woodland Park home is worth as downtown grows, request your home valuation and we'll walk you through it.
