Community Arts

Creating, Celebrating, and Connecting Through the Arts

The Learning Council believes the arts are essential to thriving communities. Our Community Arts programs weave creativity into the fabric of everyday life, from youth workshops and cultural celebrations to adult classes, spectacular community events, and collaborative public art projects. We create spaces where artistic expression flourishes across all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels.

People waving large rainbow flags in a street parade under bright sunlight

Arts Education & Workshops

Arts for All

Our youth arts outreach brings high-quality creative experiences to schools and the community. From photojournalism and visual arts to the Marimba Project, dance, aerials, and seasonal after-school art workshops, Arts for All ensures young people have access to diverse artistic practices that inspire creativity and self-expression.

Arts Programming For Everyone

The Hearth hosts ongoing creative opportunities including Life Drawing sessions in spring, workshops with visionary artists, monthly opportunities to learn West African Drum and Dance, and other workshops exploring various artistic mediums and techniques.

Spectacular Community Events

Paonia Fashion Show

A multimedia extravaganza featuring local designers, performers, live music, dance, and theatrical elements. After a 9-year hiatus, the show returned in 2025 with Mythos, inspired by the myth of Persephone and spring's renewal. This beloved community tradition transforms fashion into performance art while celebrating local creativity.

Cultural Celebrations

Art is one way to honor and sustain cultural heritage. TLC coproduces and participates in vibrant community celebrations including:

Annual Events

  • Cinco de Mayo

    Celebrating Mexican culture and heritage through dance, cuisine, and music

  • Día de los Muertos

    In early November, we gather at the Paonia Community Garden to honor those we've lost with a traditional ofrenda. The evening includes a candlelit procession through town, music, marigolds harvested from local farms, and community workshops where we create larger-than-life puppets, papel picado banners, and decorative other elements together.

  • Mexican Heritage Month

    Celebrating Mexican liberation and culture through music, dance and art.

  • Drag Shows

    Magnificent performances celebrating LGBTQ+ artistry, self-expression, and the transformative power of performance art.

Monthly Heritage Series

Each month we spotlight different cultural traditions through cuisine, film screenings, radio interviews, and community gatherings, creating opportunities for intercultural exchange, understanding and appreciation.

Night parade with giant skull figures and people walking through a brightly lit street at dusk

Art as Activism: Building Together

Some of our most powerful community art emerges when creativity meets social action.

Meet Bubbles

A magnificent 40-foot rainbow trout crafted from over 4,000 recycled aluminum cans and brought to life by seven puppeteers. Born from community vision, Bubbles embodies both the rainbow trout, a beloved icon of Colorado's rivers, and the rainbow itself, representing hope, harmony, and unity in diversity for the LGBTQ+ community.


Dozens of volunteers spent months collecting cans, cutting and shaping each scale, and learning intricate choreography to move this shimmering giant. Since debuting at Paonia's Cherry Days Parade in 2022, Bubbles has swum through Pride festivals across Colorado, proving that art can bridge divides and bring people together through creativity and joy.

Support the Bubbles the Rainbow Trout short film!

In the wake of increasing hostility towards LGBTQ+ rights, particularly in rural America, this film offers a powerful counter-narrative. Bubbles the Rainbow Trout is not a film about trauma or reaction; it is about community and resilience. It’s about queer people in isolated places coming together to make something beautiful, playful and healing.


Donate to help Bubbles come to life on the screen!

Community Murals

We transform public spaces through collaborative mural projects working with youth artists and students. The murals tell our valley's stories and create visual landmarks of beauty and meaning.

The Build Guild

A collective of artist-builders guided by the principle: "Building Art that Builds Community." Through traditional skills in wood carving, metalworking, stone carving, and ceramics, the Build Guild creates public artworks that honor diverse cultural heritage while passing down ancestral techniques to new generations.

The Hearth Arts & Culture Center

We're currently curating The Hearth as a dedicated community arts and culture hub, a gathering place where creativity, tradition, and innovation intersect.