For those unfamiliar with southern Colorado, especially Pueblo, the economic and cultural hub of the region, this might be a great time to become familiar with it. Because Pueblo is now home to one of the most amazing adventures found anywhere in the entire country, the entire hemisphere and one of six in the world.
The Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America & STEAM Center is now open in the ‘Steel City’ and it is amazing!! While there are periodic, touring exhibitions of this amazing man’s works, what is now on permanent display in Pueblo provides an opportunity for visitors to see real life models, paintings and writings of what this once in a millennia genius built, painted, wrote and imagined.
The museum, located at 310 Central Main Street, in the heart of the city’s River Walk District, has on display life-sized replicas of things Leonardo created centuries before they became realities. Museum patrons can see or even touch wooden recreations of things that once existed only in his drawings, including helicopters, parachutes, tanks, water wheels, weapons of war and a potpourri of things that only a mind of unbelievable dimension could even imagine. Similar da Vinci museums can be found in Italy, France, South Korea, Australia and Brazil.
Pueblo financial planner Craig Cisney, one of the original movers on the idea of bringing Leonardo to Pueblo and a man who has made scouting trips to Italy prior to the museum opening, said all the recreations were done by Italian artists and craftsmen intimately familiar with the Renaissance artist. “They made the creations,” he said. Beyond that, he added, the museum has been gifted with the touch of world class da Vinci experts who have visited Pueblo to consult on the new museum. There are also in-house da Vinci experts at the new cultural offering.
First generation Italian and Pueblo native, Joe Arrigo, also Founding Director and President of the museum, has dedicated hundreds of hours over the last several years turning an idea into a reality, a museum, he hopes, will become the fountain of inspiration for a whole new generation and generations to come.
As preparations for last week’s grand opening, Arrigo scurried through the museum stopping only briefly in each room making certain nothing was left to chance. But taking time for a quick phone interview before the opening, he talked about what his and so many other people’s work has achieved. “I’m standing here looking at two youngsters being fascinated with what they see,” Arrigo said, before taking leave to head to another stop. “To see youngsters stop and play with things, seeing how they work,” he said, “may help them create things on their own.”
The museum will be working closely with Pueblo’s two school districts in bringing students—free of charge—into the museum for classes on the mind and creativity of one of the Renaissance’s most fascinating thinkers. Adult classes will also be offered on various phases of Leonardo’s life or to hear world class experts speak on da Vinci.
Two speakers brought in for the museum’s baptism were Dr. Sara Taglialagamba and British author Waqus Ahmed. Dr. Taglialagamba is a scholar/professor at the University of Urbino and considered one of the world’s preeminent da Vinci scholars. Ahmed is the author of “The Polymath,” a book that examines the unique talents of people like da Vinci, a polymath, a person who excels in at least three different fields.
Visitors to Pueblo’s newest museum, including those taking the various classes that will be offered year-round, will be able to delve into the mind of what author of “Leonardo’s Legacy,” Stefan Klein called his ‘playfulness.’ “He played with people…understood human emotions well ahead of those who viewed his art.”
But Leonardo, the polymath, did so much more than draw, paint and sculpt. He wrote endlessly and meticulously, including about human anatomy like few in his era. He studied musculature, the engineering of the human body, how connective tissue expanded and contracted, the human eye and how light bathed all that it touched according to distance or time of day.
In Pueblo’s da Vinci Museum of North America, visitors will see an ‘as close to the real thing’ as there is ‘Mona Lisa’ and, of course, his ‘Last Supper.’ They may stop to study either work to try and discover what author Klein called, Mona Lisa’s “inscrutable smile,” or the mystery of his Last Supper, its geometry, the placement of his subjects, or wonder why the saltshaker painted into it portends secrets only Leonardo could explain.
For others, there will be real time opportunities to actually lay hands on certain museum pieces. Objects that can be touched will be affixed with a green sticker. Those that have a red sticker, are strictly hands off. But whether to gaze, wonder or handle to see for oneself the genius of the man, there will be nearly endless possibilities.
For Gina Caruso, the new Deputy Director of the museum and a newly transplanted Puebloan via New Jersey where she taught both public and private education or worked as a Washington Post arts and education writer, a visit to the museum will be a chance to step into a Renaissance-like world.
Caruso believes that as the museum settles into its new home, the city’s residents as well as visitors will come to appreciate the man who continues to inspire awe centuries later. “It (the museum) completely aligns with what I believe as a point of education…it is so exciting, such a unique institution.”
The ‘STEAM’ in the museum’s name signifies the hands-on offerings in science, technology, engineering, art and math. It also, Caruso said, reminds her of a childhood spent with her siblings visiting Washington’s Smithsonian Museums where ‘hands-on’ wasn’t always appreciated, especially when they were Caruso’s seven-year-old hands.
“I was always touching the artwork,” said the Museum’s new executive. Explaining her early life’s proclivity for touching as part of a tactile nature, she simply admitted, “I just wanted to touch everything.”
The Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America, its founders and staff believe, will inspire. As da Vinci himself once said of the heavens, “The scintillation of a star begins in the eye.” For countless others, especially the young, it may also soon begin in Pueblo.
For more information on the new museum, visit davincisteam.org for hours of operation, ticket prices and schedule for all upcoming events.
