Meow meow, Apogaeans!
Incase you’re still out of the loop, we’ve got a THEME & DATES for Apogaea 2026:
JUNE 10-14 2026
The new year is upon us, which means that your BIG $$ ART GRANTS are nearly due on JAN 6 at 11:59pm.
Please make haste, don’t delay – get your budget line items together, whip up some specs and drawings, and help us to best conceptualize your next big, whacky idea. We want to give you the monies! Help us help you.
As always, we kindly direct you to this very thorough and thoughtfully put together guideline on how to best apply for & GET your art grant. The CATS page on the Apo site also has a very detailed Q&A section, so be sure to read that over before submitting.
** APPLY HERE **
AND NEW THIS YEAR:
CATS has gotten our wittle paws into some super sweet LEDs that were very generously gifted to us, which we’d like to now gift to YOU.
LED Deets:
- The lights are GS8208 LED strips, 12V, 60 LEDs per meter.
- Super high quality, super bright and excellent low light behavior.
- They can be programmed with the WS2812 protocol.
- The sections are about 34” long (57 pixels).
- We have over 100 sections.
- They are NOT waterproof, but we’ve got lots of ideas regarding how to waterproof them, if you’re interested.
AND NOW, THE MOMENT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR… (drumroll plz)
** We sold out the 3rd ANNUAL GAYLA & RAISED $15K!! **
And we absolutely couldn’t have done it without you all. CATS worked our little fuzzy butts off, and with help from our fantastic krewe of dedicated community members, artists, auction contributors, generous donors, performers, caterers & grill master, volunteers (yo DPW!!), the fantastic GATHER @ LAKESIDE venue and their staff, our art teacher donation recipients and speakers, and support from the Apogaea board, we hosted the best event yet!
We will be donating $1500 of those funds directly over to our friends at DPW, who always show the f*ck up for us all so hard, to use as necessary to best support their krewe and to streamline all of the important work they do to literally build our event from the ground up.
WTF DOES CATS DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY ANYWAY?
We’re so glad you asked.
We recently had the pleasure of helping to install and support the RMSEL (Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning) student art show, which we donated $4,500 to purchase tools and materials for. This group of misfit highschool freshmen were so inspired by their recent visits to the Denver Art Museum and MeowWolf Denver, that they wanted to build and create their very own immersive installations.
CATS team members assisted in their build day, showing these kiddos how to use power tools (most for the first time!) and problem solve, helping the students bring their ideas to fruition.
We were all honored to attend the student art show, which took place at the Rainbow Dome just days after the Gayla. It was truly incredible to see what these young artists came up with: some positively weird stuff.
We look forward to finding new and exciting ways to use our Gayla funds to support art in public spaces, art education programs and community art. If you’ve got suggestions for how we can utilize our funds raised that align with CATS’ mission to support art in strange, curious & creative ways, pretty please shoot us an email back to [email protected] with appropriate links, info and contacts for said suggestions.
As community members, we value your input and we bet you all know about some cool stuff going on out there in the Colorado art world that we may not be hip to… yet!
From our CATS family to yours, we wish you a spectacular New Years’! We’re thrilled to spend another year together, creating art, joy & whimsy.
Yay art!
Yours,
Apogaea CATS
Mitch
Angela
Fenton
Mike
Allison
Nathan
Julie
Rose
Michael
& Claire