For the past few years Dina Costillo has been bringing pop culture and lowbrow artists and their works to the city between two coasts – Denver – utilizing the lofty space in this city's version of Soho, Th'ink Tank Tattoo and Gallery in Lodo, owned by Jef Kopp. The concept was an unique one - to combine the art of skin and ink with the art of other medias, ones you could take home with you and enjoy in a less permanent fashion.

As an art lover for many years, getting to start a gallery in this way was a rare opportunity for Dina. "He basically handed me a gallery," she says of her boyfriend Jef. "I mean, who ever gets to do that? I would not be where I am if it weren't for him."

Last year Jef decided it was time to take Th'Ink Tank out of Lodo and to a space along Broadway's thriving Baker District, and change his gallery displays to more local and tattoo oriented artists. This left Dina with a year's worth of shows planned and no space to hold them in. "You have to book out that far in advance, because [the artists] are booked out that far in advance," she explains.

So the only thing to do was for her to go out on her own. But starting her DC Gallery from scratch was a whole other ball game. She had to learn about construction at a commercial level, find a space in the right place, work on negotiating the lease, and other pesky grown-up stuff.

As business owners, we got also into the discussion of what opportunities for financial support are available to companies such as ours, and they seem to be pretty slim to none. "I applied for three small business loans and got turned down all three times," she explains. Plan B was starting to work four jobs back in December, from her full-time position as a sales rep for a lighting manufacturer, to various bar tending gigs.

Getting the mini-tour of the space, it was clear that getting things wrapped in time for the show this Friday will be down to the wire as the carpet was being laid and the finishing touches were being added. But the four jobs, hours of work and lending hands have paid off. The pop art was already being displayed through vibrant colors of orange, purple and green accenting the gallery's high ceilings and walls.

And Jef was still there helping, from getting a reliable contractor to making suggestions for alternative window treatments. With only a week to go, you could tell that although Dina appreciated his recommendation, she resisted with a smile, "The drapes are just fine. They do the job and they're already up and done."

This Friday the opening artists that will invade the new space include local Queen Deluxe, Kirsten Easthope (who has been previously shown in the Th'Ink Tank Gallery), Mitch O'Connell, an artist of 20 years specializing in sexy pop art with a pin-up flair, and Lisa Petrucci, who takes the touristy wood plaques to another dimension of a '70s pre-teen sleep over.

For Dina, the process of finding artists in this genre can be just as much fun as watching people perusing through the gallery. She sites Juxtapose Magazine as her bible of choice as a source, along with web site research and actual submissions from artists themselves.

More than anything, she goes after what she would want for herself, and artists that have put some years into developing their own style. "I just have to be realistic. As a gallery owner I have to be concerned with sales. Art school students can't just walk into a gallery and get their stuff displayed. They need to start at a coffee house or something and build up from there. When I look at someone's work, I like to start at page one and see a level of continuity throughout, without being repetitive of course."

The wonderful thing about the world of pop and lowbrow art is people can actually afford to own these pieces, unlike the pieces hanging in the galleries in Soho, or Lodo for that matter. But that may not last for much longer. "I feel fortunate that I'm working in a genre that is so inspiring, so original, so like, 'Holy shit, how did they come up with that idea?' And, so affordable. This type of art is starting to get noticed by the art world. So they're not going to be affordable for long."

DC Gallery plans to make some lower-cost prints available, so if $50-$300 is still out of your price range, you'll have a much, much better alternative to the cheesy prints they sell in the mall.

Although a number of the artists featured in her shows have come from other parts of the country and are pretty well known in art world (such as the Tiki God Shag), she's also big on supporting local men and women with a flair for the funky, quirky and poppy. "I'm really proud of the fact that Th'Ink Tank, as the little entity that it was, became this major launching point for artists from Denver."

Alex Meyer was one of those artists that walked in with his portfolio and blew both Dina and Jef away. "We gave him a show and he practically sold out." The other was Stone Larkin who created metal sculpture pieces for Th'Ink Tank's Hot Rod show last year, impressing veteran artists of the genre including The Pizz, who had attended the opening. Both of these locals have since gained national recognition from well-known galleries of pop culture and lowbrow art such as the M Modern Gallery in Palm Springs (who this weekend, will be hosting the "I Dream Of Tiki" featuring Shag, Tim Biskup, Mark Ryden, and others). Stone is actually leaving Denver for Palm Springs this week because of M Modern's support of his work.

As far as the future goes, Dina is excited to bring in more female artists along with everything modern and unique - from comic inspired art to toys and imaginative objects. One such artist is Niagara, who was a contemporary of Andy Warhol that creates captioned art in the Lichtenstein realm, but with an edgy, vampy flair.

Dina says that she'll always keep her day job in lighting sales. She loves the job and you can't argue with cash to pay the bills…and getting discounted lighting fixtures comes in handy too. But it's her new baby, DC Gallery, that's set to shine a bright light on Denver's growing art community.

-Kim Owens, May 6, 2004

DC Gallery is located at 125 Broadway (at 1st Street), Denver, 303.733.4401.

http://www.dc-gallery.com