A Creative North

The impact of NoBo’s Creative District designation elevating its arts community

story Kastle Waserman

Art exists in every city, but finding it isn’t always as easy as you think. Without a central area,  promotion, and drive, even the greatest art can go unseen and unknown. 

In Boulder, there is now a concerted effort to create a centralized art district where artists can work, show, discuss, and sell their work. The NoBo Art District began in 2009 as a grassroots effort by a group of artists to support and elevate the arts in their city, says Megan Mazzoni, NoBo Art District board president. “It started with a small group of artists who gathered, donated their time, and said, ‘Hey, we gotta stick together. We want people to be able to go out and experience this community.’”

The NoBo Art District began with First Fridays, an event held on the first Friday of every month (except January) when artist studios and galleries open their doors to showcase and celebrate all forms of art. “Visitors can use a map to take a self-guided walking tour of Emerald City, the green warehouses that house many artists’ studios in North Boulder. In 2024, we had over 8000 visitors and showcased over 200 studios,” Megan says. “It’s something that brings people in from all zip codes.”

The venues anchoring the art district include Emerald City, NoBo Art Center at 4929 Broadway, NoBo Bus Stop Gallery at 4895 Broadway, NoBo on the Corner at Yarmouth and Broadway, and an artist community called Artist Alley across Broadway.

First Friday also includes studios east of Broadway, such as the enclave of artists at the live-work development, Studio Mews and Kin Studio and Gallery, added Megan.

The Corner serves as the NoBo Art District’s home office for staff and as a community programming space. The Arts Center is an exhibition, workshop, and class space, and is home to the Art of Modeling figure drawing studio. Bus Stop is a large gallery exhibition space.

Megan said making Emerald City the central focus made sense since it had been an area where artists could find affordable studio space. “The district really blossomed from there,” she says.

To make it official, the area was just awarded a creative district designation by the State of Colorado in late 2025. “It’s an arduous process with a long application to become a certified creative district,” Megan says. “We’re really proud to have that recognition. It comes with some funding, which we hope to use to bring more visibility to the area.”

The NoBo Art District is governed by a working board, whose members volunteer their time to work together to do strategic planning for the organization, and are all artists themselves. “We all like to express ourselves in some creative way,” Megan says. “That’s a really big part of being able to connect to the community at large and figure out how we’re elevating our mission and seeing it through to reality.”

The organization runs on membership dues from individuals and businesses, including artists and patrons of the arts. Benefits for artists include being showcased on the website and access to physical spaces to exhibit work and host workshops for the community. For businesses, it’s about visibility, having a listing on the website, getting the logo out on programming, and heightening awareness of the company in the community.

Megan says the future looks bright with the new designation, as they plan to continue First Friday and Art + Place, which connects artists with businesses that exhibit their art, plus other events aimed at growing membership and driving awareness of the diverse forms of expression and storytelling in the artist community of Boulder.

“We’re big fans of diverse storytelling. We really want to make sure that all voices are getting heard,” Megan says. “We want to continue arts education and community engagement and economic development in North Boulder, which we haven’t seen before. We’d really like to help foster growth in that particular area of town.”

The group also runs a podcast with artist interviews to give them a voice on their creative process, inspiration, and techniques. “That was an idea from one of our interns,” says Megan. “It is something that helps connect local artists to anyone listening. They can be across the country and hear about artists in Boulder.”

She says the NoBo Art District board members are excited about the future.

“Our goal is, how do we get more art in patrons’ hands? There’s so much art out there, we really want to get their stories told.”

Learn more at noboartdistrict.org.