MUSEUM OF
OUTDOOR
ARTS HITS 26

Co-founder Cynthia Leitner
sees art as essential in life

By COLLEEN SMITH
Photography KIMBERLY DAWN

The Museum of Outdoor Arts is 26 years old, and its cofounder and president, Cynthia Madden Leitner, is 55. Do the math and it’s immediately evident that Leitner has matured along with MOA.

“I’m feeling exuberant and visionary. It’s a really good time for me,” she says.“I like my age, and that hasn’t always been so. I think women between 50 and 65 are in the power years right before we become crones, which are our wisdom years.”

Which is not to say that Leitner has not already arrived at wisdom. She describes herself as “very introverted,” and even in her black suede boots with high heels, she’s petite. But make no mistake: She’s also a powerhouse, proverbially wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.

She’s well aware that some people hurl insinuations that she benefited from the status of her titan father, developer John W. Madden, Jr., who spawned MOA and appointed his eldest offspring and only daughter as executive director.

Actually, Leitner considers her paternal and maternal great-grandmothers more than her dad to be her heroic role models. She shrugs off the nepotism criticism: “I don’t have time for things like that.”

She’s been too busy with undertakings like curating MOA’s impressive collection and serving as a founding member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Besides which, Leitner knows full well that at MOA she has quietly and stalwartly carried enormous executive burdens — matters she prefers to keep off the record. Of late, those burdens were lightened and issues resolved, giving rise to celebrations both personal and institutional.

“This time has been a real rite of passage for us,” says Leitner, who is wife to Roger Leitner, mother to three and grandmother to three, and who still has managed to funnel a large measure of her energies to MOA because art ranks high on her scale of values.

“Art is a part of everyday life. Art is life, and I believe everyone can make their life art,” she says.

Leitner’s office at MOA’s headquarters on the second floor of City Center Englewood — situated on the old Cinderella City site — is something of a museum in and of itself. Along with an extensive assemblage of family photos, she displays fine art photography and glass art, etchings and a sculpture of her beloved dog, a royal poodle named Chloe.

Above a couch hangs a large and evocative canvas by Colorado artist Daniel Sprick, a contemporary realist whose paintings are the subject of a focus gallery at Denver Art Museum’s new Hamilton Building. Leitner is a big fan of Sprick.

The admiration runs both ways.“Cynthia Madden Leitner is an extraordinarily warm and generous supporter of the arts and is a true believer in its transformative powers,” Sprick says. “She understands the primal need for human creativity and the centrality of genuine expression. Her own expression of the sublime and the ineffable is clear for all to see by visiting her own singular creation, the Museum of Outdoor Arts.”

The museum’s name is something of a misnomer since MOA also exhibits art indoors — both within the confines of the museum proper and in the city center’s public space. The MOA collection graces the grounds outside the David Owen Trybadesigned building and extends up Main Street. Kinetic sculpture, metal and stone works both traditional and contemporary greet library patrons, citizens on civic business and shoppers in the area redeveloped with the principles of New Urbanism.

Some of MOA’s signature pieces were transplanted from Greenwood Village, where the nonprofit museum had its genesis. But a substantial portion of the collection remained in place even when MOA moved, in part because of the museum’s concept of collecting site-specific art that does not merely take up space, but creates space. The bronze Mercury, for example, was painstakingly installed so that his index finger points to the sun on winter solstice.

That’s the sort of detail that delights Leitner, a card-carrying Romantic with a twist of the mystic. She has an appreciation for Druids and sacred geometry, labyrinths and the like. She aligns herself with a belief held by master artist and MOA collaborator Lonnie Hanzon, who holds that magic is truth and socalled reality is illusion.

“That’s why we feel so touched by beauty, elegance, prismatic light: It all rings true with who we are,” explains Leitner. “Human beings are made of stardust, and if you look at life that way, of course, you’re more touched by the beauty of nature.”

The books she’s read again and again include Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but also Chop Wood Carry Water.

Water — in fact, Sacred Water — provides the theme for MOA in 2007. Events and exhibitions will span the seasons and incorporate visual arts, as well as performance pieces, interactive works and a water altar — samples of sacred water in vessels from around the globe.

Along with MOA’s expansive exhibits, award-winning educational programs and dynamic performance presentations, the permanent collection continues to expand. Now totaling more than 100 pieces, the artwork ranges from an 18th-century stone sculpture of St. Francis to the fresh works created by cutting-edge contemporary artists. Recent acquisitions include an African stone piece titled Woman of Authority by a Chapungu sculptor and another addition to the mural series donated by Women of the West Museum.

MOA also involves itself with literary arts by hosting writing awards, and the museum owns Fiddler’s Green, an outdoor concert venue in Greenwood Village. All told, MOA’s arts impact is well-rounded and well-established.

“Cynthia has been a visionary leader for Denver's art scene,” says Lewis Sharp, director of Denver Art Museum. He salutes MOA’s significant role in expanding Denver's public art program farther into the metro area. Sharp, who rides the light rail to work, particularly appreciates the accessibility of MOA’S Englewood location.

“I think one of the most important things Cynthia did for the Museum of Outdoor Arts was move it to the new location, where it sits right on the light rail and has become very visible and accessible to a broad range of people,” remarks Sharp, who’s particularly fond of Red Grooms’ Brooklyn Bridge.

“It is very whimsical and just so visually appealing,” he says of the sculpture near the train station outside Englewood City Center. “It has a great visual presence.”

Though the sculpture obviously nods to New York City, the art suits the Mile High City, as well.

“Denver truly is a place of opportunity, still a growing place where you can be part of its fabric,” Leitner says. “You aren’t going to be told you can‘t do something because you’re new on the scene. The Western spirit is still alive here.”

And as Leitner shepherds MOA into another generation, she intends to kindle that spirit and draw more people near its fires: “I’m searching for ways to collaborate with other people, to be part of connectivity,” she says. “I do think this century is going to be about reforming community, and I want the arts to be part of that — not art as we know it, but integrated, with everyone feeling their creativity.”

Leitner daydreams about playing piano near a picture window by the sea, a breeze blowing in, mingling with musical notes in the air. In reality, however, she’s often mired in more mundane matters, such as the installation of a security system in the gallery, the breakdown of the DVD player and the challenges of being short-staffed

“People think you have to have an art history encyclopedia in your head to run an arts organization, and that you definitely have to be an artist in the traditional sense, meaning a painter, sculptor or writer,” says Leitner.

“What you really need to know about is process. An artist’s process can teach us to pay attention to each step and let an idea evolve and remember that what we consider failure might be the mother of invention,” she says. “If you use an artist’s process, you can probably do anything — and that's what makes you a true artist.”

The Museum of Outdoor Arts is located at 1000 Englewood Parkway. MOA distributes a walking tour guide highlighting the Englewood pieces. For more information, visit www.moaonline.org, or call (303) 806-0444.