The Reach Gallery: Expanding Art, Expanding Voices

Step inside, where 4,000+ works spill across walls and hallways, expanding art and voices at MoF.

Step through the doorway marked The Reach and you are immediately surrounded. Paintings, prints, photographs, and stories cover the walls from floor to ceiling, a tapestry of images and textures that spill into the hallway and beyond. What began as a single gallery next door to the Foundation has grown so large it now stretches down the corridors of the second floor, inviting visitors to linger, look closely, and follow the narrative thread of connection.

The Reach Gallery takes its name from the way the Museum of Friends collection has expanded outward: rooted in the counterculture friendships of founders Brendt Berger and Maria Cocchiarelli-Berger, but always extending further to welcome new artists, new stories, and new communities. Over time, that reach has grown to embrace both celebrated figures and underrepresented voices in the art world, artists like Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a visionary advocate for Indigenous representation; Dawn Howkinson Siebel, whose paintings probe the intersections of home, memory, and history; and Richard Mock, widely recognized for his biting political prints. In the Reach, works by well-known names hang alongside those of lesser-known artists, reflecting MoF’s commitment to equality, generosity, and inclusion. Where the Foundation preserves the earliest circle of gifts and trades, the Reach captures what has come since: the friendships that deepened, the networks that widened, and the unexpected connections that found their way to Walsenburg.

Here, visitors encounter work by Andy Libertone, Siebel, Joan Hanley, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kenny Schneider, Larry Racioppo, Miryana Todorova, Monroe Hodder, Paul Valadez, Mock, Reba Savageau, Matt Gonzalez, and many others—pieces that arrived through friendship, exchange, and new collaborations. Each carries not only artistic vision but also the story of how it came to be here: Siebel’s Women and Appliances series transforms domestic history into painted narrative, while her Real Estate works probe questions of home, memory, and belonging; Quick-to-See Smith’s gift to Maria Cocchiarelli-Berger recalls the time Maria helped her secure a one-person show at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & Design in Kansas City, a bond of support that led to her work having an honored place on the Reach walls; and Savageau’s Page of Cups shimmers with motion, a jewel-encrusted cup with a fish leaping into flight, its energy rippling through folds of color and form. Alongside works by artists like Bob Marsh, whose boundary-pushing experiments in material add yet another current to the dialogue, these pieces embody what the Reach represents: connection, expansion, and the stories behind how each work found its way to MoF.

A panoramic view of The Reach Gallery, where paintings, prints, and sculptures fill the walls from floor to ceiling.

Today, the Museum of Friends holds more than 4,000 works, and the Reach Gallery embodies that growth. The museum is now working to build a digital archive, a tool that will catalog the collection in the ways expected of any museum: by medium, date, artist, and subject. But MoF’s approach goes further. A second phase will capture the stories behind the art: how a print was mailed from New York, how a sculpture was carried cross-country in the back of a car, how a friendship turned into a lifelong exchange of creative gifts.

MoF began with a countercultural vision: that art’s true worth is found in generosity and community, not in the marketplace. That it should be shared freely, without the gatekeeping of juries or the hierarchies of elite art circles. As co-founder Brendt Berger reflects:

“The founding vision was art given freely. Today, there is a heavy emphasis on material value: what’s it cost, which is what our system, capitalism, is about. This museum, like the counterculture itself, is about value and equality: the value of each human being, and how community is built on recognition, respect, and personal honesty. The United States is a grand experiment in the freedom of choice: the freedom not to worship your neighbor’s god, and at the same time, respecting his right to do so.”

Every wall tells a layered story of color, form, memory, and the unexpected ways art finds its place at MoF.

That is the true power of the Reach: it is not only a gallery of art but also a gallery of relationships. To walk through its walls is to walk through decades of connection, expanded networks, and counterculture ideals that continue to ripple outward. This gallery is a reminder that MoF is never static. It grows, adapts, and expands, just as friendships do. And in that expansion, it continues to honor its founding vision: art shared openly, rooted in equality, and alive in community.