Hello, Prismajic family. It's been a bit!
First, thank you. Since we closed our doors, so many of you have continued to reach out with kind words, memories, and encouragement. Every message landed. It meant more than I can say, and it carried me through a season of real change. I have been busy asking, What is the BEST that can happen? And NOW a lot IS HAPPENING!
A New Chapter with CoCreate PBC
I've joined forces with CoCreate PBC, a Denver-based public benefit corporation, as Director of Experience. CoCreate builds and stewards third spaces like Prismajic: places where people gather, create, and come back to themselves. Our work lives at the intersection of creativity, events, and hospitality, and our mission is to build the infrastructure of connection for the creative economy and community. Working alongside this team feels like coming home.
Prismajic is now a brand of CoCreate PBC. When the time is right, we'll bring our amazing community another immersive work. For now, there is something that needs tending first.
The Mercury Cafe
CoCreate is under contract to purchase the Mercury Cafe, and we expect to close this winter.
For fifty years, the Merc has been Denver's creative culture living room. Poetry slams, swing nights, tango and salsa, live music, weddings, rallies, and every kind of human in between. As we step into stewardship, we're honoring what the community created and walking into the next fifty years with a fresh look and the same feel. Our vision is simple: fifty years of Denver's creative spirit, and fifty more.
By day, Bardo Coffee will offer coffee and light fare for the artists, neighbors, dreamers, and regulars who make a cafe feel like home, with room to settle in and cowork alongside one another. In the evenings, the downstairs performance room and the upstairs stage will host everything from dance and yoga to concerts and private celebrations.
We're pursuing landmark designation so the building stands in perpetuity. Every one of us is a culture and community investor. We invest with our time, our talent, our voices, and our presence. As we raise capital to bring the Merc home, if you'd like to learn about supporting it, I'd love to hear from you.
Word Is Getting Out!
The news is traveling. Westword broke the story, and BusinessDen followed with a look at the deal, which The Denver Post also picked up. Our answer to what comes next: we'd love for the community to join us in lifting this old girl back up into orbit, investing in ourselves and pouring our love and energy back into the Merc.
Westword: Exclusive: Mercury Cafe is getting new owners with plans to revive the iconic venue westword.com article
BusinessDen: Newman under contract to sell Mercury Cafe to local events agency. https://businessden.com/newman-under-contract-to-sell-mercury-cafe-to-local-events-agency/
At Prismajic, I was inspired by what the Merc had done for its community and quietly patterned our programming after it: spaces for poetry, music, movement, and connection. So when this door opened, it didn't feel like a detour. It felt like the path had been leading here all along.
A line attributed to the mystic poet Rumi says, "That in the house of lovers, the walls are made of songs, the floor dances, and the music never stops." That is the Merc, alive with the aliveness of its creative community.
Marilyn Megenity, who founded the Mercury Cafe in 1975, said it best:
"I am so appreciative that CoCreate wants to take care of the Mercury, because they value community and they value the arts. Over the years, people often walked into the Mercury when their lives were about to change, or needed to change, and they found their people there. The poets, dancers, storytellers, musicians, and regular customers all made community together. We were blessed with extraordinary talent and some really glamorous moments, but we also had good, regular, everyday human stuff. That atmosphere was the Mercury, and I think CoCreate is a group that understands that and can carry it forward."
We take her support to heart.
For now Pieces of Prismajic will be scattered through the Merc. Trees will root the rooms downstairs, the knowing eyes of owls peering through the leaves of the canopy. Upstairs, a sprinkling of stars. (How could there not be stars?) The upstairs cosmos will dance with everyone raising a glass, swaying to the music beneath those stars!
Prismajic is still seeking her own permanent home, and I'm confident we'll find it. This time, we're building an economic engine and owning the dirt beneath our feet, so we are never displaced again. The Merc is the first root in that network, the first of many community-rooted spaces we'll grow together.
Roots below, stars above, and rooms full of people in between. The Merc is coming back into orbit, and so are we.
Tell Us What You Remember!
Before we decide what the Merc becomes, we're asking the people who made it what it was. Our community listening survey has already drawn hundreds of responses, and they are as positive and as excited as we are. If the Merc holds a piece of your story, or you have hopes for what it can become, add your voice here: Mercury Cafe Community Listening Survey https://cocreate.fillout.com/t/dkjGUWEuEtus. It's open through October 31.
The Merc's history is also sitting in basements and shoeboxes all over Denver, and we're building a living archive of its first fifty years. Photographs, flyers, show posters, recordings, ticket stubs, programs, and written memories are all welcome, whether you performed there a hundred times or walked in once and never forgot it. When you take the survey, you can opt in to share your stories and keepsakes as the archive grows. Those memories belong with the community.
We're at the helm of creating something extraordinary, and there is room for you in it. If you want to be part of this, as a collaborator, financial supporter, or kindred spirit, reach out to me directly at jennifer@prismajic.com.
With so much gratitude,
Jen
What's the BEST that can happen?!
