Crush Walls returns to RiNo this week, scaled back a bit but still promis­ing at least some sal­va­tion for a sum­mer of cul­tur­al ruin.

It’s a wel­come move, but also a log­i­cal one and, it must be said, a nec­es­sary one for those of us who rely on real, live, local art to stay con­nect­ed to each oth­er. Near­ly every­thing else that pow­ers Denver’s col­lec­tive, cre­ative ener­gy — the big con­certs at Red Rocks, the art fairs and the food feasts — was oblit­er­at­ed in 2020 because of coro­n­avirus fears. Our best sea­son has been bleak.

But the annu­al mur­al fest has advan­tages over those oth­er events that allow the show to go on. It comes well into the pan­dem­ic, after we’ve learned much about how the virus spreads and how to avoid it. At this year’s Crush, every­one will be asked to wear a face cov­er­ing and keep their min­gling to a minimum.

As for the oth­er major COVID-19 pre­cau­tion, social dis­tanc­ing, that comes nat­u­ral­ly at Crush. The event is tra­di­tion­al­ly scat­tered over 30 blocks in the sprawl­ing Riv­er North Art Dis­trict; no one needs to crowd up to enjoy ing the artists paint their walls, which are usu­al­ly big enough to be seen from afar anyway.

Safe­ty mea­sures will change some things. “High traf­fic alley­ways” at the heart of the fes­ti­val around 27th and Larimer streets will be shut down to the pub­lic at the busiest times. The par­ties, work­shops and indoor events that always accom­pa­ny the out­door art-mak­ing will be can­celed or modified.

One of the joys of Crush — chat­ting with the mural­ists infor­mal­ly about their process as they work — will like­ly be a chal­lenge, too. Artists will have “safe­ty zones” around them to keep spec­ta­tors at bay. The fest hopes to replace some of that inti­ma­cy with simul­ta­ne­ous online offer­ings that will include live stream­ing and drone footage of the event.

And Crush, for bet­ter or worse, will be count­ing on every­one gath­ered to act respon­si­bly. The restau­rants, gal­leries and brew­eries that define the district’s char­ac­ter will be open to the extent that city rules allow. We’ll see how that works out.

Still, there will be plen­ty of spray cans emp­ty­ing over the week­long fest. More than 50 murals are set to go up, con­cen­trat­ed this year in the Five Points area, with a num­ber of well-known region­al and inter­na­tion­al street artists in the line­up, includ­ing stars El Mac, Taste, Max Sans­ing and Hiero Veiga (com­mon­ly known as sim­ply Hiero).

In total, 100 artists will be work­ing at Crush — and that’s no small mat­ter. One of the rea­sons Crush is star­ing down the pan­dem­ic this year is that it has become a key source of their sea­son­al income. Every artist gets sup­plies and cash for participating.

“It was extreme­ly impor­tant to make sure we paid artists dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times,” said RiNo Arts Dis­trict exec­u­tive direc­tor Tra­cy Weil.

And they work hard for the mon­ey. Hiero, for exam­ple, will dive into a num­ber of projects, includ­ing one col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bak­pak Dur­den, a mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary artist vis­it­ing from Detroit, anoth­er with Denver’s own up-and-com­er Chelsea Lewin­sky, plus what­ev­er else he’s inspired to jump into.

“That’s just kind of my thing. I start a week ear­ly, go hard, and fin­ish a week after,” he said.

Hiero is best-known for his murals in Mia­mi, though he’s been spend­ing a lot of time in Den­ver late­ly. This past sum­mer, he worked along­side local mural­ist Thomas “Detour” Evans on a “Spray Their Name” series of wall paint­ings hon­or­ing vic­tims of police bru­tal­i­ty and vio­lent crimes.

RELATED: What’s up with all the new murals pop­ping up around Denver?

Among their projects is a high­ly vis­i­ble mur­al out­side of Leon Gallery near 17th and Park avenues depict­ing Isabel­la Thal­las, who was shot and killed while walk­ing her dog in the Ball­park neigh­bor­hood in June.

Hiero is high­ly regard­ed for a style that’s still rare in street art: pho­to­re­al­ism. He’s able to incor­po­rate aston­ish­ing details into his por­traits — tiny wrin­kles, whiskers, nose hairs — using only spray paint. “I can’t think any oth­er way,” he said.

Each paint­ing is pre­cise and time-con­sum­ing, though Hiero says that’s the point of his process. He’s on the bet­ter side of a bat­tle with sub­stance abuse and paint­ing is his ther­a­py. “I start­ed doing hyper­re­al­ism after I got clean,” he said.

“I need it to be dif­fi­cult because I need to stay out of my head.”

Like a lot of streets artists, he’s self-taught, aside from tak­ing an occa­sion­al line draw­ing or paint­ing class when he could swing the mon­ey. “I nev­er could afford school,” he said.

Instead, he says, he learned to look at peo­ple, the “hard­ened indi­vid­u­als with hard­ened fea­tures,” he encoun­tered grow­ing up out­side of Boston in Brock­ton, Mass., and the more laid-back types he found after a move to Mia­mi. It all influ­enced his thinking.

So did a few unlike­ly painters he stud­ied on his own. Among them, Egon Schiele, the Aus­tri­an artist known for his moody, heav­i­ly lined por­traits, and Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor Nor­man Rock­well, famous for cap­tur­ing the vital­i­ty of his subjects.

You can see traces of both artists in his work, and there will be plen­ty of it on dis­play at Crush as the week unfolds and projects come to fruition. That’s actu­al­ly the real plea­sure at this fest, ing things as they hap­pen. Crush reg­u­lars usu­al­ly go two or three times because things can morph quickly.

For the record, here are three oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tive projects to look out for: Taste and Aerosol King­dom at the Grana­da Fish build­ing (near 24th and Broad­way); Miles Toland and Jodie Her­rera at Amer­i­can Bond­ed (27th and Larimer); and Syd­ney James and Max Sans­ing at Eri­co Motor­sports (29th and Walnut).

And, just as a reminder, if the poten­tial for mix­ing with oth­er folks at a pop­u­lar art fes­ti­val is a deter­rent right now, the works do stay up for awhile. Folks can Crush on their own after the actu­al event and still catch a lot of great art, for free.

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