If you’re having a hard time girding for holiday shopping this year, you’re not alone. The weather’s been weird and so are the politics, and it’s hard to turn your thoughts to trimming the tree and filling the space beneath it when nothing feels quite right. Here’s a secret…
#44: Ron Doyle For a guy who’s built a freelance business at home, Ron Doyle still spreads himself around town, whether he’s co-hosting and producing the Denver wing of The Narrators, a live show and podcast for which local creatives weave personal stories around a monthly theme, or pulling strings…
More than a decade ago, when a then-twenty-something Kelly Shortandqueer and a friend first opened the doors of the Denver Zine Library in a backyard Baker neighborhood shed, he never imagined it would still be going — and thriving — in 2016. Always a volunteer-run project of the heart, the…
#45: Josie Quick Violinist Josie Quick is the penultimate laid-back career musician, though she’s always busy, whether she’s teaching, serenading a romantic wedding proposal, jamming with herself via looping or laying down tracks in the studio with Perpetual Motion, a jazz duo with her guitarist husband, Tom Carleno, and Coyote…
In preparation for the 1977 NASA launch of the Voyager 1 space probe, Carl Sagan’s scientific team member and fiancee Anne Druyan was tasked with imprinting symbols essential to humanity on a disc of gold that might, if found by some civilization light-years away, help explain who we are here…
#46 Clark Richert Artist Clark Richert’s fascinating history began with a stint at the Drop City commune near Trinidad in the late 1960s, where his interest in the theories of Buckminster Fuller played out in the formation of geodesic domes and, eventually, in the direction of his painting style, an…
Throughout November 2016, there are plenty of options for leisurely and off-the-wall gift shopping in Denver that won’t break your budget — or your brain.
#47: Anthony Buchanan An experimental filmmaker and film scholar in his own right, Anthony Buchanan also hosts the ongoing Cinema Contra microcinema, a celebration of little-seen work by local and national media artists that pops up at different venues around town. Westword caught up with Buchanan to discuss the future of…
Nathan Carter had a revelation when, as a middle-schooler, he visited the Whitney Museum and saw the creative and whimsical feat of imagination that is Calder’s Circus. “I remember being confused,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘Wait, this is how I played with my toys. What was this doing in a…
#48: Victoria Lundy Longtime Denver experimental musician Victoria Lundy conjures sounds out of the theremin, that weird, hands-off electronic device best known for spookifying mid-century sci-fi soundtracks and lending its spacey energy to 1966 Beach Boys tour de force “Good Vibrations.” A nerd-rocker, ambient composer and founding member of the…
Cold-calling exhibition venues isn’t usually part of a curator’s job when creating an art show, but that’s exactly what University of Colorado Boulder art professor George Rivera did when he jumped departments in the ’90s after twenty years of teaching sociology. It started with his idea of shaking things up…
#49: Bonnie Ferrill Roman Colorado papermaker and mixed-media sculptor Bonnie Ferrill Roman creates airy, medium-melding installations that connect the dots from the realm of well-crafted fiber art to the frontier of art about ideas and personal issues. A longtime educator dedicated to sharing techniques and foundational know-how with young art…
#50: Theresa Mercado Professional film buff, horror aficionado and admitted “murderphile” Theresa Mercado is so immersed in her work programming the Sie FilmCenter’s scare-tastic Scream Screen film series that she’s apt to introduce her picks to the audience while in full character costume — something you don’t see every day…
It’s time to dive into Denver Arts Week, and First Friday is the perfect introduction. If you don’t get out to the galleries throughout the year, this is the night to change your tune. Here’s a sampler of what you’ll find. Contemporary Fiber 2016 Niza Knoll Gallery Now through November…
The best thing about Denver Arts Week? It amplifies what we have here all year along, and especially in mid-fall, when local culture is completely up and running for a bright new season. From November 4 through 12, it’s the best chance you’ll have this year to explore what’s happening…
#51: Phaedra High Phaedra High — Denver entrepreneur, event-thrower, maker and advocate for natural hair and beauty care — calls herself a “nerd with her head in the clouds,” but that doesn’t mean she’s not getting things done. A primary hand in producing the Denver Natural Hair Care Expo for…
#52: Sarah Fukami Colorado born and bred, printmaker and current RedLine resident Sarah Fukami creates work that’s deeply rooted in her Japanese family’s internment during WWII and issues around her cultural heritage. Fukami layers her mixed-media historical references on Plexiglas panels, relating stories of figures both notable and anonymous, bringing…
#53: Daniel Crosier Since graduating from the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in 2000, under the tutelage of sculptor Chuck Parsons, Daniel Crosier has put his hands in plenty of new projects: He’s been a neo-kabuki performance artist with his group OFM: OdAm fEI mUd, transformed wood-burned illustrations…
When you step out of the elevator on Level Four of the Denver Art Museum’s North Building over the next few weeks, you’ll see a colorful Quetzalcoatl flying above the lobby, letting loose two trails of Monarch butterflies into the pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial galleries. They’re part of Las Almas…
Andrew Novick collects things. Lots of things. But Novick is no garden-variety hoarder. Each of his prized objects, which are catalogued and line shelves in his garage, evoked some kind of story for him, and the collection, once the subject of a museum exhibit at Adam Lerner’s old Lab at…
Denver’s fall arts season is in full swing, bringing ballet and fresh theater to Denver stages, along with a touch of the spooky. Take your pick from these three seasonally friendly diversions. Colorado Ballet, Swan Lake Ellie Caulkins Opera House 7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 20, through Saturday, October 22 2 p.m…
#54: Frankie ToanA relative newcomer to Denver, artist Frankie Toan is already well-embedded in the city’s under-the-radar art communities. A former PlatteForum resident and a current second-year resident at RedLine, Toan creates work that’s rooted in craft and heavy on message, confronting viewers with alternative social realities, urging them to throw…
