What goes in the collection stays in the collection, and that means a plethora of fine artworks often stay behind the scenes, unseen by the general public. The Arvada Center’s new exhibit series, COLLECT, brings some of them back out in public, by pulling together work from a variety of…
#18: Chandler Romeo and Reed Weimer Artists Chandler Romeo and Reed Weimer have been fixtures of the local scene since co-ops first began to pop up around 1980, building their Denver art careers first at Pirate gallery and later starting up Zip 37 just across Navajo Street. Over the years,…
Pump and Dump rule number one: No stinkin’ kids. “We talk a lot about children, but they are not welcome,” says comedian Shayna Ferm of the monthly mom-comedy night out at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret. “We drink. We swear. We are pretty inappropriate.” And that’s all any mommy desperate for a…
Just as American graffiti art comprises a variety of styles, techniques and intent, so does its Middle-Eastern counterpart — but that’s just scraping the surface of these art forms. Their differences begin with what’s most basic to the medium: alphabets and hand-strokes as unlike as East and West. And while…
#19: Nathan Abels Painter Nathan Abels, who moved here from Indiana in 2007, is best known for his ethereally subtle landscapes, which somehow commit to canvas the faintest changes in atmosphere and nanoseconds of time. It’s difficult work that he makes look easy and natural. Part of Robischon Gallery’s stable…
Joel Swanson: Left to Right, Top to Bottom and Critical Focus: Ian Fisher opened at MCA Denver Friday night, as part of curator Nora Burnett Abrams’s ongoing focus on local artists. While Fisher’s paintings of billowing clouds and skyscapes take over MCA’s Whole Room, Swanson has filled the David &…
#20: Daniel and Maruca Salazar Daniel and Maruca Salazar are one of the local Latino arts community’s reigning power couples; while Daniel grew up here, Maruca emigrated to Denver from her native Veracruz, Mexico, more than thirty years ago. And they’ve grown right along with that community over the years…
Since the start of the new year, we’ve been filling our four blogs — Show and Tell, Backbeat, Cafe Society and the Latest Word — with a Colorado bucket list of the 100 things to do before you kick it. We’ve already shared Show and Tell Bucket List picks 25-16…
There’s a retro bug in all of us that never tires of things from the pop culture of the past. And for some, it’s a real memory, while younger folks are simply amused by the phenomenon of how people used to live in the decades before they were born. Both…
The concept of new beginnings in a new year follows form at local art galleries, too, particularly at the co-ops, where early January brings out celebratory group shows as well as solos with a special twist. For several years now, Denver’s oldest cooperative, Spark Gallery, has been opening the year…
Gildar Gallery’s Adam Gildar has been a fan of Colorado painter Clark Richert for a long time: Richert is a fascinating artist with a fascinating history that includes a stint at the Drop City commune near Trinidad in the late 1960s, where his interest in the theories of Buckminster Fuller…
The idea of the poster as a call to action isn’t new; the concept of using graphics to foster social change is as old as revolution itself. Smart design — with its bold shapes and provocative politicized images — lends itself to the notion of change, and that’s the subject…
#21: Jil Cappuccio & Kirsten Coplans Long before seamstress/designer JIl Cappuccio and upcycled-clothing designer Kirsten Coplans opened their South Broadway boutique SEWN, the two handy friends found ways to market their lines as a duo — at gift markets and craft fairs and special events they threw themselves. Then the…
#22: Mario Acevedo Mario Acevedo writes evil good stories about a soldier-turned-vampire detective named Felix Gomez, who tangles with zombies and werewolves and other more “exotic” monsters in books like The Nymphos of Rocky Flats and The Undead Kama Sutra. And they’re funny! His latest project is Good Money Gone,…
Colorado-based pop star John Denver, who died in a crash while piloting his own plane in 1997 at the age of 53, would have turned seventy on New Year’s Eve. Almost twenty years later, he remains both beloved for writing and singing such songs as “Rocky Mountain High” and “Take…
What are the hundred things everyone should do in Colorado before they die? We posed this question to our writers and editors, and over the next week, we’ll be rolling out their answers across our blogs. Check back on January 16 for the full list. See also: The Westword 2014…
Thomas Moran, a Hudson River School painter who first came into prominence as an illustrator for Scribner’s Monthly, captured some of the nation’s wildest places. Many of his most famous landscapes were the product of his travels west with the Hayden Geological Survey in 1871. Alongside photographer William Henry Jackson,…
Alamo Drafthouse’s home programming team takes film more than seriously. To wit, these words from Sarah Pitre of company’s home team in Austin: “Asking an Alamo programmer to name his or her favorite movie is like asking a mother to name her favorite child. Wait, no, that makes it sound…
#23: Jerry Vigil Colorado’s robust Chicano arts community is well-known for both preserving and repackaging cultural traditions in modern contexts. It’s a part of our regional history, after all — a history that runs 500 years deep, from a time long before the Mile High City was even a speck…
#24: Meghan Throckmorton Collar Meghan Throckmorton Collar likes to think small, and that’s in no way a putdown: A creative crafter, designer and owner of the Rakun boutique on Santa Fe Drive, she’s both the product of and a mover in her own immediate little world of local trade –…
People power the arts scene in Denver. Not money or business connections or bending to public demand, but creative people who have the courage to make things happen in their own imaginative ways. As the new year started, we went on a search for people to watch in 2014, and…
As far as First Fridays go, tonight’s 2014 kickoff is a little slow, but there are certain things you can count on — and Marie EvB Gibbons’s monthly First Friday hands-on clay mini-shop is one of those. There’s nothing quite like it: It’s a chance to squeeze your hands into…
