It all started when the polar bear refused to disappear. Artist Karl Krueger had entered his giant snow, wood and wire sculpture in the 2009 Dummy Demolition so that it could be launched off the slope at Golden Peak — but the bear survived unscathed. After that, Vail Village put…
Recognizing that the local arts scene needed a little fertilizer to really get going, and growing, eight years ago Westword created a program to honor the visionaries — artists and organizations alike — who are changing the cultural landscape of metro Denver. And we decided to not just honor these…
Bison look very docile when you see them from your car. Nine-month-old bison (who only weigh about 550 pounds or so) look cute, even cuddly — that is, until one of them is racing around a corner at you at forty miles an hour. That’s when you check the protective…
Lil Wayne dropped by Copper Mountain last week and dropped in at the skate bowls inside the Woodward Barn, home of several extreme sports training camps. Weezy loves the experience and may have left a little blood behind. To hear about it, check out the video below…
Every artist has his quirk — an obsession within his own work. For John May, that obsession is seeing his reflection on the door of a newly painted car. “I take pictures that are reflection pictures, and they have my reflection in them,” he says. “None of the new cars…
Boulder’s EcoArts puts on art shows that go heavy on the green, while mixing everything up into something that the community can touch and feel and — hopefully — get, because there’s a message to be found in the midst of all the ecological hullabaloo. The invisible connectedness of things,…
Phil Bender was a famous artist long before he won the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts this fall — even if he was the one who hung himself with the “Famous Artist” tag. So is it possible that the Piratical, tech-phobic Bender put up the Phill Bender Facebook…
Taft 2012, the debut novel from erstwhile Westword writer Jason Heller, hits bookstores today, and Heller will be reading from the book at 7:30 tonight at the Tattered Cover, 2526 East Colfax Avenue. Below, Heller talks about his time-traveling William H. Taft and what in tarnation the 27th president makes…
Late last week, the unthinkable happened. Phil Bender — founder of Pirate gallery and the generally accepted godfather of the Denver co-op scene — mysteriously appeared on Facebook. Anyone who knows Phil even the least bit knows that he does not compute: doesn’t trust a computer or a tweet, is…
Once in the not-so-distant past, the skating rink was the premier teenage hot spot. Down and Derby brings back those glorious days this Friday night, with a massive re-creation of what made skating rinks so cool in the first place — as a place to both socialize and to show…
When I called Lawrence Woodson to reschedule my animal spirit reading, I was hoping the local psychic would have anticipated my call. “I saw this coming,” he would say, then cackle maniacally. Perhaps there would be a clap of thunder reflected in his crystal ball, perhaps a curl of incense…
The Thorn and the Blossom — which will be released today — is a book unlike any you’ve seen before. It’s actually two stories in one; the accordion-style binding contains perspectives of both star-crossed lovers Brendan and Evelyn as they meet, are separated and then meet again over a span…
To misquote Shakespeare, what’s in a dress? What’s in the cut of a particular tailored jacket? If these details were in the imagination of Yves Saint Laurent, the name means everything; one of the classic designers of the twentieth century, YSL earned his fame. He learned the ropes under the…
Freedom of Speech, an open microphone poetry night hosted by LadySpeech on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Gypsy House, has become one of the city’s most dynamic and intimate evenings of poetry and song. The crowd starts trickling into the basement of Gypsy around 7:30 p.m…
Tim Tebow has inspired more than sports fans. He’s inspired artists, too. And the folks at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, who produced two posters of the Broncos quarterback that borrowed the imagery and words used by artist Shepard Fairey in his now-iconic depiction of Barack Obama. Do you still hope…
The RiNo neighborhood’s Ice Cube Gallery has emerged as a leader in presenting installation art — in part, I’m sure, because of the incredible soaring spaces in the converted dry-ice factory, something that encourages artists to think big. The facilities at Ice Cube are more like a museum than a…
Director Stephen Daldry has never met a Big Theme he didn’t like: After 2002’s The Hours, a lugubrious women’s-problem picture touching on AIDS and assisted suicide, he went to Auschwitz with 2008’s The Reader. Daldry’s logical next stop is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which, based on the sophomore novel…
There’s a point in Haywire when the film’s protagonist, ex-Marine Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), gone rogue from her job as hired muscle for a private government subcontractor, takes a fall while scaling down a drainpipe and hits the ground with a crunch that knocks the wind out of you. It’s…
You couldn’t find a more fitting interpreter for Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant Man than the Physically Handicapped Actors and Musical Artists League. The play tells the story of Joseph (or John, as he came to be called) Merrick, a man born with hideous deformities: spongy masses of flesh, protuberances…
Update, 2:53 p.m., January 16: We’ve picked a winner! Check your e-mail to see if you’ve won. Thanks for playing along.Of course you watched the Broncos beat the Steelers on Sunday. And if you watched the CBS broadcast of the game, you saw footage of Loveland Ski Area on Saturday…
In addition to being a pretty cool clip, we’re certain this new edit from Boulder’s Null Skateboards must be the first use of a Mama Cass track in a skateboard video. Local skaters Josh Steele, Max Garson, Bernie Keith, Jack Spanbauer, Chad Seidel, Derek Yale and Monico Candelaria each sing…
As a feminist, I believe no woman should have to defend her journeys into girl culture. As a realist, I offer the following defense as to why I took my friend Katie’s free ticket offer and went with her and two friends to Bring It On: The Musical on Saturday…
