Denver Life

Artist Teresa Castaneda’s motor-mouth mind is always looking for something to do, and more often than not, the result is good for the community.

May is here, and along with Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day, there are more than a few reasons to dress up this month. Here are the ten best fashion events.

Author, pop-culturist, freelance journalist, editor-in-chief of the quarterly Denver lit zine Suspect Press and former Westword contributor, Josiah Hesse is a habitué of the city’s underground whose first novel, Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake (a Suspect Press imprint), hit the shelves two years ago.

Johnny Morehouse is an analog kind of guy.

Stuart Sanks, known professionally as Shirley Delta Blow, is a schoolteacher by day and a drag queen by night, but as far as his performance style goes, he does a lot more than strut around in women’s clothing.

A traveler whose monumental inflatable sculptures have taken her around the world, Nicole Banowetz blows up microscopic rotifers and radiolaria into larger-than-life airborne monsters and forms, sharing them through residencies as close to home as the Children’s Museum of Denver and as far away as Ustka, Poland.

Models are always on the go, and dancers are always on the move. Denver-based model Jewels Ramer is both, so she is always ready for an audience. We spotted Ramer at Denver Fashion Weekend, and caught up with her to learn about her inspiration, her favorite ways to accessorize an outfit, and her fashion philosophy.

Performance artist and RedLine resident Esther Hernandez calls her work a “living collage” or “social sculpture,” but these descriptions only address the performance experience in real-time, an interaction between artist and audience.

Painter Peter Illig’s retro sensibility and deep affinity for all things mid-century modern drive his work, which combines realistically rendered found snapshots brimming with emotional life and an unsettled state of near-nostalgia for the lost values of a vanished era.

We spotted University of Denver student Allie Phocas at 303 Magazine’s Denver Fashion Weekend, channeling 1990s film icon Cher Horowitz. Phocas was born in Philadelphia and spent time in New York, but grew up in Jackson, Wyoming; she’ll apply for medical school in June and currently volunteers at Planned Parenthood. We stopped to chat with Phocas about what inspires her look, where she shops and what she thought of the show.

Extra Vitamins is Julia Belamarich and Kyle Warfield, life partners whose interest in zine-making and playful graphic design morphed into a wearable-art business brimming with a combined sense of style and activism.

The cure to a hangover is simple: It’s attached to an IV bag and comes with a $99 price tag. Hydrate IV Bar opened its doors in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood last April; it was the metro area’s first full-service, walk-in boutique IV therapy clinic. Now owners Blake Whealy and Katie Wafer plan to expand to a second location in Highlands Square.

A longtime member of the Denver art community, Jeffrey Keith is a painter with an astute ability to assimilate free brushstrokes into tightly constructed, color-conscious compositions. A teacher at the University of Denver, he’s curated the Storm Warning, which is the focus of an April 13 symposium.

Some stereotypes deserve to be turned on their heads. On opening night of 303 Magazine’s Denver Fashion Weekend, March 30 at Exdo Event Center, we ran into graphic designer Eve Erdenebat, who proved that a woman can can rock a classic men’s suit just as well, if not better, than a man. We stopped to chat with her about where she shops and where she finds inspiration.

Now that April has officially arrived, spring fashion is busting out all over — at parties, shows, charity events and everything in between. Here are the ten best fashion events in Denver this month, in chronological order.

Performance is in Ayla Sullivan’s blood, along with her black and Vietnamese roots. Denver’s newest Youth Poet Laureate performed with the Minor Disturbance youth poetry slam team at the Brave New Voices national finals and is now a sophomore at the University of Colorado Boulder.

On March 24, the premiere of the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race garnered its biggest ratings ever, and here in Denver, Tracks debuted its own new season of the Ultimate Queen Competition, complete with 21 drag performers vying for thirteen glamorous spots before a packed house. The competition was fierce all around and the stakes were raised for the next battle, which is tonight, Friday, March 31.

Photographer, animal lover, collector, Denver Punk Scene archivist, caregiver and person of the world, Jill Mustoffa favors shots of neon signs and runaway grocery carts from behind the lens and is handy with tools as a home-restoration whiz.

Yogini, massage therapist, and sound healer Devine Willerth is launching aerial yoga classes, also known as AIReal Yoga, through Sukha Healing Arts, a wellness business she’s owned for two years.

Lonnie Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community.

Denver native Christian Filus designs and sells accessories; he describes his style as “evolving, inconsistent, and aggressive.” We spotted Filus and his stylish buddy Toure Armon at Artopia 2017, and stopped to chat with Filus about what inspires his personal style. Westword: Who or what inspires your personal style and…

Partners in life and in their business Extra Vitamins, artists Julia Belamarich and Kyle Warfield met while working at analog-design master Rick Griffith’s Matter Studio, learning the ropes and taking some cues from Griffith’s graphics-cool marketing model.