As regular readers of this column know, I have a special place in my heart for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Sure, it’s far away and in the heart of a town known for its right-wing religious zealots. But there’s so much art history associated with Colorado Springs that…
Michele Mosko grew up in Denver but spent most of her adult life in New York working as an art dealer. A few years ago, she moved back and opened a tiny gallery just steps from the Denver Art Museum’s Martin Plaza, in front of the Hamilton Building. Michele Mosko…
An O. Henry Christmas. Amid the cascade of Christmas Carol remounts, Hallmark Card family shows and limp holiday parodies, this musical arrangement of two O. Henry short stories — “The Last Leaf” and “The Gift of the Magi,” created by Peter Ekstrom — is a refreshing option. “The Gift of…
Gary Culig has been playing the reluctant Macy’s elf, Crumpet, in The SantaLand Diaries at the Bug for the last decade; there are people in this town who have faithfully attended every single year. But Culig is now living in New York and has found it more and more difficult…
Back in the early 1980s, when I was a graduate student in Boston, a prominent professor I knew was accused of sexually harassing a female colleague. This man was a compulsive flirt who couldn’t get within feet of a woman without coming on to her, so I wasn’t altogether surprised…
Two years ago nearly to the day, Will Smith and Italian director Gabriele Muccino released The Pursuit of Happyness, one of the most underrated of recent Hollywood movies, which starred Smith as a single father navigating a hand-to-mouth existence on the streets of San Francisco. Writing at the time, I…
Adam Helms. This solo in the MCA’s Paper Works Gallery is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist…
For so major a movie star — at least, once upon a time — Jim Carrey seems to make a lot of awfully minor films, several of them over and over again. Isn’t Yes Man, in which Carrey’s self-absorbed Debbie Downer greenlights every bad decision in an effort to reinvent…
The King loved Christmas. No, not Wenceslas, Elvis! And Chris Barber (aka the Velvet Elvis) loves Christmas, too — so much, in fact, that every year for the past two years, he’s channeled the King for the annual Blue, Blue Christmas Show. Barber returns to Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret, 1601 Arapahoe…
Cultures all around the world — well, in the northern hemisphere, anyway — have ritually celebrated the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Because once the solstice is over, the planet’s north side begins tilting back toward the sun, bringing longer days and more sunshine. And who doesn’t…
“This year, especially, I think people are looking for ways to cut back but also make meaningful gifts,” says Moondance Botanicals’ Tonja Reichley. And what better way to reach that goal than Moondance’s DIY: Handmade Is Best workshop, taking place today from 1 to 5 p.m. at Moondance Botanicals, 601…
If you’ve ever been to Santa Fe, New Mexico, this time of year, you already know how beautiful thousands of flickering luminarias — candles in paper bags placed throughout the city — can be. And we have a little taste of the experience right here in Denver: For one night…
Anyone who thinks ice is merely frozen water should spend some time with the Rock on Ice team based in Columbus, Ohio. A particular type of ice is so important for carving that last year, team members loaded down a tractor trailer with Columbus-made ice and drove just over 1,400…
In these parts, Christmas on the slopes always has a nice ring: the powder, the icicles, the lights and the nightlife – they’re all part of the total holiday experience that Colorado’s mountain resorts work overtime to help create. But there’s nothing more spectacular than a torchlight parade down a…
Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you have to admit that there’s something lovely about a story of two wanderers seeking shelter and an innkeeper offering up the only space he has left — in his stable, where a woman soon gives birth to a special baby boy. Every year,…
Some of the most inspired, hilarious and touching comics I’ve ever read have been self-published zines drawn by indie comic artists laboring out of love. John Porcellino, the Denver-based creator of King Cat Comics and Stories and godfather to the indie comic movement, has been self-publishing his mostly autobiographical comic…
Muddy Waters on the Platte, better known simply as Muddy’s, first opened its coffeehouse/bookstore/theater in the block of 15th and Platte Streets in the late ’70s. In a time that was intrinsically different from our modern era, whether you looked at it from the left or the right, Muddy’s was…
Three items stand out on the list I was given of reasons to attend design studio MATTER’s annual Holiday Party and Print Sale tonight: Ian Cooke and Astra Moveo will rock you (gently); there will be many gallons of mojitos (possibly up to 25); and, most strikingly, Rick Griffith (founder,…
The PlatteForum formula — teaming a professional artist with at-risk youth to build a unique art show that showcases the work of all — never seems to go wrong. Without losing a beat, PlatteForum’s Judy Anderson finds artists who are not only enormously talented, but who also inspire in rare…
Into the rush of the holiday season, some sorrow must fall: I just got the news that local bead-sprite Joy Barrett is closing her Studio Bead boutique in Highlands Square at the end of the month. “I thought that the shop might be a platform for building something bigger —…
“Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly — the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled around the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told…
I’ll bet you remember the teacher’s pet in your school, the one who always got to lead the line and erase the board at the end of the day, or whatever typical tasks Teacher gave out to his or her favorite. If you still feel bitter and left out from…
