Cattle Call

It’s that time of year again — time to dust off your best shit-kickers and pomade your hair, because the National Western Stock Show is returning to our beloved cowtown and kicking it off with the traditional National Western Stock Show Parade. As always, the parade will include floats, horseback…

Huck Gee’s Toy Story

The only problem with artist Huck Gee’s plastic toys, says Plastic Chapel owner Dea Webb, is that she can’t keep them in stock. Luckily for Gee fans, the artist will be in town today to sign and sell his new book, The Art of Huck Gee. Gee’s art, Webb explains,…

Platteforum Sews It Up

Abigail Kokai captures moments not with a paper and pen, but with a needle and thread. The artist has spent her seven-week residency at PlatteForum observing what she calls the everyday experience of the downtown area — from riding the 16th Street Mall shuttle to exploring the Denver Art Museum…

Awkward Moments

In 1997, Romy and Michele conquered the dreaded high-school reunion career inquiry with a little lie about having invented Post-Its. Tonight and tomorrow, the Denver FilmCenter’s Watching Hour will bring it all back home by showing Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (along with a pre-party) to highlight every graceless…

Take the Bull by the Horns

It’s time for the 2011 National Western Stock Show to pit cowboys against other cowboys and line them all up against bulls in an international glory fight for the ages. The Super Saturday Colorado Rodeo Champions vs. The World will feature local bull-riders competing against each other in semi-finals, then…

Old Modern

Between 1908 and 1952, Kansas painter Birger Sandzén spent nearly every summer here and thus became one of the most important artists to have ever worked in Colorado. In the 1920s, Sandzén taught at the Broadmoor Academy, the predecessor to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Appropriately, the CSFAC is…

I’m Your Puppet

Denver’s Vintage Theatre took on a major project when its members decided to take on Avenue Q: The Tony Triple Crown-winning adult musical featuring Muppet-like puppets, made from scratch with big, flappin’ dirty mouths, isn’t cheap to to stage, nor is it your everyday song-and-dance. The actors actually wield the…

1,800 Pounds of Bull

A $50,000 prize pot certainly ain’t no spittoon, and who takes that steak money home depends on which cowboy can put up with the most bull for the longest amount of time. Beginning tonight at 7 p.m., the 2011 National Western Stock Show will present the PBR Bull Riding event,…

Circus Circus

It’s a long way from the Ringling big top to the Coney Island Circus Side Show, but the latter is possibly the more historically correct — or, at the very least, the most extreme: Its strong men truly freak us out with their feats, and its pretty boys are carnival…

In the Spirit

Breckenridge Ski Resort has been celebrating its fiftieth-anniversary season this year, and the town’s annual Ullr Fest — which pays tribute to the Norse god Ullr, frequently depicted in ancient artwork as a skier — dates back almost as far. “Ullr Fest is always one of the highlights of the…

Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy

It’s that time of year again in the Mile High City, when families spend quality time together watching steer roping or watching the cows make eyes at each other at the National Western Stock Show. And for the third year running, burlesque queen Cora Vette (aka Reyna Von Vett) is…

Writing on the Wall

Wes Jessup, the new director at the Longmont Museum, comes to Colorado by way of the Pasadena Museum of California Art; now, he’s also bringing us a piece of sunny California, with the opening of a new exhibit from his former workplace. Street Cred: Graffiti Art from Concrete to Canvas…

Hand-Painted China

Nothing has come on stronger in the late 20th and early 21st centuries than Chinese artwork, and, amazingly, Denver has been a center for its new appreciation. Ron Otsuka, Asian art curator for the Denver Art Museum, is one of many reasons why. Though his stock and trade is historical…

Shape Up In The New Year

It’s New Year’s resolution call-to-action time, and the Englewood Recreation Center and Swedish Medical Center have your back. Today kicks off their Fitness Challenge, a free, three-month long commitment to get interested parties moving. From 8 a.m. to noon today, participants can sign up to get a free scan card…

Get swept up with broomball at the Skyline Park ice rink

Bust out the helmets and elbow pads: It’s time to throw down. Broomball is coming to the Southwest Ice Rink at Skyline Park this month. Whether you want to ice out the competition or just get swept away by Canadian culture, this could be the game for you. Broomball is…

Who’s who in the Santa Fe Art District? Place your votes now

As First Friday regulars can attest, when the Art District on Santa Fe throws a shindig, it goes all out. That’s especially true in the case of the annual Santa Fe Art District Best Of exhibition, which awards artists who show in the district two ways: first, with awards given…

Deconstruct the films of Lars von Trier at the Thin Man

Currently in the spotlight for his latest film, Melancholia — in which life goes on in a world under the threat of total destruction — Danish director Lars von Trier peppers his movies with avant-garde visuals, misogyny, complex stories and stylized stagings. And since the release of Element of Crime…

Shirt happens…and Viviane Le Courtois wants yours

Vivianne Le Courtois, a Westword MasterMind, uses unusual items to make art: artichokes, gym shoes, junk mail, junk food, potato peels…and now, with any luck, your old T-shirts. For an installation that will debut at Le Courtois’s solo show at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art on February 23, the…

Fairview High School arts programs win Glee Give A Note grant

Even the menacing Sue Sylvester can’t stop the rising art department of Fairview High School in Boulder. The 900 students in the department — including all students in choirs, drama classes, bands and orchestras — collaborated on an entree for Glee Give a Note, a contest sponsored by Fox, Ryan…