The Denver Broncos spent $30 million last spring to sign defensive end DeMarcus Ware, one of the best defensive players in the NFL, as a way to send a message to the rest of the league and to help the team get back to the Super Bowl in 2015. Denver…
Desert Light William Havu Gallery 1040 Cherokee Street New Mexico’s modern art history is intertwined with Colorado’s, if only because so many artists from each state show their work in the other — and it’s been this way for decades. A case in point is Sam Scott: Desert Light, a…
With the bad weather and the holidays, progress on the tiny house has ground to a halt. The cold has me thinking about this past summer, when the garage door to the studio was open to the neighborhood and we were working on the tiny house constantly. Passersby would stop…
We’ve written before about photographer Suzanne Heintz and her too-perfect mannequin family, husband Chauncey and daughter Mary Margaret, who for a decade-and-a-half have been the subjects of an ongoing project called Life Once Removed. Somehow, Heintz’s ideal family has a way of always falling to pieces, as it did last…
This week’s cover story details the fantastic rise of Craftsy, Denver’s hottest (and most unexpected) start-up, which is making millions delivering online quilting and knitting courses to hobbyists all over the planet. Craftsy is also digitizing the burgeoning maker movement — turning quilting teachers into online celebrities, cake-decorating aficionados into…
Get ready, 2015, here we come: Start your new year of First Fridays with a look back at the career of a local cultural hero, a look forward at work by student artists, and an artistic view of the human brain. And more! See also: Gallery Sketches: Four Shows to…
When I first revealed my plan to build a tiny house and take off across the country, at an artist’s talk at Mai Wyn Fine Art for my show Nest/Shedin March, I was terrified. I hadn’t planned to talk about the project in public, but it was a spontaneous response…
With scores of galleries, art centers, museums, artist-cooperatives and even ad hoc spaces around town, you’d have to make exhibit viewing a full time job in order to see everything — and even then, it might be impossible. But there were some shows from 2014 that no one should have…
The Great Recession has lifted in Denver as developers appear to be building something on every square inch of the city. And what with legalized pot, the town’s hipness quotient is off the charts, attracting seemingly half the twenty- and thirty-somethings in the country who are dutifully moving into all…
Next stop, New Year’s Eve. That means it’s time to reflect back, think about the future, and then decide how to best comport yourself in the coming year. Many galleries around town are riffing on that theme for their first shows of the year — so why not start your…
All I want for Christmas is…what, exactly? The tiny house done, that’s the big thing. Which, given my need to earn a living and function in the world, is happening much more slowly — and expensively — than my initial unrealistic expectations had predicted. Isn’t that always the way? When…
As 2014 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to reflect on what knocked our socks off this year in the Colorado arts world. Got some favorites of your own? Tell us about it in the comments below. See also: Fifteen arts flashbacks from 2013…
It’s never too late to find everything from original art to lovingly handmade confections and cheeses, so don’t lose hope if you haven’t finished your shopping. Read on for a list of the best places to do it in style. See also: The Night Fair Before Christmas…
To know the story of Colfax is to truly understand the personality of the Denver metro area. The gravel-and-tar artery that once ushered visitors in from the open road now hosts a variety of people and cultures along America’s longest main street. Westword is taking a look at Route 40’s…
Brilliant Denver Art Museum 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway The Denver Art Museum has come up with the perfect winter show: Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century, which is crammed to the rafters with “ice” in the form of more diamonds than I could possibly count. Up front, I’m going…
“If you’ve been around northwest Denver, you know: The people who come in here are so much nicer than the average person.” Cal Eichinger, owner of Elitch Lanes, is already lamenting the loss of his customers. On May 17, after more than sixty years in the Berkeley neighborhood, Elitch Lanes…
After a big problem when we tried to level the tiny house, I returned the broken jacks to Harbor Freight. (Thank you to the kind manager and clerk who took them back, even though they were past the ninety-day deadline — when something looks that dangerously broken, I suppose you…
Sitting in the cozy mastering room tucked into the back of his RiNo office space, Jeff Merkel can’t help but smirk. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in here,” he says, looking around at the various speakers on the wall. In fact, it’s been a long time since Merkel…
Denver artist and maker Matt Scobey is one of those people who quietly do what they do and don’t make a big deal out of it. He’s also a community-builder who likes to share ideas and take on projects that morph and change without finite boundaries. When Scobey isn’t at…
When Ice Cube Gallery director Sarah Rockett had some extra space at Ingrained, the co-op’s December group show, she decided that it should take a village to fill it. Inspired by her longing to build a community in Denver as tight as the one she’d left behind in New Orleans,…
December brings group shows, big and small, to Denver galleries — as well as one epic, plein air painting journey. Boughs of holly aren’t the only thing decking the halls around town. Despite the holiday hustle, there’s plenty of art to see this weekend — here are a few places…
Geeks love to toke, too. That was the premise behind Chromic Con, the only-in-Colorado gathering that brought together stoners, fans and geeky guests in Colorado Springs and Denver on November 22 and 23. Billed as the world’s first-ever weed-friendly comic and fantasy convention, the event included a cosplay contest, exhibits…
