Visual Arts

Lynda Hilburn, a local author and psychotherapist based in the Boulder area, specializes in paranormal tales of romance with titles like Diary of Narcissistic Bloodsucker. Blending genre elements before such literary mash-ups were in vogue, Hilburn believes that escaping into literature is a vital coping mechanism. This week, Westword met up with Hilburn to discuss her love of disappearing into paranormal narratives, vampires and the erotic fiction business.

When former director Lewis Sharp piloted the effort to expand the Denver Art Museum, the goal was to mount more temporary exhibits. This led to the construction of the daring Daniel Libeskind-designed Hamilton Building, which joined the landmark Gio Ponti tower in 2006. Two years later, Christoph Heinrich was hired…

Denver PrideFest 2013 is this weekend, and there will be music, food, drink, live entertainment and a big-ass parade on Sunday morning. the people-watching opportunities alone are worth the trip downtown and the parking hassles. But every PrideFest has its perils and pitfalls, and in order not to be named…

ShaNae Ross doesn’t tell dirty jokes. She doesn’t get political, unless you count poking fun at racial differences as she does in a bit where she asks the audience to guess an imaginary person’s race based on their name. She also doesn’t approach religion, despite having a religious background. Ross…

Local filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has a passion for pop culture. His work has tackled pop cultural phenomena as big as Star Wars and as small as the strange case of the octopus that correctly predicted Germany’s World Cup games a few years back. He’s also hard at work on…

Pop-art icon Andy Warhol famously came to Fort Collins in 1981 when collectors John and Kimiko Powers mounted an exhibition of his work at Colorado State University. It was a memorable visit for many, and was even celebrated all over again a couple of years ago with an exhibit at…

Over 15 percent of inmates in the U.S. prison system report having been homeless at some point in the year before their incarceration. This statistic from a 2008 Yale study is cited by Cycles of Street to Prison / Prison to Street, an original collaboration between the LIDA Project and…

The wheels are always turning in Denver, which just won the REI Cycling Town Showdown as the country’s bike-friendliest city. Denver not only has great places to ride your bike, it also has great places to ride your bike to. Here are ten of our favorites for this summer. See…

Nick Cave moves elegantly, like a dancer or maybe a panther; when he’s in a room filled with his work, you can feel the reciprocal magic of a man communing with his own creations. Famous for his Soundsuits — fanciful sound-making costumes for dancers, on a variety of themes –…

Denver Comic Con took over the streets of Denver near the Colorado Convention Center last weekend during three days of celebrities, events, panels and displays. We’re still reeling from it all — and you might be too. While you plan the early stages of next year’s costume, check out our…

On June 6, 1933, a group of people in Camden, New Jersey each paid 25 cents to park their cars in front of a movie screen to watch the British comedy Wives Beware. Eight years later, the tradition of drive-in ovies is still alive, if not exactly thriving. Seven functioning…

Just like they play sports, most people play video games for fun. But also just like they play sports, some people play video games competitively, both professionally and in organized amateur leagues. Yes, really. All over the world, big-money tournaments take place constantly, offering the top gamers a chance to…

There are big changes afoot at the Edge co-op, as several members have cycled out, leaving room for new ones. To inaugurate this latest era, Edge has mounted a good-looking group show that reveals some interesting new players. Conceptually Scattered: New Member Show — which is the neatest one-name-fits-all exhibition…

Denver Comic Con was filled with characters, each embracing their own theme and costume. One of the more creative characters we spotted was teacher Rebecca Haines, a Denver native, dressed up as Hawkeye. Keep reading to find out how she made her costume, which comic-book title inspired it, and what…

Mestre Acordeon brought capoeria, an Afro-Brazilion form of martial arts, to America from Brazil decades ago. Starting in September, three days after his seventieth birthday, he’ll undertake a journey to spread capoeria around the world, on a year-long, 14,000-mile bike ride from Berkeley, California to Bahia, Brazil that’s been dubbed…

Brad Wilson had exactly one week to finish his custom-design guitar for a commissioned birthday present and, at that moment, he was thinking about starting over. The guitar still needed a camouflage paint job, a Colorado design for the pick guard, a painted neck and all the wiring — basically,…

Sarah Kate Baie has seen Mixed Taste — the recurring lecture series kicking off tomorrow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver — grow exponentially over the last nine years, from its early days at Belmar to its current, summer-season mainstay status at the MCA. Programming curator Baie and her…

Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones could use some levity right now: The latest episode, “The Rains of Castamere,” was rough in the way that a bunch of beloved characters were completely and utterly slaughtered in such a shockingly revolting manner that fans who haven’t read the books are still…

For Westword’s first ever Comics issue, on stands now, we invited artists across the city to submit comics channeling Denver in some way — and the results tackled a diverse range of what we love (and laugh about) in our town. Although only eight could fit in the print issue,…

Civic Center Park played home to the 2013 People’s Fair over the weekend for two days of food, entertainment and art. Keep reading for a few highlights from photographer Kyle Huninghake, and visit our People’s Fair slide show for more photos. See also: – Fifty best costumes of Comic Con…

Best known for his hit Comedy Central show Insomniac, Dave Attell is an all-around beloved character in standup comedy. While often edgy and at times arrogantly confrontational, his razor-sharp wit gives him an everyman-at-the-bar diplomacy. During nearly three decades in the business, Attell has seen the ebb and flow of…

When the small bump appeared on artist Julia Watkins’s hand, she dismissed it as a pimple. But after a couple of itchy weeks, her hand swelled, sending her to the emergency room — where she discovered the bump was a symptom of Methicillin-Resistant Staph Aureus, which could result in amputation…