Walt Pourier is the visionary behind the “ONE Gathering — Skate for Life” event, which will ramp up Saturday at the Denver Skatepark. Drawing hundreds of young Native Americans from across Colorado and beyond, the Gathering will expose them to positive, community-building activities that celebrate heritage while building hope for…
Mixed-media artist Rob Mack lives in the mountains, where nature seems just a little bit closer, and visits by foxes and deer and wild animals of all kinds aren’t that unusual. For Mack, the wildlife with which he shares physical space represents a mystical bond, a theme that repeats throughout…
“Hunter [Thompson] was always asking me and other people to read his work aloud,” remembers Matt Moseley, friend and fellow freedom fighter with Thompson in the controversial Lisl Auman case. “He wrote his work to be read aloud. When he was working on a new piece he’d say, ‘Read a…
The great thing about liking artists who aren’t dead is the opportunity to meet them in person and ask, “What does it all mean?” Ice Cube Gallery is giving you that chance starting today, for the closing weekend of Absence, by Jane McMahan, and Wading In, by Regina V. Benson…
“Ice Cube Gallery sounds like an attractive escape from 100-plus-degree temperatures,” writes Michael Paglia in his review of Regina V. Benson: Wading In and Jane McMahan: Absence (through July 14), two shows that feature natural imagery as key components, in this week’s Westword. Meanwhile, the Golden Triangle’s Walker Fine Art,…
Editor’s note: Cruiser bikes have become a fixture in Denver, especially on Wednesday nights when weekly Cruiser Rides take over the streets. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t one on every corner. But the culture that comes with cruisers can be polarizing, and Westword contributors…
The Donald Sutherland collection archived at the Auraria Library Special Collections Department reflects a particular area of interest for the late University of Colorado Boulder professor: avant-garde art and experimental artists, many of whom he corresponded with. (He also wrote to authors; we recently wrote of the signed Thomas Hornsby…
Free public movies seem to be a dime a dozen this summer — although most of the feature films are those favorite family reruns. But the four-week Film Fiesta series, sponsored by Arts & Venues at Su Teatro in Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe, takes a more serious turn…
From July 13 through July 15, the Colorado Black Arts Festival will fill City Park with vendors, performers and artists all celebrating African culture. “Our theme this year is ‘Art Reflects Nature,'” says spokeswoman Jessica Springs. “We want the community to see how art and nature go together and how…
I don’t need to tell you that Colorado’s weather has been a scorcher and that, less metaphorically, parts of the state itself have been scorched, including my sister’s neighborhood, Mountain Shadows. Her house was spared, luckily, but this once-handsome area of Colorado Springs will never be the same. The Waldo…
The Cherry Creek Arts Festival, a signature summer event celebrating visual, culinary and performance arts, took place July 6 – 8 in Denver’s Cherry Creek North Shopping District. The free festival, which featured exhibits of 230 artists, gave patrons an opportunity to meet and talk with international visual artists, sample…
The Colorado Tomato Battle at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park Saturday was a mash-up of childhood frivolity and big-kid fun. Though the structure was more formal than the old Tomato Wars between Coloradans and Texans at Twin Lakes, the result was the same: utter chaos and tomato soup. See Also: -Slideshow:…
“An artist is an artist, no matter what form the canvas takes,” a pretentious man once said. It’s one of those statements that may sound pompous (and is), but is no less true. Over the past fifty years there are endless examples of musicians establishing successful careers on the stage,…
Some of us hate Bridesmaids, if only for the fact that it likely was one of the reasons Kristen Wiig decided to leave SNL. Oscar nominations will do that to an actor/writer. However! We found a pair of tickets to see the movie at Film on the Rocks on Tuesday…
The Fourth of July means many things to different people, but to one protester we encountered yesterday on the 16th Street Mall, it was all about freedom of speech. Though she uttered not one word, her visual stance — and a blunt hand-written sign — said it all…
Looking at Jimmy Descant’s new rocket ship, “VR Green Gamma Daedalus,” is like looking at a mint-condition classic muscle car: The glimmer of the painted flake green body of the 1952 Kenmore canister vacuum cleaner, which makes up the body of the rocket, gleams in the chrome of the shined-up…
Before artist Christian Usera can paint, he has to get his mind straight — usually he goes into a meditative state before he starts. The end result combines a mixture of mediums (watercolor, tempera, spray paints, acrylic, to name a few) into an emotional, dreamy composition. He knows his creative…
Last year we reported that Denver author Gregory Hill, a library book-buyer and part-time musician, was a finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award; the winners, as determined by public voting, would get a Penguin Group publishing contract and a sweet $15,000 advance. Cut to the chase: Hill, one of…
Summer is the time for group shows, especially those with a touch of whimsy — which is something that perfectly describes Dimensional Shifts, at the William Havu Gallery. For this thematically organized exhibit, gallery director Bill Havu selected artists who play with three-dimensional space, either by foreshortening it, elongating it…
Retired Marine sergeant Christian Ellis has turned his tour of duty in Iraq and the aftermath of returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder into an opera titled Fallujah. This is the first opera based on the war, and offers startling, musical insight into the mind of a vet struggling with…
Take a look at these cats: These are the Amazing Acro-Cats, which have skills that make even the cutest of house cats look like Garfield’s fatter, more sarcastic cousins. The second I saw this photo, I wondered (and then doubted) whether my cat has similar chops — whether she’s secretly…
Dozens of art admirers gathered at the Delgany bridge by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver Friday night to view “Virga: The Sound Performance,” a work that featured sound designed to complement Virga, the art piece on the bridge…
