“The mindset of punk rockers, artists, hackers — it all boils down to the same thing: Critical thinking,” says Concoctory founder Mar Williams. Her hackerspace recently fused with Cabal Enterprises, a nine-person art cooperative supplying South Broadway with hyper-local art, creativity, and DIY, which is more than a mere hobby…
Artists Ray Tomasso and Regina Benson have been presenting tandem solo shows at Ice Cube for the last few years. This bond didn’t develop because the two do similar work, but because they have certain affinities. First, there are the shared themes — the natural forces in Colorado. Second, each…
Taste of Iceland brought yarn-storming fanatic Linda Björk Eiríksdóttir all the way from trendy Reykjavík to Denver, to help local knitters and other fiber-graffitists beautify the trees in Civic Center Park with knitted blocks and squares and toadstools, all on a lovely Saturday afternoon. Photographer Danielle Lirette snapped these images…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. “I’m obviously inspired by film,” says freelance artist Kaitlin Ziesmer, who paints…
This weekend, visit with an artist-in-residence as he paints, check out what’s new at the Denver Art Museum, begin a three-show odyssey with a top-notch Colorado sculptor or just have some fun with a local working collective. Keep reading for the details. See also: Taste of Iceland: Yarn Storming…
The Biennial of the Americas returns to Denver on July 14, 2015 — months away, but still NOW! That’s the theme for this third Biennial, which will feature festivals, exhibitions, events and dialogue over three themed days — Generation NOW, Business NOW, and Community NOW — culminating with Americas NOW!,…
Yarnbombing or yarn storming, as it’s called in places like the UK and Iceland, is an international revolution; here in Denver, the Ladies Fancywork Society’s work has brightened random street corners and local art museums alike. Now, Icelandic yarn stormer Linda Björk Eiríksdóttir, aka BarbaKnit, has come from Reykjavík to…
Pirate member Christine Buchsbaum invited her friend and fellow artist, Michael Bhichitkul, to help her curate Where You Begin, a group show in which artists employ ordinary subjects in unusual or extraordinary ways. Both Buchsbaum and Bhichitkul included examples of their own works, and both are genuine standouts. Buchsbaum’s is…
This week, Shakespeare goes to the ballet and the classic tales of Edgar Allen Poe go for a hike in Boulder, while Aurora’s Vintage Theatre brings back a poignant musical about married life. Continue reading for all the details. See also: Running Amok: The Denver Center Theatre Company presents Lord…
As Optimystic Arts, artist Gemma Bayly works with many mediums. But when it comes to her intricate, hand-drawn mandalas, she recites a prayer with each line she creates. “Any time I approach a piece, it’s always with the intention of bringing a healing light that can rejuvenate and bring peace…
A generation ago, in the latter third of the twentieth century, post-modernist deconstructionists were finished with abstraction. It was dead, they said, along with painting itself. But in the intervening decades, two things happened. First, this deconstructionist idea became entrenched in academia, and second, it was proven to be wrong…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. Alex Graham is part of a rare breed: She’s a fourth-generation Coloradan…
Walking on hot coals? Swallowing fire? Sticking a pair of scissors down your throat? It’s all in a day’s work for a side show attraction. Last Friday night, the daring circus freaks of the Oh No Variety Show and the Faded Freakshow went mano a mano in a contest of…
Elizoebeth Jensen’s first move to a creative life was leaving California for Colorado in 2005. Seven years later, she gave up her California consulting job and became a full-time designer and mother. Jensen is now the creative mind and designer responsible for beautiful, delicate pieces of jewelry. She recently took…
You’ll find a wide spectrum of new art big and very small this weekend, on gallery walls and as moving pictures on downtown streets. Here’s a sampling of what you can see… See also: By the Letter: Joel Swanson at David B. Smith Gallery…
Karl Christian Krumpholz is a historian of the most seamy, lurid thoroughfare in Denver: Colfax Avenue. His medium is his webcomic, 30 Miles of Crazy! where he trawls the street for stories of drunkenness, depravity, and insanity. Now he’s rolled the archives of the comic into one handy paperback: the…
The Boulder International Fringe Festival is one of many fringe fests around the world where cultural gatekeepers have opened the dam and flooded audiences with playwrights, filmmakers, dancers, artists and curators showing off their works without censorship. Nobody gets turned away. Anything goes. The joy and trouble for audiences is…
The landscape has long fascinated artists, particularly in the American West, with those interested in the form today falling into two broad categories. There are artists who re-create the high points of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century realism and impressionism. And there are those who try to introduce new ways of dealing…
George Saunders is one of America’s most celebrated short story writers. Winner of the Folio and Pulitzer prizes and been granted. MacArtuthur fellowship. Since 1996, he’s professor at Syracuse, itself an incubator for the best authors of his generation. Saunders returns to town this week to the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, both to participate in a big reading and signing event for fans, and also to conduct a narrower and more focused writers’ studio. However, that group is already full. Westword caught up with Saunders for a phone interview before his trip, to discuss finding out which literature is bullshit, writing stories based on dream images, and how creatively, it’s always best to steer towards the rapids.
Back in August, I wrote a love letter to Denver, the city I used to know. Though my intention was to remember the good things about my city that are gone now, it was also, perhaps, a thinly veiled criticism of the way progress is going in Denver. Recently, there…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. James André says he’s one of the twelve or thirteen people in…
When the Chocolate Skateboards team rolls into town this weekend on its twentieth anniversary tour, local artist Evan Hecox will be front and center at the celebration. His artwork for the iconic brand will anchor a one-night-only art show at Super Ordinary that features his skateboard graphics, along with photographs…
