This year’s Denver Comic Con was too good to be true: Drawing more than 27,000 comix gawkers to the Colorado Convention Center over three days in June, the inaugural expo exceeded all expectations, proving once again that Denver is one lovably geeky city. We can dress up like Wonder Woman…
Athena Project’s Plays in Progress series is now in full swing, and while the plays are only getting a workshop treatment, one of them will win a full production at next spring’s Athena Project Festival — and that means it will need a costume designer. Cue the festival’s newest opportunity:…
With the advent of tintype photography, during the Civil War, the chance to capture family memories was made more accessible to the middle classes. However, getting kids and babies to sit still for the long shutter speed was evidently a problem, as collectors of tintype photographs figured out when they…
Reed Weimer has been integral to the Navajo Street Arts District since its unofficial birth in the early ’80s. He and his wife, Chandler Romeo, have worked side-by-side as both artists and landlords in this now-thriving art scene. Weimer — whose paintings and prints hang in the Denver Art Museum,…
After you do your artistic duty for the Denver Art Museum’s Open for Design project, consider entering the second annual Inventor Art Competition — a graphic precursor for the 2012 DaVinci Inventor Showcase. “We think the convergence of Denver’s new Patent Office and the area’s growing culture of innovation will…
The delivery date for submissions in the Denver Art Museum’s Open for Design community challenge is closing in. Have you been dragging your feet because you just don’t know how to come up with a solution that fits the problem within the framework of the challenge? The DAM isn’t about…
Tattoo-Haiku wants to make its mark on Denver. Joseph Carman, founder of the 555 Collective, which promotes the arts and also raises money for trauma victims, is advertising a haiku contest on fliers posted around town. To enter, you must pay a $5 submission fee — which Carman plans to…
Sitting beside me at the Henrys last night was the woman who makes it all happen: Gloria Shanstrom, general manager of the Colorado Theatre Guild. It is Shanstrom who makes this glittering event — this huge coming together of elegantly dressed, excitedly-gesticulating actors, directors, tech people and their audiences –…
There’s a really unusual show at Pirate right now that combines neo-traditional paintings of the figure with animated projections based on them. The Future Is Coming is a collaborative effort by painter Terry Campbell and photographer Matt Slaby. The front space contains half a dozen monumental paintings by Campbell. In…
The Dark Knight Rises is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and more. The movie premieres at 12:01 a.m. Friday, and on Thursday night fans will have several ways to go to bat for Batman…
After hearing Bon Jovi exclaim in “Dead or Alive” that he had “seen a million faces, and rocked them all,” photographer Peggy Dyer was inspired. And ever since, she’s been working on her own project: to photograph one million faces. She’s now nearing the 8,000 mark, and the latest volume…
The city’s announcement that Michael Chavez — who’s made his name with strong, contemporary work as a curator and exhibition designer at the Foothills Art Center and the Arvada Center — has been named the new public art administrator for Denver Arts & Venues seems like sweet salvation after he…
In celebration of “Fan Friday”, two street artists are recreating the first Rockies cartoon ever created by former Rocky Mountain News cartoonist Drew Litton on the sidewalk outside Coors Field…
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…
