Best Body Painter, Chalk Artist and Haunted House Actor 2012 | Mythica von Griffyn | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Body Painter, Chalk Artist and Haunted House Actor

Mythica von Griffyn

That Mythica von Griffyn is a colorful character goes without saying once you've met her. That's partly because she holds down some of the rarest jobs on earth: She turns models into exotic birds, sidewalks into masterpieces and actors into the walking dead. And sometimes she simply is the walking dead, as a character herself in haunted houses. As a mistress of the paintbrush, Mythica seems to understand how the images she paints will mesh with the body's nooks and curves before she starts work — but even she admits it doesn't come without many hours of practice. As an award-winning chalk artist and especially a colorist, she shapes oversized patchworks of pure hue into recognizable images. It all fits in with her haunted-house career, part of her life since she was fourteen and took the job on a lark, eventually developing an obvious talent for making monsters as a makeup artist. Not your everyday occupation? Leave it to the professional.

Best Boylesque Night

Cora Vette's Hot Rods

Leave it to local burlesque madame and emcee Cora Vette to start a nationwide revolution in boylesque. She's been traveling the country over the past year to perform at boylesque shows, talking about why men putting on fabulous costumes and then taking them off is awesome and generally advocating for the concept. And Denver has definitely benefited from her efforts with the monthly revue, now at Bender's. Featuring Cisco Yocisco, Phoenix Rising, Nite Fury, JoJo Justin Tyme, token lady Ophelia P. Cocque and assorted guests, the show is wild-and-crazy eye candy of the (mostly) male persuasion. You'll see everything from a clothes-shedding Zorro to sexy football players to really sexy cowboys to strip-poker numbers. The next one takes place on Thursday, April 19; if you caught this crew at Artopia this past February, you got a peek at what to expect. If not, hold on to your jockstrap!

Best Breakout Hip-Hop Artist

Myke Charles

Myke Charles made a name for himself as the MC in his a cappella group Urban Method on NBC's Sing Off. Before that, though, he was known as Purpose, the super-charming fresh-faced kid with the golden rhymes from Fresh Breath Committee. More than just one of a posse, though, Charles has honed all of his skills and emerged as a breakout star in his own right. His writing is deep and dramatic, and his rapping execution is poised and confident. A singer as well as a rapper, Myke Charles is most definitely on the verge of national notoriety.

Best Burlesque Night

Black Box Burlesque

They might be split personalities, but neither Reyna Von Vett nor her on-stage alter ego, Cora Vette, is a plain Jane. One of the strongest — and sassiest — personalities in Denver burlesque, Vette's creatively coy sex appeal lends itself to rowdy and raunchy rotating themes — planned by Von Vett and other organizers of Black Box Burlesque, and scheduled the third Friday of each month. In March, the leaders and their coed troupe channeled '80s nostalgia for "My Teen Angst Bullsh*t," taking on both teen-dream John Hughes hits and the easy target that is Risky Business. At Bar Standard, Black Box's current home in a long roster of Denver sites, fans can order bottle service and get their drink on as the costumes come off.

Readers' Choice: Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret

Best Cable TV Show About Coloradans

Making Monsters

Ed and Marsha Edmunds like to make people jump. Their animatronic creations, which they build for haunted houses and other clients around the country, range from an almost-too-lifelike electric chair to set pieces for Alice Cooper to aliens for the UFO Museum in Roswell. And the Travel Channel took notice, making the Edmundses' Greeley-based company, Distortions Unlimited, the subject of the show Making Monsters, which delved into the couple's process of making those creepy crawlers come to life...so they can scare anyone who comes in contact with them to death.

Best Cameos on a Recording

FaceManFeeding Time

You know the one about the guy with the smoking-hot girlfriend, the one who, when folks see the two of them together, they're all like, "How the hell did you land her?" And you know his answer? "I asked." While the members of FaceMan could never be accused of playing out of their league like that, they used much the same tactic to enlist both the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band, along with local luminaries, to join them in the studio when they were recording their new record.

Best Cheap Entertainment

Off-Center @ the Jones

Hidden away on the dark northwest side of the Denver Performing Arts Complex is the little Jones Theatre (known as the Source when the facility was originally built), which has always seemed like an afterthought with its shadowy, back-door locale. But what goes on here might be one of the best deals in town: clever performance- and improv-based events that usually cost between $10 and $20 and often include a reception as well as entertainment, all under the umbrella of Off-Center @ the Jones. Curated by Denver Center Theatre Company projection designer Charlie Miller and DCTC artistic associate Emily Tarquin, the series includes Cult Following, a monthly "live movie" improv party with free popcorn, the current Square of Ice battle-of-the-bands Johnny Cash spoof, and a changing palette of little plays and performances like DATE*, coming up in April, which is based on real stories about Internet dating. Quirky, funny and cutting-edge, Off-Center definitely lives up to its name.

Best Clothes Call

Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective

The hoopla for this exhibition began long before it opened in late March at the Denver Art Museum, and with good reason: Not only is Denver the only stop that this blockbuster from the Foundation Pierre Bergé — Yves Saint Laurent in France — will make in the United States, but it's breathtaking, even if you aren't a dedicated fashionista. The forty-year retrospective, which demonstrates how YSL drew influences from menswear staples and the art world to create an ascending staircase of style rising through the decades, is also a fascinating peek into the details and craft of haute couture. And on a local level, it's giving a boost to our own fashion scene, involving Denver designers in an accompanying series of stylish events thrown in conjunction with the main attraction. From the elegant display of nearly forty YSL women's tuxedos to the finale of evocative evening gowns, the big show doesn't misstep once. Bravo!

Best Club Night

Electronic Tuesdays

Sub.mission introduced Electronic Tuesdays at Cervantes' Other Side just over a year ago, and because of the massive crowds that come for this club night, it's now been moved next door to the Ballroom. With local acts, DJ battles and competitions, Electronic Tuesdays have grown into a raging concoction of dubstep, house, drum-and-bass and anything else that falls under the ever-expanding umbrella of electronic music. On occasion, you get free access if you arrive before ten o'clock — but when Sub.mission brings in the big guns, you gotta pay to play. And when you do, you can count on the night being worth the price of admission.

Readers' Choice: Beta

Best Clyfford Still Show

Inaugural Exhibition

Courtesy Clyfford Still Museum Facebook page

Okay, the Clyfford Still Museum has only had one show, but it's so incredible, it deserves its own award. The spectacular Inaugural Exhibition was organized by Dean Sobel, the museum's founding director. Five years ago, Sobel was one of only a handful of people who had actually seen Still's work, since the artist was a major recluse. New discoveries on his part caused Sobel to completely upend all previous research on the artist, demonstrating that it was the figure, and not the landscape, that Still was referencing. This show lays out how Still began in the '20s with post-impressionism and by the early '40s had progressed to abstract expressionism — years before the rest of his generation arrived at related aesthetic conclusions. From then on, until his last works, in the late '70s, Still perfected his pictorial aims, with his paintings becoming airier and flatter as time went on. This spectacular show has true international significance — and it's still on display, for those here at home who somehow missed it.

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