We can all get behind Toys for Tots, the perennial U.S. Marines-sponsored holiday toy drive that provides gifts for kids who might not otherwise have anything under the tree to unwrap. But artists and hipsters like to do things in their own arty-hipsterish way. Going to Walmart to buy the…
There once was a Grinch who hated Christmas. By extension, he also hated a group of creatures called Whos who loved Christmas, and so one night he snuck into their village and stole all of their Christmas presents, which did not deter them from celebrating Christmas anyway, and then the…
Since 1998, Bryce Widom has been creating the chalkboard art at Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery, as well as its sister restaurants, Southern Sun and Vine Street Pub. Given the directive to “do something with the seasons,” Widom created an artistic vision — a world of nature, magic, myth and…
Do you know why Hello Kitty has no mouth? Because she speaks from the heart… She also has a hypnotic, straight-up obsessive effect on American consumers that hasn’t seemed to flag since her debut in the States in 1976. This ubiquitous, mouthless Sanrio-creation has become a veritable fetish for women,…
The opening of the Clyfford Still Museum last month has prompted a resurgence of interest in early abstraction in Colorado, from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the beginning, Still was way ahead of even the most advanced artists here — as well as those in New York. Some Colorado…
Update: Due to technical difficulties at the Giving First website, Colorado Gives Day has been extended until noon tomorrow. Go ahead. Knock yourself out giving! Read on: It’s Colorado Gives Day, and since the stroke of midnight, nearly 1,000 Colorado nonprofits have been collecting donations in just about any charitable…
When I’m not interviewing drag queens, reviewing concerts and rating Santas for Westword, I’m working at Shirt Folding Store. For twenty hours a week, I fold shirts (and, more important, jeans) alongside other part-timers, who in their other jobs might be bank tellers, professional eBay auctioneers, art-history majors and spoken-word…
As part of the event hoopla surrounding the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, Curious Theatre will be putting on a play about Still’s life. “[The Clyfford Still Museum] wanted to make a neighborhood artistic connection,” says Curious education director Dee Covington. Over a year and a half in the…
First lines are particularly important to Susan Orlean, which makes it that much tougher to start an article about someone who has written about almost everything herself. The New Yorker author’s most recent book, released more than ten years after her last extra-long-form non-fiction endeavor, The Orchid Thief, begins with…
If you’ve always wanted to be part of the Capitol Hill People’s Fair, this is your chance. Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods is now taking applications for the 41st incarnation of this popular annual event, which always features booths with handmade arts and crafts as well as food, non-stop entertainment and…
The Colorado Symphony Orchestra has been working hard to make it into the black for the 2011-2012 season by adding extra shows, making personnel cuts, pushing its fund raising and promising, in general, to do things differently. But it’s unlikely that a planned $90 million renovation of the Boettcher Concert…
The last time we talked to Longmont artist Gamma Acosta, he quietly reminded us that there’s redemption in street art, and many of the kids who come out of the tagging culture, spray cans in hand, have talent that can raise them above the low-rent materials of the street. That…
When people picture an artist’s life, they usually envision something romantic: Gene Kelly in An American in Paris, opening the window to his rooftop Parisian studio, letting in the morning light while singing “I Got Rhythm,” and dancing out the door to make a living selling art on the streets…
The Wall Street Journal has a rave review of the Clyfford Still Museum today — its second piece on Denver’s new facility in as many weeks. The first, Daniel Grant’s “It’s Not Easy Being Single,” published on November 17, talked about the difficulties of dedicating a facility entirely to the…
Just as the cherry blossom opens in April, so has the brilliant lip foliage burst forth this month — even in November, traditional harbinger of winter’s cruel silence. Indeed, this Movember has seen more mustaches than ever bloom and grow like the lovely edelweiss, and as the month draws to…
Even though we may have made the “wrong assumption, wrong conclusion” about the onslaught of “I’m a Mormon” billboards across the state, comedian Lori Callahan still sees a correlation. She can’t help but think that as the election draws closer, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s faith has a lot to…
Mark Lunning founded Open Press, a fine-art printmaker, in 1988, and since then, he’s been the facility’s master printer. But he’s also an artist in his own right, creating prints, paintings and sculptures. All three types of work are on display in Mark Lunning: New Paintings, Prints and Sculptures at…
Seems like only yesterday that Working with Artists and the then-virtual Colorado Photographic Arts Center announced their impending merger, and indeed it was really only a few months ago. But no sooner did it begin to gather steam in its new guise as the New Colorado Photographic Arts Center when…
It’s a non-holiday holiday today, and as such we thought we’d shine a light on the Papa John’s delivery driver and glow-dart blower Warren Hammond of Boulder. Hammond, umm, blew it, on the Late Show with David Letterman earlier this month. Watch the video below to see what we mean…
The photographs in Colorado Uncovered — a new book by photographer Darrell Pierson and his wife, Sherry Whitney, which places naked models before both manmade and natural landmarks in this state — can inspire lengthy study. But despite the inspired staging, the photos themselves were taken very quickly. After all,…
Colorado Uncovered, a new book of photographs by Darrell Pierson, shows models stripped down everywhere from the Colorado Convention Center to Mesa Verde National Park. “Most women would rather be photographed as works of art than pinups,” says Sherry Whitney, explaining the origins of Body Photage, the company she started…
To look at the faces carved into the old tree trunk at Sloan’s Lake Park playground, you wouldn’t think any pain was associated with the project — the faces smile widely, laughing as children use them to climb to the top of the stump. Yet, sculptor Corrina Espinosa created the…
