Local treasures seem to be intersecting in a billion ways this weekend, with Create Denver Week closing up shop and Doors Open Denver doing what it says. If ever there was a weekend to go out and appreciate what your city has to offer in terms of interesting places and…

Alicia Bailey’s Abecedarian Gallery is already unique in the region in that its primary focus is on artists’ books, but Bailey has to admit that its two gallery spaces have never been given up entirely to the book arts at one time. That all changes today, when the juried show,…

In Karen Zacarías’s Mariela in the Desert, this year’s nod to the Latino community by the Denver Center Theatre Company, a young woman artist returns to her desert home in Mexico to visit her father, also an artist, under the assumption that he’s dying. It’s a story of how they…

You never know exactly why people choose to collect certain things. Sometimes it just starts accidentally: one object leads to another, ad infinitum. But part of the joy of collecting anything is in how it becomes an act of personal whimsy, a private freedom that can mean everything to you…or…

As the fiftieth anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — a milestone in the history of the civil rights movement in America — approached, Denver playwright, director and filmmaker donnie l. betts was searching for a way to mark the date on the local level, but it wasn’t until…

The galleries are all on to First Fridays now, which is why they don’t necessarily always open shows to coincide with the monthly community event — two receptions are better than one, after all, and the more the merrier. This month’s First Friday offers a great opportunity to see some…

Where vampires thrive, black humor is certain to show up sooner or later. And thanks to best-selling author and biting humorist Christopher Moore, funny vampires make hilarious mayhem in San Francisco in Bite Me: A Love Story, the last book in a trilogy about bloodsucking protagonist Tommy Flood and his…

It was a simple trip to Michael’s that set the whole thing in motion. While browsing through the crafts store, Crystal O’Brien, director of the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, spotted The Crafty Chica Collection, a tome by Kathy Cano Murillo, whose “Crafty Chica” empire includes a website and blog,…

When Boulder-based performance artist Gemma Wilcox first caught Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor, aka the Cody Rivers Show, while traveling the fringe circuit with her own acts, she was floored by what she saw. “Their level of performance really blew my mind,” Wilcox remembers. “They are a sketch-comedy troupe unlike…

When a relative passes away, one rite of passage involves divvying up that relative’s possessions. For siblings Amy and Joseph Findeiss, deaths in the family led to finding a treasure trove of photos with Catholic and military themes. The brother-and-sister artists then collaborated on a series of portraits based on…

The foothills town of Golden is full of historical lore: Coors Brewery, Foss Drug, Jolly Rancher, Lookout Mountain and the Colorado School of Mines are just a few of its landmarks, come and (some) gone. Town officials have done a great job of preserving the physical remains of all that…

Electronics geeks, it’s time to come out of the basement. Your day in the sun will commence when the fourth Vintage Voltage Expo opens for business this morning at the Ramada Plaza Convention Center, 10 East 120th Avenue in Northglenn. The expo, organized by promoter Dana Cain, will feature approximately…

Although it’s still Untitled, the Denver Art Museum’s series is never unwelcome. This year’s series, which kicks off tonight, has a rather mischievous theme: Borrowing from the concept of the current (and soon to end) Embrace! exhibit, for which a group of artists literally “took over” the museum to create…

For Dianne Denholm, director of TACtile Arts Center, the most impressive aspect of the current exhibit Holes & Knots: A Modern Interpretation of Lace is its sheer variety. But there’s also the way it stretches our perceptions about lace and openwork. “‘Lace’ means the traditional thing to most people,” she…

The premise behind Telling Stories is simple: Blend commissioned, contemporary chamber music with original essays read by the authors in a casual setting, playing to a young audience that might otherwise overlook these particular disciplines, and using a loose theme to tie everything together in a pleasant package. Tonight’s theme…

Everybody wants to be an artist, but most people are afraid to try. That’s one reason local artist Brittney Wilson opened Canvas and Cocktails at 249 Clayton Street in Cherry Creek North. (Another reason: to show her dad that an art degree does count for something.) Offering a new, more…

It’s difficult to describe the digital photography of John Bonath; you have to see it and get lost in its marvelous prestidigitations and full-frontal vignettes for yourself. His works, which veer off in intertwining themes (stripes, mud, insects, wood and botanical studies, to name a few of Bonath’s favorites), are…

Jason Bosch of the ArgusFest film series likes nothing better than to get people thinking…and talking. So Bosch, who hosts weekly screenings of films covering all manner of human rights and progressive issues at the Mercury Cafe and Hooked on Colfax, went deep this time. He’ll present the controversial film…

Before Denver’s Su Teatro officially debuts its first production in its new digs at the Denver Civic Theatre later this month, the premier local Latino theater troupe will first sidetrack to South America for a weekend by presenting the Chilean ensemble Teatro en el Blanco in a trio of blockbuster…

PlatteForum’s ArtLab and MCA/Denver’s Teen Council (TeCo) boast similar goals but differing circumstances: Both are located in the Central Platte Valley and cater to creative teens, but each serves dissimilar constituents. While PlatteForum’s kids come from a life of struggle and work with resident artists on hands-on projects, TeCo’s have…

It’s funny how times change, and yet they don’t. Belle Epoque-era folks in Colorado’s high-altitude historic haven of Leadville originally conceived of the 1896 version of the Crystal Carnival as a way to attract tourists to the top of the world in the dead of winter. Back then, they built…

When was the last time you memorized a poem? Right. Recitation is mostly a lost art of our forebears, but there’s a new movement bring it back, and it’s gaining steam. The national Poetry Out Loud competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation as…