Diffuse in their focus, one in their mission
The arts and culture landscape surrounds us every day. It buoys and challenges our thinking. It illuminates our most sacred moments and our largest gatherings. It was built and is maintained in the Denver metro area in no small part by the passion and purpose of women. They are the tradition keepers, the ecosystem warriors,…
At SCFD, #CultureForAll means culture BY all
For Paul Stewart, it all started with a fascination with the Black experience in the American West. It became an ever-growing display on the walls of the barbershop he owned. People from the neighborhoods in Northeast Denver who did not need a haircut would come just to look at his menagerie of artifacts and curiosities….
Arts through it All holiday campaign launches to help save local arts and culture
New SCFD survey data signals threat to arts and culture sector due to economic challenges of the pandemic Read the full COVID impact survey If you just can’t live without live music. If your holiday season won’t be complete without the Nutcracker or Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum. If you treasure a childhood memory…
A life well lived carries on
There is a deep interconnection between culture and community. Wilbur Flachman knew it. So, when the native Iowan settled with his wife in Westminster in 1961, he set about making that connection tangible and visible. Flachman passed away in September. But the foundations for art and culture he built in the north metro area will…
Local artist focuses on his own work and the cultural future of his community
Jeff Lapin will be the first one to tell you he spent about 40 years as a magazine publisher living vicariously through the artists his magazines featured. Then retirement came. Suddenly, he had the time and space to reconnect directly with art and reimagine himself as the artist he had been during his undergraduate years…
With boundless energy and endless optimism, Steve Wilson faces the future
The best way to understand Steve Wilson might be knowing that he enthusiastically understudied his wife once in a production of Tartuffe at the Arvada Center. His wife Leslie, a long-time stage actress with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, had overlapping shows and Wilson stepped in to finish the last week of her…
Boulder oceanic institute helps students chart course to a healthier environmental future
Dr. Mikki McComb-Kobza is convinced that by connecting landlocked Colorado students to the ocean, salvation for our ailing planet is possible. She might be right. Consider for a moment the work she does. As the Executive Director of the Boulder-based OceanFirst Institute, McComb-Kobza prioritizes hands on research for students from across the Denver Metro area….
Every community needs a Florence Ayers
Every community needs a connector. That person who makes space where there wasn’t space before. Who creates opportunity out of whole cloth. For the black arts community, Florence Ayers is one of those people. Ayers has given more than three decades to creating and producing the Colorado Black Arts Festival, which now stands as an…
Art is just a dream away
Homare Ikeda dreams his creations into being. In some ways, that has been true for his entire life. The Denver-based painter rises at 4 a.m., makes coffee and puts brush or pen to paper, creating a new work each day and posting it to Instagram. His attention and his dreams during the quarantine have turned…
The essential connection
Yolanda Ortega hadn’t really thought of her work as essential until last Sunday. As a multi-decade veteran of the Denver stage, she’s performed for thousands. She has inhabited iconic roles for which she has been lauded. For many, she is a human link to their culture and heritage, writ large in all its beauty. Still…
In the midst of struggle, local theater gets a priceless gift
Len Matheo got a wholly unexpected gift in the middle of our unfolding crisis. The executive and artistic director of the Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden had just finished meeting with his staff when the call came in: the theater’s landlord, Mesa Meadows Land Management, would waive the $3,600 in rent the theater would owe…
Veterans use their lens to create a window to art
The Subjective Lens – Through the Eyes of Veterans features a compelling collection of fine art photography created by 10 Denver-area artists who have served in the U.S. military. This unique exhibition is the culmination of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center’s Veterans Workshop Series, a five-month program of advanced photography courses provided to participants free of charge. Each project is intensely personal,…