Arts & Culture

Denver is full of creative types, and you never know when you’re going to meet someone full of talent. At a house party in the Whittier neighborhood, we ran into Micah Bontrager, an audio and visual artist who makes music under the moniker Anicca Meeca.

Now that we’re on the waning side of the solstice, many sun burned locals are seeking opportunities to take shelter from the swelter. Luckily, the week ahead is rife with opportunities to beat both the heat and the summertime doldrums.

2017 is turning out to be a breakout year for Roy Wood Jr.

The world moves outside in summer, and so does great art, along with all the accoutrements of food, drink and surprises that make outdoor fairs a picnic for hundreds. Whether they line city streets or poke up like wildflowers in parks or up in the hills, focus on fine art or handmades or both, these markets all have one thing in common: They bring you eye-to-eye with the artists.

While paper may seem a flimsy theme around which to organize art, it adds up to three solid shows at the Arvada Center.

The heat is on, but Denver galleries are settling in for the long, hot summer with seasonally correct exhibits that focus on busy bees and sunny thoughts and nature and flowers and…Christmas? Read on, and it will all begin to make sense.

We’ve seen artist-run galleries come and go in Denver, but at a time when such venues seem to be in flux, the collaborative artist duo Hollis + Lana  aka muralists/sculptors/fabricators Conor Hollis and Amorette Lana) are making their stand at Druther, a new gallery space on South Downing Street that will showcase interesting artists, as well as the busy couple’s new furniture line.

Over six months after the disastrous fire at Ghost Ship in Oakland and Denver’s subsequent closure of two DIY spaces for safety issues, Denver Community Planning and Development and the Denver Fire Department today are announcing their proposal for a Safe Occupancy Program, a “voluntary path to compliance for existing spaces.”