We found 116 reasons to fall in love with the Mile High City all over again. From the tastiest scoop of ice cream to the most inviting patio for summer sips to the hippest new lodging in town, we tracked down the best of the best that the Mile High City has to offer. The result is a curated list of 37 editors’ choices that complement our 79 readers’ choice winners.
Navigating the last two-plus years of pandemic twists has been taxing on everyone, but parents: We see you. We hear you. (We are you.) From constant quarantines to canceled play dates, we’re guessing you’ve exhausted your reserve of backyard activities—and maybe your sanity. We’re all for family bonding, but with school out and summer in, we’ve rounded up some warm-weather ideas for getting your offspring to mingle with someone their own size. Let the play dates commence.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year, it’s to appreciate the place we live—because, well, we’ve all been spending a lot of time here. We found ourselves rediscovering what we love about the institutions, venues, businesses, restaurants, parks, and people that make up our (suddenly smaller) world. Sure, the way we go about crafting our lifestyle has been—and will continue to be—outside the norm these past months, and the places that infuse the personality of our neighborhoods may operate differently or more intermittently than they ever have, but their contribution to the character of our city remains.
Retail is having a moment—or, rather, “a weird moment,” says Zeppelin Development’s retail director Mathieu Mudie, who oversees the shopping and cultural experiences at the company’s industrial-chic marketplaces, including Zeppelin Station and the Source Hotel and Market Hall. “I don’t think brick and mortar is dying; I just think it’s redefining itself.”
We talked with a video game inventor, researched exploding whipped cream, and interviewed local fifth-graders about their dreams and concerns to create this story exclusively for Denver's next generation.
Check out our (design-lover's) guide to the new Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art.
As the hub of a state rife with fun things to do, restaurants, natural beauty, Wild West lore, cultural pride and booming technology, Denver lies at a crossroads of historic preservation, inspired creativity and innovation—and its museums reflect the pulse of the region.
Nancy Friese’s landscapes are more than snapshots of inspiring locations. She uses the term “composite” to describe her technique: a blending of her feelings, interpretations, and memories of a place. A self-described perceptual landscape artist, the Providence-based painter, drawer, and longtime faculty member of the Rhode Island School of Design works outdoors in what she calls an open-ended fashion over multiple sessions—sometimes taking a month, or even up to a couple of years—to gather the sum of her experiences into one piece.
Karen Henderson’s artwork isn’t what it seems at first glance. From a distance, the canvases look as if they were layered with brushstrokes in muted, natural shades to create delicate landscapes: a fog-shrouded field or a forested path or a sunrise over a pond. Each is hazy yet familiar, like a vision in someone’s dream. But a few steps closer and you realize the evocative imagery isn’t simply painted on a canvas...
By reconnecting with her roots, the Denver artist brings the spirit of the Southwest to her celestial paintings.
When Paul Kelly travels abroad, he takes a sketchbook instead of a camera. Flip through the pad and you’ll find pages of pencil-smudged buildings, streets, and hillsides—scenes he likely jotted while stopped at a red light. “This is my tool,” he says. “This is how I see things."
A Massachusetts artist uses collage and canvas as a vehicle for commentary about today’s pressing sociopolitical issues.
In any suburb, behind the neighbors’ closed doors and neat shutters are unspoken feelings, thoughts, and struggles that the rest of us can’t see, and that’s exactly what inspires McGonagle’s edgy paintings, wall coverings, and installations. “The idea is, everybody looks perfect from the outside, but family dynamics and relationships might be filled with dysfunction,” she says. “We are all imperfect. That’s what I’m really trying to express.”
At first glance, you might think the room is primed for an elaborate banquet. Long tables stretch fifty yards from the center of the room down the length of the rectangular space. Each table is swathed in white fabric, some of it boasting colorful and intricate patterns. But this is not, in fact, a function room awaiting party guests.
Most people would call Peter Diepenbrock a metal sculptor. Indeed, the Jamestown, Rhode Island–based metalsmith is known for large-scale steel, bronze, and copper installations, both residential and public, as well as edgy wall pieces. But Diepenbrock will tell you that he works not so much in metal welding as in the “practice of spatial reasoning.”
Felicia Hwang Bishop flicks a switch in a smallish room that occupies a corner of her 4,000-square-foot studio. A single white clay form, graceful in its sculptural simplicity, stands on a table near a backsplash spattered with jewel-toned hues. This is where the magic happens, she says.
Four-year-old Rachel Vlietstra takes a deep breath and reads aloud from her picture book. “Mom said, ‘Make your bed,’” she says, and then glances at the illustration of a little boy in his messy bedroom. There’s a pause as she turns the page—but there’s no rustle of paper. In fact, there’s no physical book. Instead, Rachel’s mouse arrow hovers over a button on her computer screen. Click. “So I made my bed into a library and read and read and read.”
From his chic urban loft in Providence, Michael Savoia embroiders luxury textiles to furnish the interiors of our country’s most sophisticated residences.
Nearly six years ago, I examined one of our state’s—and America’s—most pressing problems through the eyes of six Coloradans in “The Face of Hunger.” These individuals came from different backgrounds, lived in different corners of the state, and had very different life experiences. They all had one thing in common, though: food insecurity. I learned that it’s not a stereotype relegated to the panhandler on the corner with the cardboard sign.
In our November issue, we introduced you to Boulder photographer James Balog, founder of the Extreme Ice Survey and the guy behind the stunning time-lapse imagery—as in, you can finally see a glacier move—in the groundbreaking documentary Chasing Ice. Meet the man behind the film.
