A.J. Boik: Local artist launches Kickstarter to make custom portrait for victim's family

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A.J. Boik
Chris Bates's reaction to the Aurora theater shooting last summer was one shared by countless other Coloradans. "I felt this really strong urge that I had to do something," says the Fort Collins artist.

But Bates was initially at a loss as to what. After listening to a talk about "art's ability to heal the world," he says the idea came to him: He'd contact the families of the deceased victims and offer to make them a custom drawing of their loved one. The girlfriend of eighteen-year-old A.J. Boik was immediately interested.

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Should DIA's blue "Mustang" statue be put out to pasture? Vote in our public art poll

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Do you love the Denver International Airport's demon horse? Do you hate it? (Do you just want to dress up a paper doll version of it?) In this week's feature story, "Yay or Neigh," we take a look at our own feelings for the big blue beast at the perfect time to do so: the fifth anniversary of the city's most controversial piece of public art. And now it's your turn to weigh in. Let us know what you think of the "Mustang" by voting in our poll below.

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Our twenty favorite Westword covers of 2012

Categories: Art

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Big photos below.
As we point out (as if we needed to) in our Year in Review issue on stands now, 2012 was a weird, wild year for Colorado. And we would know: We've covered it online and in 52 print issues throughout the past twelve months. Choosing the images to embody the news on our front cover is often as tough as reporting it, so we asked Westword art director Jay Vollmar to select his twenty favorite images to grace our cover stories this year. Keep reading to see them all.

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Jake Adam York, Colorado poet and teacher, dead at forty

Categories: Art, News

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For his students at the University of Colorado Denver, where he was an associate professor of English, Jake Adam York had a reputation for being a hardass. You got the feeling it was a reputation he enjoyed. We feared him or we loved him -- often both -- and the reputation preceded him; everyone knew the name Jake Adam York, and most had an opinion about it.

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Fifteen Instagram photos that turn the Denver Art Museum into art

Categories: Art, Photos

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Big photos below.
The Denver Art Museum is a work of art in and of itself -- inside and out. For proof, look no further than our gallery of shots from Instagram's #denverartmuseum category.

Below, see fifteen images that caught our eye -- and be sure to click on the credit to see other work by the Instagrammers whose work we're spotlighting.

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GIFs: Broncos tailgaters do their best touchdown dances

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GIFs below.
The Denver Broncos brought home their first win of the regular season against the Pittsburg Steelers on Sunday thanks to Peyton Manning and his priceless arm (actually, it's insured). But, the Broncos just wouldn't be the same without rowdy fans and their own touchdown celebrations. Westword ventured through the pre-game parking lots to find out how Denver fans and their rivals get down when their team scores.

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Matt Stone and Trey Parker: How comedy handles current events

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Parker and Stone.
It's been a tough few months for Colorado, and homestate heroes Matt Stone and Trey Parker know it. On Tuesday, the South Park creators talked to press at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House about their latest success, the hugely popular and distinctly brazen comic musical The Book of Mormon, which opens August 14 in Denver. They also opened up to Westword about its arrival as the state struggles to recover from wild fires and the Aurora theater shooting. Click through for their insight on the tragedy and the balance between humor and hardship.

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Video: The art and mischief of Justin Simoni

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Denver gonzo athlete Justin Simoni's singular achievement this summer in the Tour Divide, a 2745-mile mountain bike race that crosses the Continental Divide 39 times between Canada and Mexico, is the focus of this week's feature, "Going to Extremes." But cycling is only one of Simoni's multiple and oddly linked enthusiasms, which in recent years have ranged from solo art shows featuring an Andy Warhol-like persona to playing cymbals in the Itchy-O Band, the city's celebrated (but quasi-anonymous) cadre of marching musicians.

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Photos: Lakewood Gulch art prank celebrates day drinking, off-leash dogs

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Big photos below.
Peter Miles Bergman is drawn to the unsanctioned. In 2004, the founder of art-prank society The Institute of Sociometry made his backyard into a faux parking lot to showcase how ridiculous it was that homeowners near the Broncos stadium couldn't sell parking or even to give it away. This year, Bergman turned his attention toward another West Denver reality: newly spruced-up Lakewood Gulch.

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History Colorado Center to bring back Denver diorama: What about bloody buffalo hunt?

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Big pics below.
The most common question state historian Bill Convery hears about the new History Colorado Center is, "Where is the Denver diorama going to be?" That huge diorama depicts the Mile High City in 1860, complete with the old Rocky Mountain News building, an Arapaho Indian camp and, Convery says, "fantastic tiny little cats on fences." But like the seventeen other dioramas on display at the old museum, it needs some TLC.

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