Photo by Sarah McMahon

Chandelier, Agnes Sanchez

​Agnes Sanchez knew she wanted to be a glassblower from the first time she saw a demonstration. "I kept telling my pops that this was it," she says. "I talked about it all the time. He was finally like, 'Stop talking about it and do it.'" Now she has an extensive body of work -- she makes vases, awards, the "Eternal Light" for Beth Synagogue in Evergreen, lamp shades, chandeliers, and little memorial pieces, made with the ashes of cremated loved ones.

Sanchez also teaches classes -- which is normally the only way to sneak a peak into her workshop. But she let us behind the door for a minute, and told us about what makes her art "Italian-style," how she gets the color for her pieces and why she's got the special glassblowing dance moves.

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​Artist Heather Doyle-Maier is stripping a common ritual to its most basic components. In two current shows in the Navajo Arts District, she explores the meaning of getting dressed and undressed.

Doyle-Maier is featured in Lovesick at Zip 37, and she has an installation in the back room of Edge, just up the block. "My show is looking into how gender is a construction -- a social construction that has been loosely based on anatomy, but also has its own separate life," she says of the work at Edge. "I think we are all constructed to perform a gender -- and part of what my work in Her (un)Doing examines is the particular way that girls have been enrolled into a gender."

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"Your Soft Silence Is Filled With Roots," full image, Brenda Stumpf.

​Every picture tells a story, Rod Stewart once said. And he might have been paraphrasing an ancient Chinese proverb, but that's not the point. The point is, every person who views a work of art will undoubtedly experience something different. And while that experience is linked to the power and meaning of a piece, so is the story of its creation.

Brenda Stumpf's mixed-media painting "Your Soft Silence Is Filled With Roots," showing at Ironton Studios through February 25, presents a complicated visual experience. "I've seen people stand back from the piece and approach it from three different angles," she says. It's easy to see why: The work engulfs the observer in a maze of objects, layers upon layers of crafted scenes, and a complex monochromatic scheme. It prompts the question, "What was she thinking?" To answer that question, Stumpf explains her process and inspiration.

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Tammy Berghold's apple still life

​I was going to do the gonzo journalist thing and participate in last night's chalk pastel class at Xcentricity Gallery, led by Corrina Espinosa, but I thought I would make all of the other students feel bad if I busted out my mad pastel skills. That's a lie: I knew I was going to have to take pictures of my art and the thought of public shame made me pee a little, and not in the good way.

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Kevin Curry

In this week's art column -- "The Faculty Triennial documents Colorado's art history as it races by" -- Michael Paglia writes of the Faculty Triennial at the University of Denver:

The current exhibition, the Faculty Triennial, is part of his continuing program to "document and to stimulate Colorado's art history," he writes. Since the art department there was founded by Vance Kirkland in the 1920s, the faculty has included many of the state's most worthwhile artists.

Below are some of the works on display through March 11 at DU's Victoria H. Myhren Gallery (2121 East Asbury Avenue).

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Handout

John Severin

Legendary illustrator John Powers Severin, whose 60-year career in the comics world stretched from the dawning of MAD magazine to the Silver Age at Marvel to a gay revival of the Rawhide Kid and beyond, died over the weekend at his southeast Denver home. He was 90 years old.

"Truly the art world has suffered a great loss with John's passing -- but so has the human race," declared former Marvel president Stan Lee, in a statement released by Severin's family.

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Courtesy of Theresa Anderson

"bw / random misnegations"

​Theresa Anderson may not be the first artist to incorporate text and art -- Da Vinci's journals testify that written language can contain aesthetic merit. But according to contemporary standards, what Anderson does in many of her drawings -- adding an original narrative element -- defines her as a conceptual artist, or one who puts the idea or concept of a piece before everything else, even materials.

Anderson's work is showing this month at three galleries -- Gildar Gallery, Ice Cube Gallery, and even at Northwest Missouri State University. Despite her busy schedule, she took time to talk to us about what it means to be a conceptual artist, and why writing on her art helps visualize her ideas.

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​Love was in the air on Friday night at Zip 37 in the Navajo Street Art District, where the show LoveSick opened to the public. The exhibit, which features nine artists contemplating the meaning of being lovesick, was curated by artist Katie Hoffman, who unveiled her own piece, Heloise and Abelard , done in oil on canvas.

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Amberama Martinez with her evil little friends.

Last night the Bar Car on Colorado Boulevard was again invaded by Amberama Martinez and her Bar Car First Sunday Art Show, which featured voodoo dolls and bracelets made from Scrabble squares, among other works for sale.

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Sheridan Furrer

​"I think a lot of people are stiff toward just going to see an art show, because it can be a little bit on the boring side," says curator Jazmin Montano. But, she insists, you won't get bored at this one. On Saturday night, Enlightening the Dark, at Eden, will showcase the art of Sheridan Anderson Furrer and Kevin Weinreich, all to the moombahton tunes of DJs Jah Rocker and Max Claw. All of the artists involved worked together to come up with the concept, which, Montano explains, showcases "everything about life that's difficult and dirty, and finding the beauty within it."

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