Tonight in our heart of the West special, we're celebrating the Colorado artists who are making their mark in craftsmanship and artistry in our state.

From a larger than life mural honoring 150 years of Colorado agriculture.

To a master craftsman who hand carves violins with precision and care.

These are the artists who are creating and inspiring us right here in Colorado.

We're also taking you inside the studio of a woodworker, turning natural materials into functional art.

And we're introducing you to veteran artists who are using their art to connect and heal.

It's all on the special heart of the West edition of Colorado Stories from studio 12.

From the Five Points Media Center in the heart of Denver, Colorado.

This is studio 12.

Good evening, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I, Bosie Canady and I'm Ryan Hare.

And welcome to Colorado Stories on Studio 12.

Heart of the West special.

For many artists, creating can be a solitary experience, but one Denver studio is proving that some of the best work happens when creativity is shared.

The art gym is home to more than 50 artists, working in everything from painting and jewelry making to printmaking.

It's a place where ideas, encouragement and inspiration are just as valuable as the finished artwork.

In tonight's heart of the West special.

We got to hang out inside the Art gym and meet several of the artists there.

Take a look.

Based on the asset.

And it just adds to way around the Sharpie.

But.

But the Sharpie.

It's amazing.

It did all of.

I mean, all of this here.

I remember the first time.

I came into this building as a member.

I was sitting up in the mezzanine, and I looked down over the railing and I was like, I shouldn't be here.

These people are so talented.

I was really intimidated, and I think I, like, tend to be shy about my process, and I tend to feel like I'm not doing it right since I'm self-taught, and it's been really refreshing to come in and like, be among people who are also at varying levels of professional or full time or part time or dabbling.

And we all have things that we can learn from each other.

Like I've had people come up to me and say, you know, this style of art is really intriguing to me and very new and different where I felt complete imposter syndrome about it.

So I think being in the space is also growing my confidence a ton.

Vickie and Brian started the art gym some number of years ago.

They decided they wanted to retire but didn't want the space to go away.

They still in the building so they said they would rent it to the artists who were here if they would set up a co-op.

So we took about 3 or 4 months to set up the business structure, to get all the members on board, to talk about bylaws and how we were going to make the staffing work and funding and everything.

And then we rented as a co-op.

We set up we started in February of this year, and it's going great.

We've got 50 some members.

We're getting 2 or 3 more a week of applications.

So it's really exciting.

There's a lot of people here now.

People come by and look at your work and you talk about ideas or methods or explain what you're doing.

It's it's really a lot of fun.

We're getting more people all the time.

And they also have all these.

The way I find my compositions and ideas, I like to go through magazines and find images that I like, and then I collage them together.

Sometimes I'll use photos that I've taken to just or a combination of the two, and I'll collage them up together.

I'll make these little, these little shapes and then make, you know, kind of like a puzzle.

I'll put them together and see what looks good as a composition, and then I'll translate that into a painting.

So I call these my little sketch collages.

What I was telling you about here is I want it to be a little more abstract, where you can't always tell quite what you're looking at, but you feel like you're at a dream where there's hints of things that you recognize.

This one is so gorgeous.

Amazing, I love her, I like that piece too, and I love doing the green right here.

The favorite one is very satisfying being around other artists, being around other artists all the time, bouncing ideas back and forth, having people critique give feedback was really, really special in college, and once I graduated, I realized that I missed that and that was what was keeping me serious about my art was being in community that way.

And so when I found Art, Jim, it was the key that unlocked everything, because it took me from doing this as something I like on the side to, well, I'm really serious about this.

I want to pursue it.

I want to keep going and see how far I can take it.

So I consider myself to be a baby metal sniffer.

I've taken a couple classes and, I've learned a lot of really cool techniques.

A lot of those things I've learned while I've been here at art, at the co-op, at Art gym.

And it's been really cool to have other professional level, draws next to me.

They're very kind in sharing information with me and, you know, holding my hand through the things that I get frustrated with, the jewelry that I have with me right now is, I made it with a technique called etching.

I use an acid that we actually share with the printmaking group.

I started working in this, and then I was talking to someone else here at the co op about, his printmaking techniques, and he's like, oh my gosh, we're doing the exact same thing.

Like, this is really cool.

It's just a really amazing collaborative community that I wouldn't have had the same resources if I were trying this on my own or primarily taking classes.

One time classes somewhere else.

Okay, good news.

I have all these tiny, really sharp pieces of brass.

So these are woodblock paintings, and I call them woodblock paintings because I keep layering the different colors, and I can play with the different colors.

I can play with the ink as I put it on.

So here I'm just putting ink on the very top of the peaks.

Put water down here, and then I position the paper so it registers to the image.

And this is my process.

I. So to me each one is different.

They're not mass produced.

Each one is a different painting in itself.

I just really enjoy.

The process of building the image with multiple layers of color.

Just because it's a woodblock, it doesn't mean that it's always going to be just this way.

I can vary that.

And so that's the exciting part is kind of making it this woodblock painting.

I had a private studio for probably 15 years on South Broadway, and I'd get there at 7 or 8:00 in the morning and work till 5 or 6 at night, and probably three quarters of the day I'm in there by myself.

And then I found out about this place ten, 11 years ago and thought, why am I paying so much rent when I could be here, be around people?

The big one?

Yeah.

And I was like, I should not be here.

These are really good.

Trade ideas, talk to people other than the mirror.

And, and so it's just really inspiring.

And then see new ideas and how someone did something and, but then I can just sit on my little table here and lose track of everything.

And.

And I'll be here for a whole day and just it's kind of wonderful.

It's.

Doing art keeps you active and curious and inquisitive.

And I think that's really important for mental health.

And it's important for thinking about the world.

I think, also, particularly in these times, making beautiful things really matters.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Art gym is a cooperative artist workspace in Denver, where members share studio space, ideas, and mentorship while continuing to grow their craft.

To learn more about the Art gym, you can go to the Art gym denver.com.

A Colorado artist known for big, bold murals and community driven public art is now using his talents to tell a story about Colorado's agriculture.

Thomas Dieter Evans is a well-known Colorado artist who has built a name at the intersection of art and activation.

His latest work is a mural he created for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

The project marks 150 years of agriculture in Colorado, celebrating the people and communities behind it.

We were able to meet up with detour during the beginning stages of the mural.

I only have a couple more days left on this.

Thomas detour, Evans and Thomas Evans.

But I go by detour colors.

Do I need, you know, a good one to, sell out here?

A lot of people know me for the murals, but I work on, But a lot of people know me now for a sculptural work, just like interactive work, community activation, things like that.

So trying to make sure I'm at the intersection, just like art and community.

Yeah.

So the color is on.

A lot of my work stems from the idea of, like, not being restricted.

Stumbled on that through going live art.

And with live artists like you don't have time to mix colors or to match colors.

And for me, when I did live art, that's where the colors kind of like show through because I just had to use paint out the bottle, in this area to represent highlights or shadows or whatever.

And then from there it just became, so like a thread that I would kind of with a lot of the stuff that I do, you know, trying to make sure it's abstract but also still relatable and consistent and like, recognizable.

So that's where I kind of get into, you know, doing work like this behind me is like making it super colorful, but also something that you can kind of recognize.

Yeah, a couple of Bob Ross videos later, I'm like, oh, this is how you this is how you do it.

Ross was very I guess what inspires me is being able to do work that is different than everyone else.

Impactful, work that's tied to community and tell the story.

For me, sometimes it's more about the process or the materials that I put into a piece.

I did one recently install at the airport, which was a sculpture piece that was all upcycled luggage, and that one was really great because I get to meet so many people that were donating or contributing, you know, pieces of luggage.

They had stories to the actual sculpture.

So that one is like esthetically, there's a lot of meaning to it in terms of colors and the shape, but it means a lot, mainly because of the community that was involved in terms of putting everything together, because it would not be in the form it is if people didn't contribute all their stories and all their, you know, their background and their memories to the actual sculpture piece.

So me, I want to try to figure out a way to make a lot of my work different, but also add in community as well, and hopefully this translates well.

Have networked with the agricultural community in Colorado.

But my family does own farm land back in South Carolina.

So my dad grew up on the farm, took me back to the farm.

They, you know, grow corn and, you know, cotton and things like that.

So it's one of those things it's kind of like I'm familiar with it, but haven't worked out here at all with any of the community.

So it was really fun just to learn more about the history.

So for me, it was like really great just to be able to add, the contribution of artwork, to the community and to the stories in a way, where it's kind of like, oh, now you're able to learn more about the history of, agriculture in Colorado through the arts that I do.

So on this side of the mural talks a little bit more about where we're at in agriculture.

So the opening of this first campus.

So we really want to sort of show the next generation, getting into crops.

So having a couple young individuals sort of growing the next generation of crops, but also some of the, fruits and vegetables and sort of, commodities that Colorado has, in their, their farmland.

So, like learning how to paint potatoes, was interesting learning how to, you know, even like, paint wheat, on a sort of like a micro but large scale and then painting tractors, things like that.

So it was a really, really fun being able to sort of how do I mix everything together and overlap a lot of the stuff.

So that is a cohesive mural, but also to making the mural fun to wear.

Now so that just, you know, right angles.

It's like now I cut out, made it folded, foldable but to transport but also die cut everything and referencing different things within those sort of diecast like the tractor, but also like I was saying earlier, like the center point irrigation.

So like that's where the sort of like circular sort of pattern comes from as well.

Yeah.

So this one, when I applied for the project and they were saying, hey, we would love to have a mural that talked about the 150th anniversary of agriculture in Colorado.

I was like, okay, let me figure out where everything kind of started, you know, the history of Colorado and trying to do a mural that would tell the story of the past with, the native communities, the Ute, the plain communities and tribes, and then how sort of like snowmelt kind of feeds everything because, like, I didn't know about water ice until I knew the Colorado.

I'm like, learning.

Okay.

This is how you know, you can grow things in Colorado.

So only because of the snow and the melting in the rivers that it, it provides.

So it was one of those things was kind of like for me, it's inspiring, to learn about that, but also communicate exactly how important each of those things are in the history of Colorado, trying to put it into, not only words, but now it's like into visuals.

And what that means today, is for me, exciting because now it's like when I eat food, I look at it differently and like, what was how many, how many people had their hands on it in a way.

Or when I go to the, you know, the produce section at the grocery store, okay, where where is this coming from?

Now I have a more of a appreciation of, you know, where the food comes from.

And who's growing it.

And, you know, just the whole community, agriculture community.

And then having a piece for a super unique but also tells their story.

I feel like it's, honored to be able to be picked to actually tell that story.

Through my work.

So for me, it's super, super exciting.

And then I did see at the stock show, super excited to see at the state Fair and meet a lot of these individuals.

So for me, it's, this is just an honor.

I mean, it is difficult to figure out how to do, like, a portable mural.

So it took a lot of work, but I'm glad that I'm able to actually take this off of what would usually be on a wall and have it travel to many places where they may not have, the, the street art culture or the street art sort of, esthetic in their, in their community.

But now it's like they have, a piece of artwork that represents them and something that they can enjoy that's different than what they're really used to.

And talking about their story.

Most challenging thing is like trying to tell everything.

And you can't really tell everything.

Trying to do that in many ways, whether it's like super in your face on the piece or super abstract and it's like it's the shape references that kind of story.

There's so many different parts of Colorado agriculture, that you want to tell, but there's only so much space to kind of tell that story.

So that's the only thing I thought was really interesting and sort of difficult was like, how do I sort of talk about all these different things without leaving anything out?

And for me, I try to do as much as I can to kind of like reference something to where now it sparks a conversation for you to kind of learn more about it, trying to talk about where Colorado was before, and then what happened, the past, you know, 150 years and then almost kind of like what's happening today, especially with the opening of the first spur campus, you know, educating the next generation on agriculture and growing.

And then new types of crops, that are more, you know, pest resistant or, you know, new type of technology to help you, have a better crop yield that year.

I would say I hope this mural, when someone from the agriculture community sees it, they feel that their story is being told, that their story is being celebrated, through the arts and through, like, a unique artist, and style, hope that, you know, the kids see it and say, oh, this is really cool.

My community is is being celebrated.

I want to continue being, a farmer, carry on that legacy.

So I hope hopefully this inspires the next generation as well.

detour says creating the mural was an honor, and he loves that each piece of it has traveled to different parts of our state.

To learn more about detour and his art, you can go to I Am detour.com.

some artists don't just create music, they craft the instruments that make music possible.

Tonight we meet will share from Lewisville.

He makes violins by hand right here in Colorado, carving each piece with precision and detail.

And as you'll see, his work isn't just about building and restoring instruments.

It's about passing on a rare and time honored skill to the next generation.

I've been here in this location for about three and a half years.

I got into doing this because I love music.

We need more music in the world.

We need more connections with people.

My name is Wiltshire.

I make violins for a living.

It's a it's a dream, right?

You know, to be able to to be able to make something by hand or just, you know, make anything by hand these days where we're so much of what we do is on a keyboard.

I'm Sasha Novak, I don't know, what do you what do you call me?

Student.

I'll take it.

So I come in basically once a week.

And Will is teach me how to restore a cello.

My day job is all computers.

I work for basically a tech company.

And being able to, you know, come here and do some hands on work building something.

Working with materials has been generally, it's the highlight of my week.

When I started this business, I wanted my kids to be able to see that things are just not made by machine.

That's one of the things that when you have kids, you see, you know, and they kind of get their first toys and these things just appear for them.

And you get the toys from the store, you get the thing from the store.

Nobody really, you know, kids don't usually get to see things being made.

And I wanted, my kids to, to know what I did for a living.

We sell new and used instruments as well as do restoration work and maintenance for professional musicians.

Beginners.

Hi there.

Let's take a look at this again.

I'll just make my notes.

This is a place where people come to.

All right.

We have a little, a little seam separation.

Find out about instruments that they may own.

Bring things that need to be restored or fixed or just maintained.

What we're going to do is glue the seam.

And that little tiny crack, we're going to add some glue.

These instruments are their babies too.

This is people.

I originally went to music school, but in my second year realized that I just wasn't good enough to play classically.

I started hanging around with other fiddle players and at violin shops, and realized that there was more fun for me to be playing fiddle music than to be playing classical music.

And then my wife got a postdoc at University of Michigan, and we had to move, and she said, what are you going to do now?

And I said, I think I'm going to be a violin maker.

And I didn't know the path to get to that point from where I was, but I knew that it was something I wanted to do.

I was buying and selling violins and, I know what sounds good.

And because I can play a violin.

It's that combination of knowing what sounds good and the voice that an instrument has, combined with, being able to see the craftsmanship in the instrument.

You know, I thought there's possible, you know, possible business here and a career here.

Not much has changed in the way of violins made in several hundred years.

I don't know, there's something about being able to feel what you're working with and smell the wood.

Smell the varnish.

And it keeps me connected to music, too, which is something that I had previously lost after high school.

I think I was searching for something that was meaningful, in, in my career.

I can remember thinking this over and over.

I want something that's giving, not taking.

When people bring you a violin that they're in love with, they're bringing you this joy and they're bringing you a, a piece of history.

In some cases, it's sentimental.

Violin, you know, in its basic form, is the same as a fiddle.

And there is really no difference between the two.

It all has to do with how you play it and your style of expression.

So you might take down one instrument off the wall and play a, you know, back concerto on it.

And it sounds great, but you might pick a different one and you say, oh, this just doesn't sound right.

It sounds more like a fiddle.

And so I don't do anything to set up violins differently for fiddle players unless they're asking for something specific.

But there really isn't.

No, there really is no difference.

There's a number of ways to make a violin.

Another thing I do is automat automated everything.

All the tools that I use are, chisels, hand tools, gouges, planes, scrapers, very little sandpaper.

We get a block of wood, create a mold, and then bend the outsides of the violin around this mold and that gives us the basic shape.

And this is all coming from a pattern, everything by hand.

But the only way to really make a violin is to do it by hand with old fashioned tools.

So what I do is a I guess it could be considered a classic craft, but what I do is from scratch from the beginning, the only to the only modern tool that I use is a bandsaw.

The business has been in existence for since 2015.

Previous to the Marshall fire, I my shop was in my house.

We our house was destroyed by the fire, so, I had to salvage what I could and, you know, quickly get back to doing what I love and, and reopen the shop.

And that's when I opened up down here on Main Street.

I really enjoy seeing somebody fall in love with a new or old instrument and have that be a part of their identity and who they are, and knowing that they're going to take this instrument and use it for as long as they do and and it will eventually get played by somebody else in the future.

for more information on Will and his beautiful violins, you can go to Scherrer violins.com.

In a world of mass production, we now need another Colorado artist who is choosing to build by hand.

Tonight we meet Drew Graham, the founder of Switch Wood.

Drew loves to pull together natural materials and exacting craftsmanship into what he calls functional art, from watches to sunglasses and jewelry.

His work reflects both fine art and entrepreneurial spirit shaped right here in the West.

Join us now as we step inside Drew's studio.

These could be interchangeable if I really wanted to make them interchangeable.

And so I put magnets on them in order to hold them all together.

I made a wooden bow tie to wear to one of my openings.

And this, I made it out of a whiskey barrel.

Having enough people being interested in the tie.

I started a Kickstarter campaign, and we raised $10,000 in order to get our first batch of wooden bow ties.

My name is drew.

My business is switch wood.

And we make a variety of different products at this point.

But, started with an interchangeable wooden bow tie for the wings are magnetic, so you can switch the, the look of the tie based on the type of wood and the fabric watches.

As you saw, we make out of skateboards, concert tickets, various different types of wood, stone, all sorts of stuff.

We also do our own jewelry as well.

But, yeah, the primary focus is using wood or natural elements as a medium within each piece.

Functional art is what I would say is which wood does primary.

As an artist and my background being in art.

I'd see every product that we make as a piece of artwork, and so craftsmanship is top priority.

Making things to our best ability and to have the highest quality is really important for us.

That's basically it for the table saw.

I went to a Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and I was an international business major.

After a year of doing that, I absolutely hated it.

And, I, after doing probably a week of economics classes, I knew I was going to fail out.

So I changed my major to art.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was always drawing.

And, it really took hold in terms of my ability to focus and really want to do, the best that I could at any project.

But I was.

So then, from here, once it's all nailed down, go back in the shop, and the office, and that's where I'll put together the launch.

So I moved here about, eight years ago, but I was in DC for about three years.

Starting the company and then moving here was kind of funny.

I only had bow ties and, like, cufflinks and formal wear.

And when the first, the first show that I did here, a lot of people thought that the bow ties were for their dog.

And so I was like, all right, this might not be the place for bow ties, but, we still keep keeping our in our inventory.

But, I pivoted to to focusing more on sunglasses and watches and things that I was like to, to wear and especially in Colorado.

Sunglasses seem to be our our most popular selling item.

There we go.

Something like that.

I actually did a project with, International Tennis Hall of Fame, and they wanted me to to make earrings out of their tennis rackets.

And then I had some leftover pieces, and I was like, this kind of looks like a like a marquee, you know, like the handle on the tennis racket.

So I did a few pieces out of the tennis rackets.

Then I'm a golfer.

I was like, I should do this with golf clubs and, started doing barware out of the golf clubs.

And then, of course, the watches we've highlighted.

Repurposing material.

That was kind of the first thought was, what could I take and turn it into something else, take something discarded and turn it into something else?

So the the sunglasses or even the bow ties, it was a lot of scrap material that I was using from my sculptures to, to create the, the bow ties.

And then from there it was like, well, the scraps from the bow ties could be something else too.

So and even though is a small piece of scrap, I could turn that into a pair of cufflinks.

And, from there it was like, all right, well, what other fashion accessories can I make?

The watches?

I've always been obsessed with watches.

My grandfather was a watch wear, and I always was checking stuff out on his wrist, and, it seemed impossible for me to make, so I. I did have a manufacturer for the watches for a long time, and it got to a point where I was like, I could do this myself.

I really wanted to.

I dove headfirst into it and fell in love with the whole process.

And really going from making sculptural art that was super large scale, you know, like ten feet wide down to doing something teeny tiny.

It was a really nice job for me that.

So the finished product right there.

So I've been doing it for 11 years now.

And I never I was always doing it by myself, and I always envisioned myself just grinding it out on my own.

So three years ago, again, I was doing everything by myself and thank God I, I asked my sister to help me out at that market three years ago because there's no way I would have been able to do it.

The demand for everything I had was exceeded my wildest expectations.

We sold out of products, and by the last week that we were there, we practically had nothing on our table.

After I did Chris Kindle in fact, three years ago or four years at this point, it actually I was able to generate enough income from that singular show to think about opening up, brick and mortar.

It's amazing.

It can also be stressful at times because everything is on your shoulders to to succeed.

You know, you're can't look at anybody else and point a finger.

You always have to look in the mirror and, you know, say that you're at fault for your own success.

And your, here only because of your own ambitions.

What I love is that I don't have to wake up at any particular time in the morning.

I can get up and get my thoughts going on, what I want to do and what projects I want to focus on.

And so in that way, it's the most liberating, freeing feeling, not having to spend my time on somebody else's dime.

really is impressive work and I love that.

Drew says every piece has its own unique story.

Fascinating work.

For more information about drew and his art community you can go to switch wood.com.

Next, we're shining a light on a powerful group of Colorado artists whose work is shaped by service, resilience and healing.

The veterans Art Council, a nonprofit based out of VFW post one, the very first VFW post in the country, has long provided a creative space for veterans coping with PTSD, depression, and the invisible wounds of war.

Their artwork was honored at the Denver Art Museum, and it was the first time the museum has ever hosted a full exhibit dedicated to veteran artists.

Take a look.

Most of my art is is monochromatic.

I prefer working in monochromatic because I can.

I can see it better with what little vision I have left.

I was shot in the head in Vietnam, and it left bullet fragments in my head.

They said it would cause more damage to try to get them out than it would be.

Just leave them there.

They were small, and it probably would never bother me.

And for 23 years, they didn't.

I was teaching at the University of Colorado.

One day, 23 years after I was shot and in the middle of a really bad migraine.

One of the bullet fragments moved and caused a stroke in my visual cortex, and, I lost my sight in 30 minutes, and I spent the next two years being pretty depressed.

Pretty angry.

One day, after a couple of years of putting up with me, being angry all the time and depressed.

They said that you've always loved art.

You should get back to it.

And my first reaction was, I can't see.

But they they insisted and, they kept pushing me, and I spent I spent the next two years, probably 8 to 10 hours a day, just trying to figure out how to do art again without without the eyesight.

But the more I did, the better I got.

And the better I got, the busier I got.

And, before I knew it, I was so busy with my art I forgot to be angry.

VFW post won its, first ever VFW, which is super cool.

And, the veterans in here have, turned it into an art gallery about ten years ago.

Me and Jim Stevens put together a program at VFW post one, and it turned into the veteran Arts Council that we see today.

I came to the VFW and did an open call.

I was only planning on doing at one time, but I've kind of been here since I was in the United States Navy from 2003 to 2008, and I served in Guantanamo Bay at the detention camp in 2005 and 2006.

I had some personal issues that came up and I basically did not want to live anymore.

And one of my friends who was down here on the day that I was actually thinking about committing suicide, he basically called me up and said, dude, you will not believe what's going down at this new VFW post.

I go, tell me more, you know?

And he goes, he goes.

They kept the art, they kept everything.

And he goes, everybody.

Like, there's VFW artists on the walls.

There's all this other stuff.

And something that night clicked with me, and I ended up going down here.

And I was such at a low point that just that one opportunity that was like, oh, we have empty space filled.

It's just that opportunity made me rethink the way I was doing things.

Maybe I shouldn't be in self service for myself, maybe I should try to do some service for good.

And then I ultimately ended up joining the VFW, and now it's been one of those things that has actually been really fulfilling in my life.

I feel very rich when it comes to the people I know, and even though it's not monetarily, it's like the just the effect in the change that you've seen in your fellow veterans that what art can do for people.

I've been doing art since I was little.

Essentially it started off as like a communication thing for me.

Had a lot of learning disabilities.

Like dyslexia and IT issues.

So it kind of helped me focus.

And then with the childhood that I had with some of the trauma kind of helped me survive in that sense of kind of use.

It as a coping mechanism.

I was in I was in the Army from 96 to 2005, when September 11th happened, took on a whole new meaning.

And I was, you know, fighting for the country and what we believe in and what we stand for.

And so that made all of us that I was with me.

All of us kind of grew up real quick before of that, you know, we're all kind of, you know, kids doing an adult job.

I photography of post military, has been definitely a way of, release of stress.

Attention of, you know, the daily grind.

And it's definitely a way to to release all the pent up energy or pent up stress from the week and a great way to unwind.

And so it definitely has helped me, cope with just life in general.

And this is such a big deal that we're getting this opportunity to show at the Denver Art Museum.

It's huge.

I'm very proud that I'm part of this, veterans Art Council and that we have opportunities like this.

I, I got the idea, actually, from my six year old grandson.

Really?

Yeah.

Many years ago.

So today we are holding our reception for the Veterans Arts Council community spotlight.

Reality.

Yes, I mean, 90 and just in general, that's what I thought.

You're our oldest artist here this past year, and it's called Beyond the Military.

From combat to canvas.

And so, this exhibition is a celebration of veteran artist in the Denver community.

I served on the Korean and now, Cold War veteran.

I was in the Marine Corps for eight years.

They were talking about in the opening.

Know it's been a year in process that I've been here just over a year in the in the VFW art gallery.

And in that year, I've been in the senator's office of Congress, whose office the VA hallway, a different art gallery all together.

And now I'm in the Denver Art Museum.

And the running joke that I've been making to my friends is, I'm in.

I'm in the Denver Art Museum, and I'm not dead.

I'm.

I'm literally, legitimately in the Denver Art Museum.

It's actually 12 shots, taken in rapid succession and then stack together.

It's a yeah, a drawing.

I, the cathedral rockets were exactly the gods.

It was done in graphite.

It's painted on over a thousand strings, eight layers deep.

Her hair looks like lungs.

So it's learning to breathe and to take a breath and to find mindfulness and and to center yourself.

Frankly, I feel great for these men and women, and it's just recognition outside of their service.

But at the same token, for many of them, it's the art that's develop them beyond their service, beyond the the whatever problems they encountered from their service.

Art pulled them through.

And I'm just glad we were able to get this done for them.

It means so much to me how much I've gained in the past year.

For some veterans, it was the difference between life and death.

There's veterans here that literally when they got into our museum and they got going in the, in the, in the gallery or the VFW, it was it changed your perspective.

It gave them an outlet.

You got other veteran artists looking around at each other going, oh, I've been there with you.

I know what you're going through.

I can feel your feelings for people.

Think of veterans.

They think of military service, duty, perhaps combat or not.

And, sometimes it doesn't go beyond the fact that there are veterans.

But veterans are people, and they do more than they're more than just their military service.

And in this case, they're artists as well.

So, yeah, it's, cannot heal.

Yeah, I learned that.

I mean, that personally.

Although the exhibit has left the Denver Museum, now, you can get more information on the veterans Art Council by going to veterans Art Council.

Dot org.

Jazz has long shaped the cultural identity of Denver's Five Points neighborhood, not just through music, but through art, history and community.

Darryl Anderson is a Denver based visual artist whose work draws inspiration from jazz, translating its rhythm and movement into bold, colorful imagery from gallery exhibitions to large scale public art installations at Denver International Airport and RTD transit stations.

Anderson's work is rooted in his desire to unite the world through art.

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go.

Don't you know the tune?

First name is Darrell.

Name.

And last name is Anderson.

Okay, yeah.

You can integrate some of that in there.

And, now let's go on down to looky blue.

I like to be known as an international artist.

I was born a block up the street, from the RA.

Sonia.

So there's such a strong relationship with wonderful things to talk about, about how this whole community has grown.

My work from 40 years of doing this has taken me all over the world.

And for me, that's very, very important because I was born on the five.

I always had a desire.

And in the beginning, when I would create art to get away from that dysfunctional environment, I was raised here.

So it was a safeguard.

It was a place that I could get, lost in my imagination.

As I got older, I went to, East High School, and there was a teacher there named Dick Art who taught art, and he told me that, you know, one day you probably could become an artist.

So my time, in the military, when I got drafted, when I was a flight attendant for a while, and quitting that job and doing this full time.

And ever since then, I followed my dream.

If you don't follow your passion, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

Zero zero.

Oh, yeah.

You can do some of that.

To be born and raised here.

And, it's about giving back.

You know, I think it's very important from where I came from, the accomplishments that I've made in my life, that I share those with my community that, put out there that anything is possible.

I remember, the Russ Onion was my studio for a while.

So people would come into the Russ owning.

What are you doing in here?

And it was like I would engage the community to make art.

Matter of fact, RTD did mosaics that I had a chance to do and all the handicapped stations.

But the train wasn't here yet, so the, community wasn't too fond of that.

So I switched from where I was supposed to do the public art, and I brought it to Five Points, and I had everybody at the time in the community helped me make those mosaics.

So all of a sudden, the are know, reunited with Community United was RTD.

Hence the train runs and and now there's people who take ownership because of that, because of the way I was able to engage.

You know, dance makes my heart sing.

Dance will take you all over the place and bring you back home, settled down into you.

And my mind is constantly traveling.

The way jazz does.

You can do it, old man.

To me, it's one of the cornerstones of the existence of who I am in this community.

With, the Russians and the jazz that happened down here.

When the casino cavalry did their thing and brought all these jazz musicians in here a while back, while I still had that, the Russian Odeon as a studio.

So, this visual dynamic of putting swirls and movement is too present for, for people to rehearse how jazz is formulated.

So I'm visually trying to show the sound of jazz on a two dimensional surface.

Oh, yeah.

See?

Okay.

Trying to get up for Let's Dance.

We have fascinating people in our community.

One of the gifts I've gotten over time is having a relationship with this wonderful human being who has added so much to my life, what he has done for our community, what he has done for me, the way his music scenes, not just with the piano, but the way he sings with his giving.

He has affected so many different people in the community of Denver.

He's like a music survived, but the roots of that lies into his beautiful memory.

Yeah, he could quote what he was doing on a certain day.

What year?

Who is with and, what he accomplished.

So that was my delicious relatio Because of the influence that, Pernell had in my life.

So I want to document, Pernell in a in a public setting because there's so many people who knew from now, he's an icon in our community.

He's done so much for so many people, music wise, giving it space and time.

And it was always a pleasure for him.

We would go down five points during the jazz festival, and he would play the Five Points Jazz Festival and just talk about, how the whole place has changed.

I can make his image last forever, and hopefully it outlives me.

I needed to make sure that I take care of my community by making something visual that will last and represent who and what our community is about.

So it's just an honor and a privilege to make him live forever.

Having this to happen is going to be exciting and wonderful because, you know, when I totally get out of the way, it turns out to be wonderful arts.

And what he's done to show this artwork.

For me, it's pretty awesome because I get to come back to my community and make a difference to.

It's a variety of the kind of work that I do because, I'm kind of all over the place.

I've never to succumb to one particular form of art.

I do public art.

I do all kind of fascinating things.

And for me, it's about taking a risk to see if I can do it.

An accomplishment that scares me half to death.

And then all of a sudden I make it happen, and it just puts in, the residents of my mind that anything is possible.

To learn more about Darryl and his art so you can go to Darryl.

Innocent com.

For a lot of comedians, there's that one place, the stage where it all begins.

For Denver's own Josh blue.

That place became more than a stepping stone.

It became home.

In this piece, you'll hear how one moment of belief helped launch a career that now spans the globe.

Up there you see in the windows there's all the bells of the upcoming comics.

I remember standing in the window looking at all of this, and one day my face is going to be in this window, and I said, we believe you.

And like they said, in a way that was like, not like me.

Okay, buddy, whatever you say.

They really like it was a weird, like, moment that just stuck in my head.

And then within like three month It's 25 years later, and it's still.

So coming here every, every chance I get.

And I travel the world.

You know, I do 200 shows a year, but I get to come back to this place and it makes me so happy.

Like in the United.

Come here.

You know who's on there?

Probably going to ask me to jump on stage and do five minutes, because these are where my friends work and this is my family and, you know, you Christmas parties and birthday parties together.

Yeah.

And some of the staff here, the woman that's been here like, my whole career at 10 or 25 years.

So many people are stuck in their own heads and their ruts and their whatever.

I think the key is just to do it.

Obviously, I do stand up because I love doing it, and I kind of don't care whether you come along with me or not.

I'm having a good time, but I think that's like contagious.

It's like just having fun is contagious.

My name's Josh blue.

I'm a stand up comedian, and I tour all over the world doing that.

And, Yeah, You can get more information on comedian Josh blue at Josh blue.com.

He's currently touring outside of Colorado, but look out for dates for when he will be back.

From muralist and musicians to woodworkers, veterans and comedians.

We hope tonight's heart of the West special introduce you to some of the incredible talent that lives and thrives right here in Colorado.

You can find all of tonight's stories, along with more original programing from PBS 12 on our YouTube channel and at PBS 12.org.

Thanks so much for joining us for Colorado Stories from studio 12 with this heart of the West special.

I'm Ryan Hare and I'm Bob Cannady.

Have a great week.