Cover: "The delicate balance of arts districts"

Welcome to another Colorado Sunday, friends.

An easy sense of exhilaration sets in this time of year, as spring takes off and new life shoots up through the cracks, all around us.

But what about all the potential beauty that just needs a little coaxing to break through?

It’s a question we’ve spent a lot of time considering here at The Colorado Sun, as we work to highlight the vitality and diversity of the Colorado arts scene through our coverage, and consider how our state can better cultivate the natural talent in our midst, elevating unheard voices. On Wednesday, The Sun partnered with the Loveland Creative District and ARTWORKS to host a mixer with communities from the three organizations. Nearly 40 guests joined the conversation and learned about The Sun’s reporting on creative districts in Colorado.

Those who couldn’t attend can check out this week’s cover story by Parker Yamasaki, a nuanced, comprehensive look at how artists enclaves all over the state take small seed grants and seek to grow them into entire ecosystems, with varying degrees of success.

Thank you to those of you who made it to last week’s mixer — our team enjoyed meeting you! Do you have ideas for us on where we should hold our next reader event? Email sunevents@coloradosun.com to let us know.

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The Artway, hanging above the Rio Grande recreational pathway, is a collaboration between the town and the local transportation authority to create art along the popular biking and running paved trail, March 28, 2024, in Carbondale.(Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

As a statewide arts reporter there’s a lot I miss — and I think that’s a good thing. Our state has more creative folks and organizations doing cool things than I could ever hope to cover. The idea for a series on designated Colorado creative districts, a program administered by Colorado Creative Industries, started as a way to build a structure around where to go, whom to meet and what to see.

The more time I spent digging into the individual districts, though, the more unique challenges and characteristics I found among them. It raised the question: How does the state standardize something as abstract as art and creativity? In other words, how can Colorado package places that are, by their nature, accustomed to thinking outside of the box?

For this week’s Colorado Sunday, I decided to pull the lens back a bit, to look at both the advantages of cultivating a creative district and the challenges the program faces as a whole, as it tries to wrangle an extremely diverse set of communities into a single program.

The main thing I learned from reporting this story is that culture doesn’t just happen by accident. There’s a lot of people working really hard to catalyze creativity and a creative industry. But what that looks like in Sterling is different from what it looks like on Santa Fe Drive in Denver. In the following weeks and months I’ll visit the districts and pick out some highlights for you to learn about, or, hopefully, check out for yourself. And if you know of anyone doing cool things in a creative district, write to me at parker@coloradosun.com.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE

​​In case you missed it, we’ve curated our own visual feed of reporting to catch you up. Here are a few of our favorite recent snippets of everyday places, people and moments from every corner of Colorado.

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Barista David Jepson makes a latté at the recently opened Purple Door Coffee on Wednesday in Denver. Jepson, 34, spent years being homeless as a teenager. About 45 people, some still living on the streets, have gone through nonprofit Dry Bones’ job readiness program to enter the workforce at the coffee shop and elsewhere. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
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Michelle Chavez and two of her kids, Thaddeus Chavez, 10, and Azzan Booker, 18, stand outside Chavez’s accessory dwelling unit in the family’s backyard March 13 in west Denver. Chavez rents out the accessory dwelling unit — complete with a front porch and French doors — to a family who had previously been unhoused. (Eli Imadali, Special to The Colorado Trust)
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Cathy Woods-Sullivan, who sold her wedding ring at a pawn shop to pay her medical bills, recently received an anonymous donation of $1,000 to retrieve it. The 18-karat white gold ring was given to her by her late husband on their wedding day. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
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Sculptor Jane DeDecker, center, shows a clay model of a sculpture depicting Queen Lili’uokalani on Wednesday at her studio in Loveland. Liliʻuokalani was the only queen regnant and the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the early 1890s. The queen was forcefully removed during the United States’ annexation of Hawaii and confined and imprisoned in her home for eight months. DeDecker’s recent work is inspired by her own family and notable women throughout American history. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
A young skier approaches the Nordic Center at Snow Mountain Ranch near Granby on March 23, 2024. (Katie Benzel, Special to The Colorado Sun)

After narrowly escaping a March snowstorm that buried parts of Colorado’s high country, my family and I were lucky to hunker down in style, joining five friends in a shared cabin at YMCA of the Rockies’ Snow Mountain Ranch near Granby for an extended weekend of cross-country skiing, group meals, game nights and lounging by the fire.

What a way to enjoy the last chills of winter. This was our first time staying at the 5,100-acre camp established in 1969, and it’s safe to say it ticked all our boxes for a satisfying Colorado getaway at an affordable price. For us, the main draw was the quarter-mile drive to the Nordic center, where skiers can rent everything they need before setting off to explore roughly 50 miles of rolling trails catering to all skill levels. Children and beginners will love the gentle, undulating terrain of the novice greens. Most of our party stuck to blues and blacks, enjoying the stout climbs and putting our grasp of the snowplow maneuver to the test.

Once we’d had our fill of skiing each day, we made a beeline for the tubing hill, recovering our energy while bombing down iced-over slopes. For those who tire of the snow, the ranch has crafts, an indoor climbing wall, a game room and a calendar full of events.

Our 4-bedroom cabin ran about $160 per family per night, once we split the costs. It was clean and comfortable, and enviably rustic. A kitchen came stocked with dishes, cookware and a coffee maker, and the cozy living room was anchored by a stone fireplace that we fed until it roared. We slept in bunkbeds — our 7-year-old wouldn’t have it any other way — and in the mornings coped with a shower that was either too cold or too hot.

When our reservation was up, the roads were again clear of snow and ice, but no one wanted to leave.

EXCERPT: In Carter Wilson’s ninth thriller, “The Father She Went to Find,” he tells the story of a young woman, Penny Bly, with acquired savant syndrome — a condition that has instilled some unique skills — as she searches for the father who abruptly exited her life as a child. This excerpt describes a scene in which she reveals one of her particular abilities — the means to create incredible images.

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Since Wilson doesn’t outline his novels, the story emerges bit by bit as he’s writing. The same holds for any sort of theme. If there is one at all, it reveals itself to him at some point well into his writing. He’s a slice of his Q&A:

SunLit: Do thrillers like yours generally have an overarching theme – and specifically, anything that readers should take from this particular book?

Wilson: I never sit down with a thematic intention for a book. Instead, I usually just start writing and try to be as true to my characters as I can, examining their flaws, their moral compasses, and ultimately their choices.

It’s often the case that, about two-thirds into my first draft, a theme emerges on its own. In the case of “The Father She Went to Find,” I realized the story was really about fear of abandonment, and what a person will do to face and overcome that fear.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH CARTER WILSON

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

Jessie Anderson, 20, completes astronomy work March 20, 2024, during night school in Colorado Springs. Anderson attends an alternative school, Career Readiness Academy, which offers a night school program for students in and out of Harrison School District 2. More than 30 students are currently enrolled with 15-20 attending each night. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

🌞 For some students at Sierra High School in Colorado Springs, the day begins just as dusk sets in and their classmates head home. In a state that struggles with its drop-out rate, Erica Breunlin tells how 93 night schools and similar alternative schools in Colorado educated more than 28,000 students in 2022-2023.

🌞 Rep. Lauren Boebert is conspicuously absent from the race to win a special election in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, but that has done little to tamp down the drama. On Thursday, a Republican vacancy committee chose former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez to be its candidate for the June 25 special election that will determine who serves out the term of retired U.S. Rep. Ken Buck. Jesse Paul reports that Lopez is a two-time failed gubernatorial candidate with a history of run-ins with the law — though Lopez told reporters that’s old news.

🌞 The Leadville area has spent decades cleaning up the toxic aftermath of hundreds of dormant silver, lead and zinc hardrock mines. Now, Jason Blevins writes, residents are fearful that a proposal to revive part of another old gold and silver mine could jerk them back into the past, and place the Arkansas River under renewed threat.

🌞 Colorado’s Native American tribes were left out when the state negotiated a key operating agreement for the Colorado River in 2007. According to Shannon Mullane, they’re demanding a seat at the table as the state negotiates new agreements to take effect in 2027.

🌞 A developer in Steamboat Springs pitched a project capable of turning around the town’s housing crunch by building affordable housing for up to 6,000 people. And with $24 million in backing from an anonymous donor, it seemed to be on solid footing, Jason Blevins reports — until voters in the community of 13,000 killed the plan.

🌞Reducing the price of prescription drugs is a goal that’s united health care advocates for decades. John Ingold has the story of how Colorado’s attempt to cap drug prices has led to a major lawsuit against the state from pharmaceutical giant Amgen.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and don’t forget to appreciate the art all around you — for art’s sake!

— Lance & the whole staff of The Sun

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

This byline is used for articles and guides written collaboratively by The Colorado Sun reporters, editors and producers.