New York is the city that never sleeps, Los Angeles is the City of Angels, and Paris is known as the City of Lights…but Peter Kozma may beg to differ on that last one. You see, any city where the Hungarian artist happens to be putting on one of his stunning public light art installations might just pilfer that moniker, at least temporarily. Kozma has previously projected massive images onto plazas, streets, and buildings to transform city environments such as Helsinki, Budapest, and Essen into spectacles of shape, light, and color. Next up, Kozma is seeking to unleash his several state of his art high performance “Pani Slide” projectors on the fair city of Denver, Colorado, thanks to a sponsorship by local Denver arts organization, The Invisible Museum. Before Kozma turns the Mile-High City into a Mile-High movie screen he’ll be visiting from April 3rd to 13th to select a location and plan the installation. If you happen to be in Denver on those days, we recommend checking out Kozma’s speech at the Denver Art Museum on April 8th, as part of the museum’s Design Council Lecture Series. It’s sure to be enlightening...(oh yes we did).

Many people would describe their workspace as organized chaos. Sure it's a mess, but amidst all the printouts, post-its and files, at least they know where everything is. That's more or less the principle behind Denver-based designer Daniel Vigil's “Cubicle”, a full custom cut and sewn exquisite 9 color polo featuring the controlled chaos of an indecipherable script tag behind an acid yellow pocket as well as an assortment of geometric vs. organic shapes. The shirt is also adorned with the words “Also enjoyed with pleated khakis over a nice seafood dinner,” making it equally wearable for casual Friday or a night on the town.

Denver furniture duo David Larabee and Dexter Thornton have been doing a little self-promotion around the mile-high city in preparation for their upcoming show at the 400. It’s kind of like graffiti, but instead of getting up with spraypaint you sort of get down with… seating. Using a fairly solid-looking powertool, David and Dexter (i.e., DoubleButter and Milkweed) have been prancing around Denver’s newest art museums, throwing benches (of their own designs, I presume) into cemented areas primed for a seated pause. You can check out the video of the boys in action here, and browse their beautiful and modern full line here. And, if you happen to be in the area this Friday, head to Denver’s best shoe gallery to check out their first foray into upholstered (read: hairy) furniture.

I’m sure more than a few of our readers will be heading west this week for the AIGA Design Conference in Denver, where speakers like Paul Budnitz of Kidrobot and Bill Buxton of Microsoft (and about a hundred other big names) will be sharing their predictions for the future of design. Aside from being the most exciting thing to happen this side of the Rockies since, um, THE ROCKIES MADE THE PLAYOFFS, the AIGA conference will be an awesome opportunity to meet and mingle with potential collaborators, friends, and lovers. Registration is still open if you’re hoping for a last-minute chance to sign up, and if you think there’s any chance you’ll have some free time to hunt around Denver, feel free to contact me — I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction(s).

If you’re going to be in Denver in mid October, you’ll want to take a stroll down California Street — it’s the site of this year’s Urban Forest Project, in which 24 local professional designers and 24 local design students will create banners that will hang up and down the street for two weeks. Each banner references trees (or tree-ness) in some way, and the results are sure to be eclectic.

Last year’s Urban Forest Project took over the area around Times Square in New York (you can see what those banners looked like here) and this year, the project is working to put their beliefs into practice. All the banners will be made of Ecophab, a material made from recycled plastic bottles; when the banners are taken down at the end of the event, they will be turned into messenger bags and sold by Alchemy Goods (proceeds going to charity, of course). So good work all around here. Maybe nobody’s actually planting a tree, but these designers are working to place the idea of a tree in as many heads as possible. And Denver residents and visitors will finally have something to look at besides the Rockies. Sorry, Denver.

Spear Collective member and local hero Jason Thielke has a solo show coming up this Friday in Denver, so if you find yourself with some downtime in between work and your Friday night romp, head over to Birds @ The 400, where Jason will be selling 400 new works…for $50 dollars each.

That’s right — $50 bucks for a little slice of Thielke. Actually, it’s not really a little slice; all the pieces I’ve seen so far are pretty generously sized. And for those of you unfamiliar with this sort of show, you’ve gotta be there to call dibs. That means, the sooner you get there, the more likely you’ll wind up with a whole wall’s worth of paintings for under $200. Things officially run from 6-10pm, but be aware that the last time I attended a show like this, the best stuff was snatched up after barely 20 minutes (read: plan your entrance with care, because the hawks will be out).

Last week, thanks to the nice people at RecCenter, I was able to catch a Bloc Party set at the Ogden Theater in Denver (FYI– RecCenter is a musically inclined social network definitely worth checking out– add a measure of music, a pinch of people, and a cup of community; mix together with custom profiles and share). The Ogden has come a long way since the mid 90’s, when I regularly attended punk shows there. The new, spruced up version is most certainly one of my favorite venues in Colorado. To the crowd’s delight, the band played a diverse mix of songs from both their sophomore release ‘A Weekend in the City‘ and their rookie sensation album ‘Silent Alarm.’ U.K. based Bloc Party is one of those bands that gets – and deservingly so – a lot of attention from DJ’s and Mash-Up Artists (good resource here), but I’ve also been consistently impressed with their live performances. The band is a lot more versatile than most people give them credit for… the very same day of the show at the Ogden, lead singer Kele Okereke also played an impressive (and slower) acoustic set on radio station KBCO in Boulder. A few more photos from the show follow after the jump, courtesy of my not-as-gimp-as-I-am friend Bart Lorang.
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Spear Collective artist and super-good-friend of mine Jason Thielke has a show with Jeremy Wineberg at the Space Gallery in Denver. The artist reception is this coming Wednesday, May 9th from 6-10pm– if you make it, be sure to congratulate Thielke for his recent entrance into fatherhood. The work looks to be amazing…as always!

Mickey Zeppelin is no stranger to praise regarding his progressive and innovative Denver developments, but the expansion of his TAXI project in River North is leaving Colorado’s creative types battling through fresh pools of drool, desperate to get their hands on Zeppelin’s latest work/living space. TAXI has been developed around the concept of an affordable “new economy,” workplace center, which, in theory, allows non-conventional businesses and artistic residents to fuse in an energetically and mentally stimulating manner, thereby positively influencing the creative output of the community. Phase 1 of TAXI has been fully occupied since it’s introduction a few years ago, and was chosen as the Best Creative Workspace in Colorado by the Colorado Business Coalition for the Arts last year. Phase 2 is just under four times the size of Phase 1, and plans for further expansion include a full five buildings of commercial and retail development, all based around the same concept of luring creative entrepreneurs into a high-passion environment. The all-around mindfulness of the green and wired approaches to TAXI are to be admired, but my real inspiration comes from the unique focus on the creativity expected to come out of TAXI in response to the creativity put into it– what a beautiful approach to development.

For all of you designer/snowboarder hybrids out there… Design Within Reach’s Denver Studio is playing host to the 2007 Design the Modern Board competition. The event is being sponsored by Ride Snowboards, who will also review the final submissions to determine if they want to use one or more of the deigns on one of their ‘in-line boards’ (whatever that is). The winner of the contest itself, however, will be determined by the attendees of the March 29th judging event at the Denver Studio. If you’re interested, you can find additional info and a list of prizes here. Keep in mind that you must email your intent to compete to denver@dwr.com no later than March 2nd (that’s this Friday). Proceeds go to the Snowboard Outreach Society, which helps at-risk youth get out on the slopes– a great cause, and a really fun way to fundraise if you ask me.

Our friend Christopher Cox (the genius behind ChangeTheThought) has a solo exhibition tomorrow in Denver at The 400. He’s calling the show “Pop It Like It’s Hot”– since a lot of his work is influenced by street culture and is essentially pop art. He’s got a ton of new work framed and ready to take home– he’ll also be unveiling 3 new t-shirts and hoodie designs at the show. Music, free food, free drinks, and free love. Drop by if you’re in the Denver area, full invite after the jump.
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Jason Thielke just dropped me a line about an interesting show coming up at Limited Addiction, a new gallery on Santa Fe Drive in Denver, CO. The Grand Opening Reception: is Feb 17th, 7-10pm. Limited Addiction has a very disappointing website, but they’re located at 825 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO. Full list of artists (it’s huge) that will be showing after the jump!

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When I was in college, a lot of my friends went through that ‘I want a dog’ stage. I never could understand why young, jet-set people would ever want to get a dog. Who is going to take care of the dog when you leave town? Answer: their friends without dogs who chose not to get their own dog because they had the foresight to realize the difficulties that come along with being a pet owner who is frequently away from the house; funny how that works. Enter boutique pet care company Out-U-Go. Out-U-Go is leading the way toward a workable situation for on-the-go pet owners, by providing professional, detailed services like daily dog walks ($15 for 25 min. walk), kitty care, house sitting, vacation care, and critter care. A state of the art computer system allows Out-U-Go to service more clients in a given day, and provides flexibility by giving clients the capability to add, cancel, or change their reservations online or by phone. Out-U-Go currently operates in Chicago, IL, Oak Park, IL, and Denver, CO– but look for them to expand to a city near you soon.

I wanted to give a special nod to the ingenuity behind the campaign promoting Waking Rothko, a local Denver band clearly comprised of more than just stoner musicians– they’re musical strategists. The first EP encourages unauthorized duplication, in fact they say duplication is much appreciated. Each disc is also what they call a ‘traveling CD’– that is, each CD has a code on the back that you type into their handy CD Tracker and find out where it’s been and add your name, location and comments to the log. They ask you to leave it on busses, in taxis, park benches, etc. Also, they produce all their own performances in undisclosed locations– only the first 500 people to sign up in each city are added to the list and invited. Clearly influenced by relationships and making music, give Waking Rothko a listen and support good people making good music by buying their EP on iTunes.

Looking to catch some chaos on wheels? Denver Roller Dolls will jam you senseless. This 70's-reminiscent girl-on-girl skater sport was invented in the 1930's and is finally enjoying a reckless and well-deserved revival. But mercy is not in the mix. The four eight-woman teams are uber-athletes and wear plenty of protective gear. With names like Daytona Beeotch, Kitty Kaos, Dharma Gedden and my own good graphic designer friend Fawn Stalking (aka Denise Dambrackas), you'll soon see that these sisters mean serious kick-butt business. In addition, all skaters are required to do monthly community service hours for sponsor-dedicated causes. Catch the Shotgun Betties crash and collide with the Bad Apples (and don't miss the afterparty, which according to rumor, includes cream-corned wrestling) at the Denver Colliseum throughout 2006.