Tonight on studio 12.

It's our very first heart of the West special.

We are celebrating Colorado's vibrant arts scene and the creators who turn everyday moments into masterpiece.

This from a crochet artist who transforms the Denver Art Museum into a colorful expression of self-discovery, to an Aurora art park where local and international artist are bringing community to life.

We'll also meet Bala who blends her Indian heritage with modern design, and then an artist who became blin and found a new way to create.

We're also showing you a stained glass maker who turns light into story, and a stop motion artist who lit up downtown Denver's clock tower.

These are the voices the visions and vibrant spirit that make Colorado's art scene so relevant and alive.

This is the heart of the West, and it all starts right now.

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

This is studio 12.

Hi, I'm Bazzi Kainani and I'm Ryan Heron.

Welcome to studio 12.

The first heart of the West special.

Meet Colorado artist Sadie Young, a multimedia and crochet creato who has transformed the Denver Art Museum into a vibrant, emotional playground.

Her latest exhibit, The Tangled Self, is created with spectral art space.

It invites visitors to literally step inside the mouth of monsters through color, texture, and fiber.

Say the explores why we sometimes see the negative parts of ourselves more clearly than the good.

And at the heart of her art is a personal thread a connection to her grandmother who taught her how to crochet for the very first time.

Take a look.

Okay.

This is better.

Yeah.

The biggest part of the mesh.

It's, like, hard not to smile.

And you're doing it.

It's such a funny thing to do with yarn, but.

And then I did the edges, where I always do the edges last.

And the circle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You tend to get fast at crocheting when it's all you do for six months.

Yeah.

Crocheting in and of itself is.

It's like a puzzle trying to figure out, like, how to make the exact shape.

My name is Katie Young.

My grandma.

Very young.

She taught me how to crochet.

I am Sadie's, Sadie Young's grandmother.

Well, you crochet fast, Sadie.

Me?

Oh, yeah.

I always tell people this little story.

She was probably, I don't know, 7 or 8 years old or maybe younger.

She wanted to learn how to crochet.

I was like, maybe four.

And she taught me how to do just like a simple, like, base chain.

So I taught her how to chain.

I don't know if you a chain is just one stitch after the othe and it just makes a long rope.

Tommy had a chain, and then I was convinced that I was going to make the longest chain in the world and, like, break a record at, like, four years old.

So she was going to break the record.

So we lived in a three story, three level with a basement house.

I just like made chains nonstop up and down her four story house.

So she made that chai long enough to go all the way, all down the stairs and all over.

Yeah, that was the start of it.

That's how she started.

And that was the only thing I taught her.

The rest is on her.

Right now it's just one, one, two, three, 4 or 5.

Over and over is the part that I'm at.

Yeah.

At first she would do, like, crochet beanies, caps and just little animals.

She made me a little animal and she made up the pattern.

She didn't.

Yeah.

She just does it.

I like the idea of making stuff that is accessible, like affordable.

So then that just evolved into this.

Well, where?

Inside of my, new installation called The Tangled Self at the Denver Art Museum.

It's giant, crazy, super colorful fiber art installation that represents our inne monsters as well as the positive aspects of ourselves.

She just went way beyond any of my capabilities in I think it was 2021.

I did my first really big yarn installation, at Spectra Artspace.

Spectra Artspace is a gallery and an immersive experience in Denver on South Broadway.

One of the staff members at the Art museum had actually visited spectra, and it was not one.

That installation was up.

They just kind of came and saw one of our immersive and then reach out to me and interviewed me just to kind of like, I don't know, kind of vibe, check in with me in like, all that.

And they kind of told me about all these, like, different opportunitie that they had here for artists and specifically told me about the Precor area and how they wanted something that was interactive and immersive and, how much they love to be immersive.

At spectra.

And then they said I could do it.

I was like trying to think of, like, different things to do.

And then I was like you need to follow your heart.

You want to do fiber art.

So it was kind o like the first time in ten years where I did my art just for my art.

That wasn't a part of spectra.

Almost a year ag today is when I kind of, like, really started.

We met in this phase, and the it really took off from there.

And I did the full plan and.

I started crocheting, and I was so delighted that she asked me to mak the little leaves for the vines.

It was like an average of like 12 hours a day, I would say, of either crocheting or, tufting.

So pretty much nonstop.

When I'm crocheting, it' not my hands or like my wrist.

Like most people thin it's my back and like my neck.

It's like spinal stuff.

I didn't realize, like, crocheting that much.

And like that often and consistently.

Like daily.

What a tol it actually takes on your body.

It's actually like a very physically.

I don't I don't know if demanding is the right word, but, yeah, I went through some, like, chronic pain just because of, like, sitting and lik just the position that I was in.

So I think that was like the hardest part was just getting through the, the pain and figuring out how to say I actually bought like four new chairs during this project to try and figure out, like, the best way to say it, because I wasn't used to sitting that much, especially when I was like working in spectra.

It would be like two three days in the studio if I was lucky.

And then I'm standing all day at spectra.

When I first started college, I was a psych major, so I did three years of psychology in college before I switched to art.

That is really what inspired the concept behind this and then personal experience too.

I crochet monster because there's a lot of freedom in crocheting a monster, because it doesn't have to look like anything specifically.

And it's fun and it can be silly, and it's a silly way to represent something that can be dark.

Like they're named after what I was dealing with at the time, in a way.

So, like when I was making Defeated the Dragon, I think there was like, I can't remember exactly but I remember feeling defeated and then being like, okay, I'm going to make a dragon.

But I just remember feeling that feeling, and it's like a very human thing to, like, feel these feelings and you're not alone if you feel them.

It helped me like, deal with it so much, just like making it.

And I was like, oh, that wasn't so bad.

I'm like, I'm not defeated.

I I'm resilient.

I can make it through this, you know?

A lot of them were kind of like what I was dealing with at the time that I was making them, and that's where their names came from.

My group from where I live all went and they were just all amazing.

When I build immersive experiences, whether it's this one or the ones that specter, I really want them to be accessible and I really want them to be inclusive.

I don't build these things for adults, for kids, for rich people, or middle class or poor people or like, I don't build them for specific people.

I build them so that they can be interacted with or enjoyed by everybody.

Her tangled self is very just it's just good.

Makes people think.

But in high school, I had this mindset that art wasn' like what you go to school for?

I'm selling my art for a living.

I'm doing pop up art show like I'm literally doing this.

Why wouldn't I go to school for it?

So I think the signs are always there, but I think it took me taking that studio art class and that ar history class to realize like, oh, dude, you're doing this like, and this is everything that you love in school.

Art history is psychology, sociology, anatomy, theology.

It's like all these things and history.

I loved all of it.

And and philosophy, it's like all in one.

This is what you want to do.

You're already doing it.

She's my idol.

Really?

She is.

I'm very proud of her.

If people like, come in, then they're like, oh, I'm so inspired by, like, you're immersive.

Like, I'm going to go home and like, do something in my art or like the art here just made me want to go home and paint.

It's like, that's amazing.

So if we can inspire you to create in any capacity because it is a ver healing thing if you let it be.

That that's amazing.

Conceptually, I hope that people come in and know that if they are feeling some of these like negative feelings, that they're not alone, and then maybe like icing on the cake, they feel like they are worthy or enough or resilient or any of that, or loved or any of those things that can just like maybe they needed to hear that, and then they leave feeling like they did.

When you can do something you love and hopefully make living at it, that's success.

The Tangled Self exhibit is open right now at the Denver Art Museum.

For more information, visit Denver Art museum.org.

And for more information on Kati and her work, you can go to her website at Spectra artspace.com.

Colorado's Front Range is home to a growing collection of public art.

And at Hogan Park in the Aurora Highlands, a new art park is bringing local and international artists together to create something truly unique.

We spoke with two of the artists one from right here in Colorado, and another all the way from Berlin, as they put the finishing touches on their collaborative installations.

Here's more.

My artist name is Snyder.

I am a mural artist from Berlin, Germany, and I'm out here to paint for the Aurora Highlands.

My name is Kendall.

Complete.

All of my work is based on glaciers, ice, sno and like the movement of water.

And that's the imager that I use to source my designs.

But I also think, like conceptually, I think that idea of water and change and environment and how water changes a landscape and shapes it, is a mirror to our inner world.

And so a lot of my work includes like poetic statement like in the other one that says, don't let me go and in the tunnel or standing in it rea stillness, which is in German.

Can you feel me?

Which is a phrase that is about the unmeasured energy that you feel when you experience an art installation or something that moves you.

The first time I got approached was by, Carla who is the curator of all this, and she bought a print of mine a couple of years later.

Olivia Steel reached out to me.

She knows my work from Berlin because she also has a studio there.

And, we always wanted to collaborate on a project.

When she came here to install her art.

It was clear that we could do that collaboration here in one of those tunnels.

So the story of this tunnel is that Olivia came up with a phrase, which is a quote by Robert Frost.

The only way out is true.

And this became the theme of our project, reminding us that perseverance is key when you g through the challenges of life.

We decided to make the message even stronger by painting all of the tunnel so that it becomes more or less an immersive experience.

I love painting outside because I get a direct response from people passing by.

Whereas in the studio you're all by yourself alone for hours and hours, and painting outside is much more fun to me.

So the phrase says the only way out is through.

And the other day and then who lived here in this communit passed by a local and said to me that whenever he doe his work out out here and he's running through the tunnel, this helps him keep going.

So that's one of the things, one of the smal interactions I like about this painting outside that you, you really get to kno what people think of your art.

It's the first time I have painted an enclosed outdoor tunnel space.

So fighting the elements of wind and cold and heat.

And then you're also in the public, so you have interruption.

But that also is the best part of it, because you get to see how the art is affecting people as you're installing it.

There were a lot of challenges during this project.

The weather, of course, it was very hot in between.

I have to wear a full fac mask all the time when painting.

And the wind.

The wind is probably the worst because it's channeled in the tunnel and you have much more wind in here, which is obviously bad for spring.

This particular project is unique because I am collaborating with another artist, Snyder, who lives in Berlin.

So we didn't have a whole lot of time together in planning to prepare.

But Carla saw that both of our styles really complement each other and wanted the local presence of artist here in Denver and Aurora and, you know, the surrounding areas here in Colorado, but also international representation.

And I think she really saw it as an opportunity to bring not only this community together, but different artists from around the world.

The cool thing about traveling and painting is, for me actually meeting people, meeting new people, and we are like the stree art community is is a community.

I can go wherever I want in the world.

I will always find people who are like minded and I'm always able to connect wherever I go through my art.

I think what's special for my art is that I'm using this, effect optical effect called chromatic aberration.

That's where my colors come from.

And then I have these fluid shapes, and I'm using these colors for everything I paint, whether it's abstract, like most of the parts in this tunnel or animals or portraits and, that's some kind of my distinguishable, distinguishable style.

There's so many moments in life where you're sharing an experience with someone, and you can just feel that they feel the same way, and it might be slightly different, but that's what makes us human and connects us.

So this piece particularly is especially being here in the Highlands, is about how do we feel about bringing this type of art park in this gallery, this international gallery, to a space that's accessible, public and open daily to anyone who wants to visit and, and, you know, instead of telling people how to feel, it's more like, what does this make you feel?

Also, the fac that people get to see your art without having to buy a ticke for a museum or for a gallery, you know, they just walk the street and suddenly they see something that they didn't expect.

And that' that's the power of street art.

I think there are more and more mural artists out there, and public art is something that's being more and more valued, and that's something I really like about it.

And people start to understan what it can do for a community.

Whereas before they just didn't know you got them on the bus.

Adding as it's more of th artist's fault side, all right.

And so it's a kind of angst of forums and fascination with minds and hearts.

And five months later, in the dust, moon was kind of leaped by Zo Hartman, Imogen Nagy, Dickinson here in on Tucson.

Let's do it just in.

So the more street art, the more murals we have, the more life there is, I think, in cities.

And that's even the cas when it's just illegal graffiti.

It shows there's some life going on there.

So graffiti for me is the mother of it all.

And, if you look at this here, which is a curated art park, it has nothing to do with graffiti.

But the good thing is you get to speak to a broader audience of people when you do street art and murals, as when you do graffiti where it's just about your ego.

Basically, the size of this park is impressive, and there's no other place that I know of really anywhere, but especially in Colorado that has such a diverse and unique amount and variant of different art pieces from all around the world, but also from local artists and it's truly something to witness, like the larger than life sculptures, like the tucked away signage and the from like small details to large installations.

Everything is really intentionally curated and thought through, and there's 20 that I know of in at least 30 more on the way.

The Aurora Highlands two mile art Park will continue to grow, adding more art structures, colo and creativity to the community.

So be on the lookout for that and remember that it's free to explore.

So do bring a friend and take a walk through this one of a kind art experience to plan your visit or lear more about the artists involved.

Head to Aurora highlands.com.

Now we go into a world where ancient tradition meets modern artistry.

Bala, an Indian immigran and artist of nearly 25 years, bring henna inspired designs to life.

Her textured acrylic paintings and ceramics are rich with culture, color and the storie she's carried across continents.

Here's Bala Suri, so this is the same style as doing henna body art, and I'm doing this process called sleep training with.

I am piping liquid clay on clay to get textured lights.

Hi, I'm Bala Pia graduate.

I am a full time professional artist.

I came to the US as an immigrant from Chennai, India where I grew up to pursue a PhD at Kansas State University.

It confuses a lot of people because you don't hear a lot of artists who have a Ph.D.

in my background is wildlife, diseases.

Biology was the goal.

Any other middle class upbringing in an Indian household?

You grow up with this idea of wanting to be a doctor or an engineer.

You know something where you establish a career, right?

Art is not seen as worthless.

I'm actually I didn't even know I could do art till I started painting.

I love piping paint.

The reason I started doing them is I grew up with this art that's called Kolam in South India.

Millions of Tamil women do it every day around the world.

So my thought was wanting to do that on a canvas that I could hang by the entryway.

And that's kind o how I fell into the art world.

It felt like, oh, I could do more of this.

Taking a break from biology for a bit, it just took a lifetime.

So this is where my creativity is.

It's not been and it's been 13 years.

It's all discovery along the way.

Honestly, like everything you see, I don't have a vision in my head when I paint.

Right?

It's not about the students of my hands.

It's about how I can control my breathing.

It's like I start with a blank canvas and where it takes me, it's unknown.

So when I finish a painting, it's as new to me as it is to you.

Seeing it for the first time.

My main technique is grounde in how I can bring in my culture who you see, when I've made paintings, it, it could be just henna.

Or if you know more about Indian stuff, it's Scholem.

Or when you see a portrait, it's like, oh, it's a dancer or it's a braid.

And so there are all thes different points of connection that leads back to celebrating a culture.

When I was back in academia, it's like, or you do lab work, you do field work, you do statistics.

You know, there' so many different things you do.

But once you start doing, you know there's the business side of art and then there's the creative side, but there's also this.

You have to constantl keep you all going and do more.

The masks in particular, I started doing them about the same time.

I started painting portraits.

And it's nice because it's two different mediums but they inform one another in how we create portrait series and mixed media series.

That's the new thing that I just started like in a year and a half ago, and it is my way of showing the power of everyday the medium, in a sense in the, you know, I never added labels to my identity in the past, but now it feels like I do have to, you know, say, hey, I am an Indian immigrant.

Women doing this because it brings visibility not just to me, but to also other underrepresented artist in the community, whether it's, women artists or Bipoc artists.

Right.

It's it's addin that extra voice to what I do.

We can be anything we want.

I'm not labeled or boxed in by like, oh, I used to be in academia, I was a scientist, or I am just an artist, right?

We are all so much more and it's nice to be able to be part of that.

It's inspiring, especially for kids that they don't have to grow up with this idea of like, oh, I need to be a docto or an engineer or any of that, that they can do whatever they want.

One of the reasons I paint mandalas and not mountains is wanting to highlight my culture and doing what I know, of course, but also I want kids to grow up with more.

More than what their parents grew up with, what the grandparents had as art in their homes, right?

We live in a global world, in a global culture, and I want kids to experience that.

And I see my art as a means for doing so.

It's my identity.

It's every thing that I bring to the table of who I am.

It's not just my art, it's not just my language.

It's not just how I dress.

Right?

It's it just all comes together.

Art is the easiest way I can express it.

And to find out more about this Colorado artist, you can go to Art Bible com or you can find her on Instagram at Art Bible.

An exhibit in Colorado has made history.

It's called Roots and Roots, the very first South Asian visual artist group shown in our state.

For these artists, this is more than an exhibit.

It's about representation, visibility and community from landscape inspired by the Colorado Plateau to art tied to cultural traditions, these artists share their personal journeys through their work.

Take a look.

For me, light and shade and bright colors, beautiful colors are what inspired me.

So this is the colored cor that you do get here in the US.

These are part of a stream of landscapes that I, have been doing.

I started a series of landscape paintin based on the Colorado Plateau.

My career was in abstract, so behind me is one of my traditional Pardon Adam Dancer paintings.

It's, named after a goddess.

And in this, it's, the idea is that women are constantly on the move, you know, so.

But we move it to grace because there's jus so many things to handle.

Right?

So that's what I'm trying to bring in this painting.

Hi, I am Paula Nagarajan.

We are here for the opening night of Roots and Roots.

It's a Sout Asian visual artist group show.

This is the first time a group of us are getting together for an art show like this in Colorado.

You know?

So, Asians, we've been here for so long.

It's just that that artist wh are particularly visual artist and not performance artist have just been so disconnected.

It's nice to have a community to get together and come togethe and be able to tell the broader community who we are and what we do.

She had to approach me during the Caro Creative Industry Summit, saying, I never see my community represented in spaces and this is a problem And I'm like, I agree with you.

This is a huge problem.

I myself essentially after the conversation, around what she was hoping to d in collaboration with the South Asian artist community that she was not seeing represented, she's I asked her, what does she need?

And she said she needs access t space and access to resources.

And I said, with, the space, I think I have you covered.

I really couldn't figure out where my community was.

And I lived in the suburbs.

I had two children.

And so for this to happen and to have the kind of artists that have come out seems from the woodwork, from the woodwork, it's unbelievable to me to see this energy, to see people starting out, see people who have been doing things in isolation for a long time.

This show is all about visibility, representation and community.

To me.

Representation is not just having four walls and somebod to put art on the wall, right?

It's when people actually engage with one another.

And art is a great means for that engagement, because I kept thinking, there must be a few other artists, because when I came here, there was nobody.

And I often thought to myself, I'm in a wilderness.

Because in 40 years ago, Colorado and Denver was a very different place.

This is the first time we've come together as a community of South Asian artists.

They're all wonderful people as well, so it's a lovely community that that's expanded suddenly fro just knowing 2 or 3 of them to, you know, more than 20.

It's about the artist journey, their identity and their experience, what they bring to Colorado and what they have been creating here.

You know, I was just so inspired to paint this because, the Thanksgiving festival here kind of mirrors the Thanksgiving festival that we have back in India.

We make offerings to, the gods for a great harvest, and for al the good things that we receive.

And I really found this, mirrors that culture, that tradition.

Personally, one of my collectors called my artwork and so, so honored that it brings me to people and it brings people to me.

And this exhibit is like that, except it's bringing an entire community of southeastern artists to the broader Denver metro.

And it's the same thing we are hoping to get so many people to come in, look at the artwork and engage with it.

Hopefully it spark some curiosity and conversations and maybe lasting connections.

Although the exhibit is over, you can still go to CEO South Asian artists.com.

For more information and about upcoming events.

For most of his life, Trevor Horn expressed his creativity through graphic design until a sudden loss of his eyesight in 2014 changed everything, but instead of stepping away from art, Trevor found a new way forward to continue his passion.

Tonight, we meet the Colorad artist who's proving that true creativity knows no limits.

Same dream.

Lost something I was working with.

Oh, here it is.

My name is Trevor Horn, and I'm an artist and sculptor.

I work under the name Trevor Hans Art retouch.

Right now I'm working on a beehive.

The hive is made up of and lids that I like for cooking creating a ton of bees for it.

So I used a nut like a nut for the for the head.

I start with something and then I build off of it.

And I'm doing now as just putting the front legs on.

How I started art in my life.

My whole entir life was my grandfather, who was an exceptional artist before computers and all this that he was a commercial artist and he he painted science by hand.

I did do a little bit of sculpture and, in school, high school and college.

But then I got into metal and, it, transformed into, me just drilling holes and fastening things together.

It's all metal work.

No welding.

I never learned how to.

Well, it's all for sale.

I mean, I rescue a lot of things, and then just, upcycle them into something that is beautiful.

So I do a lot of outdoor activities.

Basically, I find inspiration for my subject matter on these travels and my climbs and and things.

I want to break through this whole thing where artists get paid before they die.

So, Oh, God.

It was.

It was absolutely the worst possible thing I could have imagined.

In about 2014, I had, complications from, a thing called ankylosing spondylitis that caused, like, pressure in my eye, and then my optic nerve was damaged.

I had a commercial art job and everything.

And then then basically in 2014, lights out and, it was very hard to take.

I basically went into depression, didn't know what I was.

Can do.

I was, I was a graphic.

I was a visual artist before.

I didn't know what to do and I, I remembered this thing called sculptures.

And my mental state is much better when I'm doing sculpture and art and actually creating and making something useful out of nothing, rather than just, sitting around doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself.

I get out there and and do a lot of, cool things with creating and.

I was, I hit my head on.

I love to hear that joy on people's, in their voices or whatever.

And I hear that joy and that that makes me happy.

And that basically makes me makes me happy.

I'm just trying to show people that if you do hit a barrier or whatever, you can continue on and it can be done and maybe other people will follow that are in the same situation.

By the way, Trevor says as long as art brings him joy, he will keep creating.

And now he hopes to share his art with others by selling his work.

You can find Trevor's wor on his Instagram at Trevor Hans Art through touch and underscore between each word there.

Thanks again to Trevor for sharing his stor and his inspiring art with us.

Next up, we're taking you inside the colorful world of stained glass art and into the garage studio of Colorado artist Mark Stein.

We talked with Mark about his life and career as a stained glass artist, with big projects like the one he's currently doing at Buckley Air Force Chapel.

Two custom pieces that shine in homes across the world.

When I'm out here during the summer, my friends, my neighbors come by and watch for a while.

It's very nice.

My iPod is my most prized possession.

I get all my, music from basically the public library, and my cassettes go even farther back, and I've just never really thrown them away.

But I certainly don't really listen to him.

Or, you know, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music today.

A lot of music has a very simplistic melody.

I like a cappella.

I like classic rock and roll.

I like Western music not country, but Western music.

You know about the cowboy and, rodeo, that kind of music.

When I was ten years old, my dad and two of my uncles took a class and adult class and stained glass.

My father had bought the tools and supplies.

So at the age of 11, I started teaching myself.

With getting started by my uncle.

But the method I use today is what I came up with pretty much on my own.

I was destined to go to med school.

I was a microbiology major in college.

I was already making stained glass all the time and as a summer job.

And so I thought, I'll do stained glass professionally for a year.

And I've always loved it, and I just never went back, and I struggled.

Before the internet, there were times I worked a a second job because I struggled to make enough money.

That stained glass.

Yeah, I love to show these off because they are pretty cool.

My parents used to say, oh, Mark, go get your late your latest thing and show these people.

It was also difficult for them because they were they were frightened from the first moment that would make a career out of this.

They wanted the best for me and they were, convinced without really knowing, but still very sure of the fact that I would struggle all my life if I chose art or medicine.

I've never had an art class in my life.

I mean, I've studied enough about art on my own that I'm able to design for my clients, but I couldn't sketch a face if my life depended on it.

So I'm kind of a one trick pony.

Not exactly.

Okay.

For me the internet was a real savior because my work went from local to national.

One morning about 20 years ago, I got a phone call from an Air Force architect.

I met with them at about noon, and by 1230 I had $100,000 commission which I completed in six months.

The scale of it was a challenge.

It was 47 windows.

Large windows.

It's in the main chapel at the Chapel Center at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.

I just like to say I submitted 13 designs.

They picked the one I like the least.

I can se that's going to be the problem.

Staine glass can be very frustrating.

Ball of clay.

You can pull it out a thousand times on the wheel until you learn how to do it.

But stained glass is expensive.

The materials, the glass, etc.

is expensive.

And once you scratch a line on the glass, there's no taking it away.

There's no going back.

There are a number of moments that are better than others.

Grinding is drudgery.

Working with the clients is definitely one of the high points.

Putting in the windows is definitely one of the high points.

When you stand back and you and you're, you know you're impressed by your own creation and your client is equally, you know, aghast at how great it comes out.

This is going to go in the front door of this home in Houston.

And stained glass grabs a lot of people because it's colorful and, and it's got the, the light, the play of light that's come in through the glass.

There's a lot about art, and don't know, I know what I like.

I spent lots of hours in the library looking at art books.

Up there in the window.

You can see what I started making when I was 11.

The butterfly the skier, little sun catchers.

I was captivated by it immediately.

I consider myself extremely lucky that I make my living at basically this hobby that I took up when I was ten years old that I fell in love with.

How did I become who I am an really, it's so circumstantial.

If my dad hadn't take this class, I never would have touched a glass cutter in my whole life, I'm sure.

And I love my life.

I never set an alarm clock, and I never drive rush hour traffic.

You know, it's been so reward for the work that I do for people and the life that I live because of it.

Such beautiful work there.

You can see more of Mark's designs at T-D stained glass.com.

Next we meet a talented sto motion artist, Charlie Fasano.

Charlie got the chance to reject his hand-drawn stop motion film onto the iconic clock tower in downtown Denver.

It's all part of a Denve Arts and Venues program, giving local artists a larger than life platform to share their work.

Check it out.

So I'm just going to go ahead and go for it.

My name is Charlie Fasano and I'm an artist from Denver, Colorado.

Visual artist is fairl new in the last like ten years, I think.

But I usually, I read a lot of poetry, and I used to roll around Denver and read on stage with a lot of bands.

Lik a lot of punk and indie bands.

And I saw, I was online one day and I saw a, replay of the Rubber Ducky with, Ernie.

And I just thought I was like, what better positive thing and funny goofy thing than a rubber duck?

You know, changes a lot of people's days.

There's a lot of memories associated.

My name is David Moak, and I am the director of Night Lights Denver.

Night Light Denver is a permanent projection program happening in downtown Denver.

So this started, about Novembe 2019, after being in the works for a few years as a way for us to kind of just do cool stuff downtown with a wonderful partner like the Daniels and Fisher Tower.

People are really interested as they walk down the mall, you know, because it's so big and there's people from a lot of different place that have been looking at that.

So it's that's that's very exciting.

It is built as par and attached to something else.

So you see like a Macy's style department store, there are ten projectors.

Each one is 21,000 lumens for a total of 210,000 lumens, or 210,000 candles, where the light on the side of the tower.

Who wouldn't want their work on the screen that big?

You know, it's absolutely huge.

Each month there's a new show.

Each show is about ten minutes.

Sometimes I curator, sometimes, I guess creators, you know, just kind of emailed them and went through the process and was very, very easy and seamless, actually.

There are currently five artworks playing, I believe, right now all of which are generally made with some stop motion animation in some way.

So there is kind of a theme to it, but really it's just fun programing for the public.

I was in Chicago, I didn't have any money.

I lived there for two years and I started getting more interested in just doing, VOC printing because I didn't have any money to g enjoy the great city from there.

I just kind of started doing a little bit more animation, and I kind of got fell in love with the rustic look of kind of just, stop action animation.

It's like the perfect night ou right now, I type of thing too.

So there's that element of just like, I don't know, it's just nice.

You got, you know, sun setting for this little handout project and the big bath I did 500.

I've got about maybe 75 of them left.

And in these little duck drawing I made just to celebrate with my with my friends from Denver.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Yeah.

Fun for everyone.

But there is something really cool about seeing art.

You make in your computer.

Blown up 140ft tall and 40ft wide.

Yeah, you see that?

I made that, and then I made these little ducks that are in the movie to hand to people like, you know, if you're just walking down the mall, choose to walk over here versus, you know, on 14th or something, you know, I did the little film and yeah, it's a program that it's called Night Lights Denver.

And they, take submissions from artists to make project it up every month.

Yeah.

Thanks, buddy, I appreciate that, but if you're already downtown coming up for a theater show or coming to dinner, you can stop by after dark and see, you know, even a portion of our program and get a pretty cool artistic experience.

That's right.

You see that right at the top?

There's lights in that corner.

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of big.

I'm Charlie O'Connor.

Nice to meet you, man.

Major, thanks for the interest that people up.

Hey, meadow, take a look at this guy.

How are you doing, man?

Good.

How are you?

Let me show you his work.

With all his work, that is his work up on that building, right, Charlie?

Your name's Jonas.

Jonas.

A great meeting, man.

Nice talking to you.

It's fun.

The contract is there.

Like, how did you do it?

There's a lot of questions.

I think people have lost touch with just interaction and having just a simple little conversation or just a moment or you know, like the little kids.

That's fun.

The family gets kind of like, oh, cool, you know, and that's, that's, that's I think, post Covid and from Covid on, I thin a lot of people like lost that and so anyone, whether they're a dancer, a videographer, an animator and, you know, an illustrator that's learning animation, or even an artist that's always wanted to dabble into motion based work.

They can go to Night lights, denver.com, reac out to me, social media as well.

And I can send my packe that has information on how to, you know, move forward.

Charlie's quirky short film featured rubber ducks, and it made a huge splash in Denver's public art scene.

To learn more about Charlie and his work, you can go to walk off hot.com.

Dia de Los Muertos is a holiday with lots of artistic traditions, and now we get to see some of it up close.

We follow artist Cal Duran as he works on his ofrenda installation at History Colorado.

It's an honor of the late Rita Flores de Wallace.

Flores de Wallace was known as Denver's First Lady of Mexican folk art, the teacher and storyteller who helped shape Colorado's cultural heritage.

Now, through Cal's hands, her legacy continues.

We caught up with Ca as he created this year's altar, blending his own indigenous an Latin roots with Rita's textile work and a powerful tribute that connects generations.

Take a look.

I grew up, my mom was adopted and my father was in and out of prison.

So we didn't have this, like, grounding of a cultural presence.

But I always had this longing of knowing where I come from.

So art was a way for me to remem I didn't go to art school.

I didn't graduate high school.

It was my senior year, and they wanted me to go to a gym class and it was two months before my graduation, and I was in art like art class all the time.

I was winning awards, with this organization called Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

My art got sent to New York, and I just knew I wanted to be an artist.

So Jim was just like, so they kicked me out and I was like, okay, I'm not going to go to art school, but I am just going to keep creating.

So I work with clay, and Clay, I believe holds other memories of the earth.

And it holds all the elements.

It's earth, air, fire and water.

And I teach clay as well.

And when I see that, students create from clay, it's that intuition.

It's that inner remembering of working with the earth.

And so my art is really about honoring my ancestors, my identities.

Doctor Rene Vado, I am the director of the Metropolitan State universe City Journey through our heritage program.

So I was one of the very fortunate young people back in the day, and a young member of the Chicano Humanities Arts Council in the 80s to come upon a teacher, ou maestro Rita Wallace de Flores, who was one of the people that came to Colorado, and really helped young Chicanos establish, what Dia de Los Muertos was and began teaching it.

And Rita Wallace, the Flores and the Luna Boys, as we call them, from the pirate Bob Luna specifically, were really instrumental in bringing those traditions here to Colorado.

But I met her probably when I was about 17.

I was in an organization called Chalk Chicano Humanities for the Art Council, and also had a gallery called pirate Art Gallery.

And every year they did Dia de Los Muertos celebration.

And you can make an a friend, an altar.

It was extremely important that when she came, she brought a lot of the traditions surrounding the building of our friends.

The traditions of this, the cuantos storytelling.

So timelines kind of travele and then about five years ago, I met Renee, and she' just been a great advocate and, just really a beautiful, kind, open hearted person and been learning from.

And Rita was her teacher.

So it was kind of this full circle moment.

And Rita was, you know, kind of ailing and, had dementia.

She was in the hospita a few times, almost passed away.

But she told me, I'm not ready to leave the earth.

I have one more student, and lo and behold, she was right.

She hadn't.

Cow cal is her last student, and, she was iconic, for her o hostiles.

And we all know that.

Cal Duran, we're talking ojos Dios.

He is the cream of the crop.

So she really brought he knowledge back in the, my native me back in the 70s and 80s because she was from a small town in Mexico.

And really just shared those traditions with the community when she came here.

And she brought the traditions that she knew of Dia de Lo Muertos, she was very adamant.

You have to understand that this holiday is a syncretic holiday.

It's a woven mixture now of many peoples traditions that have come together.

And where they live is the way that they celebrate it.

And there is no right or wrong way to really celebrate it.

She was very, very, intent upon us realizing that you come together as a community.

Is it time to support each other?

So she passed away on April 27th.

Close to the, day of the children, Dia de Nino.

And when it came time to celebrate he life, Cal made her a huge altar.

So she passed away April 27th.

And then this is really jus in honor to her and her legacy.

There's also photos of other, women, and lineage.

They're called the Queen mothers.

That have passed away as well.

And after the marigolds represent the ancestors, so they say when you smell a marigolds, it's the, food of the ancestors.

It's the scent of the ancestors.

That's why, that's always represented.

I've been creating friends all over Colorado, probably for the last 15 years and probably ten years ago.

That was one of my first skeletons I created.

And it survived.

I wanted to give it wings as it's flying.

Back home.

And then these are all photos of Rita.

And a friend is an offering.

So meaning offering.

But it's an also an altar.

I refer to as an a friend, as a little pit stop.

Like a beacon, a beacon of light.

This is actually one of Rita's, pieces.

So she works a lot with corn husks and paper.

She loved owls.

They call monocles up.

There is a big Sacred Heart.

Me and my friend built about ten years ago.

That's all papier maché.

And behind it is an offer de Dios.

That's, a god's eye.

And traditionally, Rita, made those as well.

And we made those together.

The other us mentors can really be celebrated by anybody.

And why I say that i because we're all going to die.

You know, we're all on this universal quiet of death and life.

And I see the other as my toast, as a celebration of lif and death, as one more of those.

We think it's just about honoring our ancestors and those that came before us, and their hard work and their sacrifice.

But the very core of it is gratitude.

It's celebrated so differently, like in Mexico and each Puebla they celebrate it differently.

So it has deep, roots in the Mexican roots.

And it was, celebrated was, meets the aunt Lee.

She's the goddess of the dead.

Since colonization happened, it really moved on to like All Saints Day.

But I was always taught it was three days.

And November 1st is when all the little babies come and lead the procession.

And November 2nd is really when we build the ofrenda we, like, kind of build the bones of the friend on the first, and the second is really when our loved ones come and greet us.

And then on the third da is when we get to say goodbye.

I think it's good that, you know, that culture of Dia de Los Muerto is brought into that forefront, and that kids are really recognizing that, and then it's not so taboo to talk about death, you know, and to really, you know, be grateful that we get to wake up every day and to really just give offerings that, you know, every footstep that we take is an offering, you know, for the ones, before us when when I was younger, I think it was kind of a smaller pocket.

But I think, like, with the commercialization of it, too, it's gotten wider spread.

But I think that's also, a gift because I think people need to know more about it.

I think we definitely.

And preserving traditions in a way, because this is honoring Rita and her traditions of what she taught us.

And I'm always kind of a big I have an open heart, and I think, you know, we can preserve and preserve, but also that kind of puts a lid lid on our traditions when I think we need to meet our community where it is now and having in front and center here, you know, this is a community altar.

So people could offer messages to their loved ones.

This is just isn't about Rita.

This isn't just about the women on the altar, but it's really a connective thread to everybody.

And that' really what I want to preserve.

And this and I think that' what Deirdre's Muertos is really about is the connective thread within everybody.

And these are all messages I see that, community is already offered.

I believe that this is every day, all day.

We should celebrate, you know, the ones that have left this realm, because their memories are like seeds planted inside of us.

And we get to just really share that with everybody we meet.

Wow, how amazin that Cal was her last student.

And obviously Rita a pretty darn good teacher too.

Incredible.

And love those beautiful colors.

For more information and you can go to History colorado.org.

What an incredible evening celebrating the artists who are expressing the soul of Colorado.

Each one of them from croche and stained glass to paint, clay and film, remind us just how much talen exists right here in our state.

Their stories connect cultures, generations, and communities, showing us that creativity truly is the heartbeat of the West.

And whether it's in a museum, a park, or a home studio.

Colorado's artists continue to inspire us all to explor the beautiful art all around us and to celebrate the valu it brings to our everyday lives.

Thank you for joining us for this studio 12 special presentation of heart of the West.

Remember, you can follow us on social media and YouTube for more stories that celebrate Colorado's creative spirits.

I'm Bosie Kainani and I'm Ryan Harrer.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you next time.