Meet Lily Duffy: Poet, editor, and life of the party. I remember, years ago, hearing Lily read a poem about a blind date at a red-themed restaurant. The interior was painted red, its patrons wearing red, and even the food: red. Sometimes, when I’m driving to and from various obligations, I hear her words, unexpectedly, and there they ruminate like setting your favorite jam to play on repeat. And like all great jams, the playfulness on the surface of the song invites us to leap, headfirst, into its undercurrent looking for the subtext of the melody. Red: the color of love, but also the color... Read More

Good news! Hillary Susz has a new single, just released, and it’s called “Pollution.” The folk music resurgence is still going strong, but you probably haven’t heard a take on this familiar genre like Hillary’s. She’s a formally trained poet, originally from Spokane, Washington, who currently teaches and studies fiction at CU Boulder. With such an extensive writing background, you know that means you’re in for some tightly-spun and surprising lyrics: “Her hands are like pollution / Though not like trash / more like a purple sky / A shiny foil wrapper  / that holds me hold me... Read More

Today I’d like to introduce you to the work of Nate Ragolia. Nate graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 2004 with a degree in Creative Writing, and since then he’s been quite busy creating new stories, comics, and editing an online journal. Of course I’m only naming a few of the many artistic hats Nate wears everyday. In 2015, Black Hills Press published Nate’s first collection of short stories, There You Feel Free, about young people (one could say hipsters) battling disillusionment, ultimately finding love and themselves. The stories all meet and converge through a contemporary... Read More

As of January 1st of this year, Boulder City Council launched its Community Culture Plan through the City of Boulder Office of Arts + Culture. Their vision: “Together, we will craft Boulder’s social, physical, and cultural environment to include creativity as an essential ingredient for the well being, prosperity, and joy of everyone in the community.” You can read the plan details, in full, here. According to Jennifer Heath, cultural journalist, curator, and author/editor, Pearl Street was once “hot with music venues” and you could find “prestigious recording studios” housed in the... Read More

MediaLive is an annual week long festival of performances, workshops, and events from compelling artists and thinkers working internationally in new media brought to you by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA). Saturday evening, I got to watch one such artist perform and I’m thrilled to tell you about her. Michelle Ellsworth teaches dance, theater, and interdisciplinary specialty courses that combine dance, theater, science, technology, music, and film at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She’s won a ton of awards and honors and was recently feature in the New York Times. A... Read More

Welcome to AboutBoulder.com’s new artist’s blog where each week I’ll use this space to feature one of the many artists, writers, and/or musicians that are shaking things up around Boulder. From the mountains to the plains, Boulder is a haven of creativity. And it’s not just the greenery and mountains in our backyards that ignite this creative energy alone, but also the coffee shops, bookstore, organizations, and public spaces around town that help amplify creative talents. It’s no secret that the Boulder arts community is forever indebted to the generosity and support of Brian Buckley... Read More