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Peri- odicals postage paid in Denver. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $100/year or $50/six months. Postmaster: Send address changes to Westword, P.O. Box 5970, Denver CO 80217. Mailing address: P.O. Box 5970, Denver, CO 80217 Street address: 1278 Lincoln Street, Denver, CO 80203 For general information, call: 303-296-7744 For Editorial, email: [email protected] 131 CONCERTS/CLUBS VOLUME 48 NUMBER 31 MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2025 ON THE COVER ALEJANDRO RODRIGUEZ-GOMEZ THE BEST IDEA YET BY PATRICIA CALHOUN The Best of Denver is a year-round obsession. No sooner do we fi nish one edition than we’re on to the next, fi lling our phones and pockets with notes on new fi nds as well as old-school favorites we’ve rediscovered, all inspiration for the next round of awards. But the best idea we had for this, our 42nd Best of Denver, became much bigger than one award. Working with the Visual Arts department at the College of Arts & Media at the University of Colorado Denver — right in the heart of the city that this issue celebrates — we designed a contest to create the cover image for the 2025 Best of Denver. Faculty members embraced the con- cept, sharing the details with students: the deadline, the prizes and the very fl exible design rules. We wanted their view of the city, with cows not required, but welcome. (That’s a symbol we’ve used for more than four decades, since the days when Denver boosters were paranoid about this city being labeled a cowtown.) The contest closed at the end of January, and in early February we opened the best package ever, fi lled with 25 entries – all fun, fresh looks at this city. Our cover winner? A variation on the Big Blue Bear, offi cially “I See What You Mean,” the beloved statue outside the Colorado Convention Center that was created by the late Lawrence Argent and installed in 2005 — before many of the students who entered this contest were born. Growing up in the suburbs of Denver, Alejandro Rodriguez-Gomez always knew that bear. As a kid, he and his brothers “would go downtown to explore,” he recalls. “We had a lot of fun just venturing out,” catching a parade or visiting Elitch’s or just hanging out around the 16th Street Mall...and always paying a call on the Big Blue Bear. “When I had friends come from other states, they would almost specifi cally set a time and date to visit the bear, too,” he adds. “It’s a great sculpture, with meaning: how everyone is just kind of curious to look inside.” Hearing about the contest, he got the idea of replicating that image, but with a curious cow. “It was a funny image in my mind,” he says. In some ways, it was funny that Rodri- guez-Gomez even entered the contest, which was open to any UCD student. Al- though he has always liked drawing and enjoyed art classes in high school at Mar- tin Luther King Jr. Early College, he’s a mechanical engineering student, about to graduate. “I’m not stingy about where I end up,” he says, “but I would like to work at an engineering fi rm here in Colorado.” That way, he can keep going downtown, to enjoy concerts at Ball Arena and explore other places and visit the Big Blue Bear. And see all those Westword racks with his work on the cover. Rodriguez-Gomez is emblematic of so many UCD students. “They’re very active in Denver, getting out and about, work- ing either on campus or off campus,” says Charles Valsechi, director of Illustration at the school. “But they’re also working very hard in their classes,” getting a “high-level education without the high costs.” The area he oversees “is a very healthy program,” Valsechi says, with 124 students and more joining every year. “Our students are very dedicated, very engaged.” And they were very engaged with this proj- ect, which in many cases was their “fi rst expe- rience doing professional work, getting their work in front of people and being paid for it,” he notes. In fact, the entries were so impressive that our section openers feature the work of six more students who entered the contest: August Blackmer, Hattie Boyd, Lauren Henderson, Euridice Garduno Estrada and Adrian Kinyon. And we wish we had room for more. “We don’t like to brag, but I don’t have to convince my students to try to do the work,” Valsechi adds. “I don’t feel like I have to motivate them. I can meet them with their excitement.” Even so, he and the other faculty members involved with this project were surprised by the enthusiastic response to the contest and the work that resulted. Says Valsechi: “I think we have a really special school.” We do, too...and so will you as you look through this year’s Best of Denver, fi lled with hundreds of awards and some of the best art we’ve ever included. You’ll be able to enjoy it beyond this issue, too: At 4:30 p.m. on April 10, the University of Colorado Denver will host an opening reception for an exhibit of all the entries in our contest in the Dean’s Gal- lery, room 177 of the Arts Building, 1150 10th Street; we’ll keep you posted on the details. In the meantime, enjoy the very best of Denver!
