6 AUGUST 27-SEPTEMBER 2, 2026 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Glory Days A COLORADO NOSTALGIA BOOM IS FUELING LOCAL ARTISTS, LIKE ANDRE LIPPARD. BY MEL ANIE ULLE Denver is changing fast. It feels like every time you turn a corner, there’s a new glass tower (note to local developers: this isn’t Vancouver) or a boring, perfectly symmetri- cal new gray apartment complex that has popped up overnight, paving over Denver’s weird mix of Victorian, Post-Modern, Art Deco and Beaux Arts architecture. That strange, slightly random character gave our neighborhoods their personalities. For many longtime residents, this erasure feels disorienting. “I think it’s simply because we are all seeing Denver’s growth and the constant changes to the skyline and surrounding areas,” says photographer Jamie Rogers of Captain Colorado Photography. “A lot has changed in a short period, so it always has us thinking ‘Remember when...’ Change can be scary, and with rapid technological growth, I think we all are reminiscing about simpler times.” Nostalgia is emotional time travel. You catch a whiff of a familiar perfume or hear an old song you haven’t thought about in a while, and, for a split second, you’re right back in a moment you’d completely forgotten existed. Then you snap back to the present, and it hits you just how much time has actually passed. It’s a strange feeling. You’re happy the moment happened, but there’s a little weight to it, too, because you know you’ll never get to live it again. That “remember when” feeling has sparked something of a nostalgia boom across the Centennial State. Preserved ho- tels, historic taverns, hand-drawn typo- graphic art, glossy portraits with venues as subjects, tees of local icons, and museum exhibits about our past are having a moment. Coloradans are fi nding all kinds of ways to hang on to the past. There is a real, active push to save the state’s disappearing cultural infrastructure and the sense of community that came with it. As beloved landmarks come down one by one, people are turning to artists, photographers, and local designers to keep the soul of old Colorado breathing. From Memories to Art For Rob Steck, founder of the apparel brand Native303, watching his hometown trans- form is personal. Steck helps locals wear Colorado’s past like a badge of honor. He can still picture the exact moment it hit him. It was 1997, and he was walking from his childhood home on South Williams Street to Reivers Bar & Grill on Old South Gaylord Street when he passed a fa- vorite historic house. Except it wasn’t there anymore. It had been scraped clean off the lot and replaced with a massive modern home. “It was like noticing that one house snapped my eyes open to the gutting of the Washington Park I knew and loved,” Steck refl ects. “Genuinely, I felt vio- lated. Invaded. Furious.” That anger got him think- ing about just how much of the city’s cultural fabric had been lost to gentrification. Steck has lived in New York, Chicago and London, and that perspective made Denver’s charm click into focus. The magic was in how intimate it all was. “It makes you realize how much more of a ‘neigh- borhood’ Denver was, than a city,” he explains. Local busi- nesses and family-owned din- ers were the anchors that held everything together. “People mourn and praise their memories as if they were a neighbor or member of the family now that they are gone,” he continues. Today, Native303 releases designs featuring the logos of legendary institutions such as Elitch Gardens, the Denver Bears, and the beloved Celebrity Sport’s Center. For Steck, these designs are pure sensory memory. Ask him what he misses most about old Den- ver, and he’ll describe the exact smell of walking through the doors at Celebrity. “A combination of toxic chlorine, hot dogs, stale beer, cigarettes and hot pretzels,” he says. “And somehow you could also smell the sweetness of cotton candy, Icees and fountain soda.” Wearing one of his shirts has become its own kind of statement. “It’s a special way to stand out and show people you were there, and to invite and encourage solidarity,” Steck says. He talks about the “rusty, jagged edge” of the old city, a Denver where Capitol Hill, Five Points and Colfax were full of unpre- dictable characters, and how different that feels from today’s more polished version. His shirts offer a bittersweet way back, and cus- tomers can’t help sharing stories with him about favorite dishes, fi rst dates and chance encounters at the places on their chests. Where Steck captures local nostalgia through apparel, fi ne artist Andre Lippard captures the soul of the buildings themselves on canvas. Lippard’s journey into local preserva- tion began almost by accident. Early on, his cityscapes were entirely fi ctional. But driven by an affi nity for Colfax’s music scene and nightlife, he decided to apply his distinct style to a real-world landmark, the iconic Bluebird Theatre. That single shift redi- rected his career, making Denver city scenes the foundation of his work. Lippard’s style leans into surrealism, tap- ping into the subconscious layer of how we experience urban spaces. His canvases act as emotional time capsules. Viewers routinely gather around his paintings to reminisce about personal history, forgotten nights or dreams sparked by the places he paints. “Nostalgia has always accompanied change, and with recent growth, we see many older venues going away to make room for the new,” Lippard refl ects. Beloved spots that have since closed, like one of Denver’s most special historic jazz venues, El Chapultepec, now primarily live on in memory — and on his canvas. CULTURE KEEP UP ON DENVER ARTS AND CULTURE AT WESTWORD.COM/ARTS Andre Lippard outside the El Chapultapec building with his painting of the venue. PHOTO BY EVAN SEMÓN
