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RAISING the BAR QUEENS ELEVEN
THE INSIDER
“How do we take a space with not much going for it and turn it into something special?” That was the question facing Fiona Arnold and Jeffrey Knott—owners of Denver’s Blue Sparrow Coffee and the cocktail lounge Room for Milly—when they set about transforming a dark and uninviting space on the ground floor of the RiNo development The Hub into a buzzworthy new cafe and bar. Their response: “By viewing all of those shortcomings as strengths,” says Knott, who collaborated with Arnold and designer Tamra Holton to develop Queens Eleven’s moodychic decor. Behind the room’s walnut-topped bar, a vibrant mural by Valencian street-art duo PichiAvo blends graffiti with classical art, setting the stage for the rest of the space where traditional touches—vintage leather sofas, a sparkling chandelier—mingle with more daring design elements, most notably Denver photographer Kristen Hatgi Sink’s avantgarde takes on traditional portraiture. A tall banquette upholstered in rich dusk-blue velvet offers the best seats in the house. “If Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had a go-to neighborhood bar,” Knott says, “this would be where they would sit.” Like those royal disruptors, Queens Eleven is refreshingly deviant. “So often, I walk into a coffee shop, bar or restaurant and can immediately feel what was value-engineered out of the place,” Knott says. “But thoughtful, intentional spaces are the cornerstone of what we do. Warm spaces, warm service—we want to make people happy.” queenseleven.com
MIKHAIL DANTES
For veteran interior designer Mikhail Dantes, opening a new showroom at the Denver Design District was like stepping into a comfy new pair of shoes. Dantes, in partnership with his brother, Ron, launched Denver design firm D+D Interiors more than 30 years ago and also co-owned the cutting-edge furniture showroom Town for 14 years before departing to start a to-the-trade business devoted to bringing fresh design talent to Colorado and the surrounding states. Here, he introduces Luxe to MOD Design. mod.design
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Will you share a few highlights? Chuck Moffit does limited-edition furnishings in bronze and steel that are really special and unique. You throw one of his pieces into your setting and it elevates the whole design. Fromental’s handdone wallcoverings can be bold or subtle, but they’re always amazing. And Joseph Pagano, of the lighting brand Joseph Pagano Studios, hand-blows his own glass, manufactures his own fittings and finishes everything in his shop, and you can see the meticulous way in which everything is put together. These vendors are so proud of what they produce—and happy to have a showroom like mine, where they can sell what they love to make.
the insider photo: mikhail dantes. raising the bar photos: josh perez.
MOD’s modern-leaning inventory includes furnishings, fabrics, wallcoverings, lighting, rugs, accessories and even fine art. What drew you to the collections you represent? Designers are always looking for the new best thing, and I wanted to bring in smaller boutique lines helmed by people with some kind of design background or furniture-making history. A lot come from established furniture-making families. Kimberly Denman and her husband previously owned antiques shops and the influence of that is evident in their collection. Many of our other furniture and lighting lines were launched by former interior designers. You can see the passion that goes into their work.
WRITTEN BY CHRISTINE DEORIO
RADAR / SCENE
HOT SHOTS “GRAY MALIN IN ASPEN”
The wintry opulence of a bluebird day in Aspen is an irresistible draw to travelers, including fine-art photographer Gray Malin, who chose the ski town as the setting for his latest series, “Gray Malin in Aspen.” “I am completely drawn to the alpine lifestyle that Aspen offers—its exclusivity and the joyful energy that bubbles up with every experience,” Malin says. With that in mind, he chose a variety of locales around town and on the slopes to transform into modern snow-globe scenes with a vintage twist. “My goal was to explore the concepts of nostalgia and memories, challenging viewers to think of them in a more imaginative way.” graymalin.com
FRESH FACE BILL BROWN
What inspired your decision to marry painting and photography? Mainstream photography always felt like more of a tool or a starting point; a bit too close to reality. This pushed me back to the traditional materials that I hadn’t used since high school: paint, of course, but I find myself continually testing and learning from other materials as well. Walk us through your process of combining those materials. I’m always capturing interesting things and places—I take over 10,000 images every year. I spend a lot of time manipulating an image digitally, then typically use a gel-alcohol method to transfer that image to a substrate. From there, I’ll use standard acrylic paint, oil pigments, encaustic paint, or gold or silver leaf to complete a piece, often finishing with a layer of clear encaustic wax. What provides the jumping-off point for a new work? Frequently, my inspiration stems from nature, but when I reflect on my interest in human creations—like cities or machinery—I’m finding that it’s really complex systems and components that draw my attention. Is there a takeaway you hope to impart to viewers? Recently, I’ve felt the need to de-stress. As I wonder if other people could use the same, I’ve sought to convey a sense of calm and space—to give the conscious mind a break, even if only for a few seconds. 108 / luxesource.com
ON VIEW
“URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD: THE CONTOUR OF FEELING” This spring, the Denver Botanic Gardens celebrates the debut of its new Freyer-Newman Center, designed by Davis Partnership Architects, with an inaugural exhibition featuring the works of influential sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard. On view through September 20, “Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling” features a collection of sculptures and works on paper, including the towering, carved-cedar monoliths for which von Rydingsvard is known. Equally intriguing is a collection of small objects—strands of hair, bits of wood—that the artist has collected over the years to build her visual language. Abstract works on handmade linen paper demonstrate how she incorporates such treasures into the paper itself, giving viewers a look at the path from inspiration to artwork. botanicgardens.org
fresh face photos: bill brown. hot shots photo: gray malin. on view photo: courtesy denver botanic gardens.
A 20-year immersion in high-tech manufacturing may be an unconventional step on the path to becoming a fine artist, but for Bill Brown, his career in engineering has been a vital underpinning of his current work merging the mediums of photography and painting. Brown experiments with traditional materials and techniques to create his vibrant, large-format abstractions of natural and man-made scenes and forms. Here, the Denver-based artist explains the themes that spark his curiosity—and the process that turns inspiration into art. billbrownphoto.com
RADAR / SCENE
PAINTING the TOWN THREE FEMALE ARTISTS MAKE THEIR MARK ON DENVER’S SPRAWLING MURAL LANDSCAPE.
ASHLEY JOON ▲ Amid Denver’s array of colorful, powerful and often politically charged murals, self-taught painter Ashley Joon’s work is almost startlingly soft and sensual. Featuring tangles of showy blooms, her compositions seem charged with a lyrical energy that stems from Joon’s unique process. “I paint with a balance of instinctual movement and subtle observations,” she says. “I dance as I paint, using the rhythm of music to guide my brush while pulling imagery from my imagination, photography and live flowers.” Her feminine, abstract-impressionistic style has resonated with a variety of clients around town, including the Infinite Monkey Theorem, the Ramble Hotel and the Denver Art Museum, which recently commissioned Joon to create a mural celebrating the exhibition “Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature.” And when designers come calling for custom murals in residential spaces, Joon will be ready. “I could see floral murals looking fabulous in just about every room in the house,” she says. ashleyjoon.com
When Sandra Fettingis examines an object, her eye instinctively seeks out the lines that create the form. “I find the line extremely elegant and harmonious,” the artist says. So when she begins the process of designing a new repetitive pattern—a signature element of her graphic, sitespecific murals—it’s only natural that she takes visual cues from her backdrop’s unique lines: the shape of the wall, the surrounding architecture, even the sky. Minimal color palettes—typically comprising just three or four hues that pop against a high-contrast background—emphasize the elegance of Fettingis’ deceptively simple patterns while nodding to the structures they adorn, from an alley wall at Dairy Block to the interior of the Norwegian Bliss cruise ship. “It’s essential to me that a design fits seamlessly into a site,” Fettingis says, “so that the final work and its surroundings become complementary ‘friends,’ so to speak.” sfettingis.com
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ashley joon photo: victor fossen. anna charney photo: courtesy anna charney. sandra fettingis photo: caleb tkach.
▲ SANDRA FETTINGIS
ANNA CHARNEY ▲ Years ago, when Denver native Anna Charney was in art school, something caught her eye: the tiny halftone dots which, when viewed from a distance, create the illusion of continuous lines and shapes. So Charney, a painter at heart, began incorporating magnified halftone patterns in her compositions. Though the majority of her “super-creative decision-making” for her current work—large-scale canvases, murals and installations featuring swirls of those enlarged dot patterns—is done on a computer, translating an image to a wall gives Charney the opportunity to reveal signs of the human hand. “I think the magic in painting is seeing the artist’s energy that was put into it,” she says. That magic is on display across the Mile High City: Look for Charney’s largest work on the Colorado Ballet’s Armstrong Center for Dance in the Art District on Santa Fe. annacharneyart.com