Old cookie factory is Denver's newest (and free!) art gallery
Why it matters: Cookie Factory isn't just another private collection dressed up as a museum. It's a fresh model that's intimate, immersive and rooted in Colorado.
What they're saying: "We are commissioning artists and giving them the freedom to create new works inspired by their visits to Colorado and in response to the architecture of the space," owner and developer Amanda Precourt told 303 Magazine.
"All work on view is brand new, debuting just for our city."
The big picture: Precourt — a mental health advocate who's spoken openly about her struggles with anxiety and depression — sees art as a form of healing.
Collecting is one of "the myriad ways that art has saved me," she said in a New York Times interview.
Zoom in: Precourt's 5,000-square-foot gallery, which sits on the ground floor of her two-story home, took her almost a decade to secure and renovate, the Times reports.
The space will host two solo exhibitions each year — with the debut show, " Nothing Without Nature" by Los Angeles-based Sam Falls, opening Saturday.
The intrigue: Precourt has worked with more than 20 galleries, per the NYT. She's also funding one of this spring's biggest contemporary shows — " Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers" — at the Guggenheim in New York City.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
25 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Tom Lehrer, song satirist and mathematician, dies at 97
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Lehrer, the popular song satirist who lampooned marriage, politics, racism and the Cold War, then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching math at Harvard and other universities, has died. He was 97. Longtime friend David Herder said Lehrer died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He did not specify a cause of death. Lehrer had remained on the math faculty of the University of California at Santa Cruz well into his late 70s. In 2020, he even turned away from his own copyright, granting the public permission to use his lyrics in any format, without any fee in return. A Harvard prodigy (he had earned a math degree from the institution at age 18), Lehrer soon turned his very sharp mind to old traditions and current events. His songs included 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,' 'The Old Dope Peddler' (set to a tune reminiscent of 'The Old Lamplighter'), 'Be Prepared' (in which he mocked the Boy Scouts) and 'The Vatican Rag,' in which Lehrer, an atheist, poked at the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church. (Sample lyrics: 'Get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries. Bow your head with great respect, and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.') Accompanying himself on piano, he performed the songs in a colorful style reminiscent of such musical heroes as Gilbert and Sullivan and Stephen Sondheim, the latter a lifelong friend. Lehrer was often likened to such contemporaries as Allen Sherman and Stan Freberg for his comic riffs on culture and politics and he was cited by Randy Newman and 'Weird Al' Jankovic among others as an influence. He mocked the forms of music he didn't like (modern folk songs, rock 'n' roll and modern jazz), laughed at the threat of nuclear annihilation and denounced discrimination. But he attacked in such an erudite, even polite, manner that almost no one objected. 'Tom Lehrer is the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded,' musicologist Barry Hansen once said. Hansen co-produced the 2000 boxed set of Lehrer's songs, 'The Remains of Tom Lehrer,' and had featured Lehrer's music for decades on his syndicated 'Dr. Demento' radio show. Lehrer's body of work was actually quite small, amounting to about three dozen songs. 'When I got a funny idea for a song, I wrote it. And if I didn't, I didn't,' Lehrer told The Associated Press in 2000 during a rare interview. 'I wasn't like a real writer who would sit down and put a piece of paper in the typewriter. And when I quit writing, I just quit. ... It wasn't like I had writer's block.' He'd gotten into performing accidentally when he began to compose songs in the early 1950s to amuse his friends. Soon he was performing them at coffeehouses around Cambridge, Massachusetts, while he remained at Harvard to teach and obtain a master's degree in math. He cut his first record in 1953, 'Songs by Tom Lehrer,' which included 'I Wanna Go Back to Dixie,' lampooning the attitudes of the Old South, and the 'Fight Fiercely, Harvard,' suggesting how a prissy Harvard blueblood might sing a football fight song. After a two-year stint in the Army, Lehrer began to perform concerts of his material in venues around the world. In 1959, he released another LP called 'More of Tom Lehrer' and a live recording called 'An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer,' nominated for a Grammy for best comedy performance (musical) in 1960. But around the same time, he largely quit touring and returned to teaching math, though he did some writing and performing on the side. Lehrer said he was never comfortable appearing in public. 'I enjoyed it up to a point,' he told The AP in 2000. 'But to me, going out and performing the concert every night when it was all available on record would be like a novelist going out and reading his novel every night.' He did produce a political satire song each week for the 1964 television show 'That Was the Week That Was,' a groundbreaking topical comedy show that anticipated 'Saturday Night Live' a decade later. He released the songs the following year in an album titled 'That Was the Year That Was.' The material included 'Who's Next?' ponders which government will be the next to get the nuclear bomb ... perhaps Alabama? (He didn't need to tell his listeners that it was a bastion of segregation at the time.) 'Pollution' takes a look at the then-new concept that perhaps rivers and lakes should be cleaned up. He also wrote songs for the 1970s educational children's show 'The Electric Company.' He told AP in 2000 that hearing from people who had benefited from them gave him far more satisfaction than praise for any of his satirical works. His songs were revived in the 1980 musical revue 'Tomfoolery' and he made a rare public appearance in London in 1998 at a celebration honoring that musical's producer, Cameron Mackintosh. Lehrer was born in 1928, in New York City, the son of a successful necktie designer. He recalled an idyllic childhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side that included attending Broadway shows with his family and walking through Central Park day or night. After skipping two grades in school, he entered Harvard at 15 and, after receiving his master's degree, he spent several years unsuccessfully pursuing a doctorate. 'I spent many, many years satisfying all the requirements, as many years as possible, and I started on the thesis,' he once said. 'But I just wanted to be a grad student, it's a wonderful life. That's what I wanted to be, and unfortunately, you can't be a Ph.D. and a grad student at the same time.' He began to teach part-time at Santa Cruz in the 1970s, mainly to escape the harsh New England winters. From time to time, he acknowledged, a student would enroll in one of his classes based on knowledge of his songs. 'But it's a real math class,' he said at the time. 'I don't do any funny theorems. So those people go away pretty quickly.' ___ Former Associated Press writer John Rogers contributed to this story. Rogrers retired from The AP in 2021.
Bloomberg
25 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Tom Lehrer, Harvard's Satiric, Melodic Mathematician, Dies at 97
Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-educated mathematician whose brief side gig as one of America's favorite satirical composers captured in tune some of the anxieties and absurdities of the 1950s and 1960s, has died, according to the New York Times. He was 97. Lehrer died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Times said, citing a friend of Lehrer's, David Herder.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Orlando Bloom Reveals He was ‘Triggered' by ‘Partner' Which Led Him to Therapy—as He Sells $7M Los Angeles Home Following Katy Perry Split
Actor has confessed to being 'triggered' by his ex-'partner,' leading him to seek therapy to heal—after he parted with his $7 million Los Angeles home following his shocking split from . The 48-year-old—who separated from the 'Hot N Cold' hitmaker, 40, in June—got candid about his emotional journey to healing using the Hoffman Method, which is a week-long personal growth retreat where people identify and heal negative patterns. While speaking on Oprah Winfrey's podcast, 'The Oprah Podcast,' Bloom admitted that he had struggled with toxic behaviors and turned to the Hoffman Method to help him change his ways. He explained, 'I went to the Hoffman process about 10 years ago because I'd been triggered in a dynamic with my partner that had led me into a pattern of behavior that was very similar to the way in which I had grown up with my mother.' The actor noted that his childhood left him feeling 'confused' about how to love and how to receive affection. 'I was very confused about how to navigate the dynamics and the feelings that I was having,' he added before revealing that a fellow actor helped push him to the Hoffman Method. 'I was just about to turn 40, and it was really the greatest gift I could give myself, and the greatest reveal in my life up until that point. I felt like I'd almost been born again. It felt like I did 10 years of therapy in one week,' he added. The Hollywood heavyweight further noted that healing himself helped him become a better parent to 4-year-old daughter, Daisy, whom he shares with Perry, and Flynn, 13, with whom she shares with ex Miranda Kerr. 'I think my job as a parent now is to allow my children to grow without getting in their way. It's sort of like, don't get in the way of anyone else's journey. 'Don't let anyone get in the way of your journey, and just be grateful for the opportunities that are presented to you, and see the challenges of the dynamic that are in front of you as an opportunity for you to grow.' He noted that he is not 'perfect,' adding that he is learning as the days go on. 'I'm not saying I'm perfect. It's not easy at all, but it is something that without the Hoffman process, I don't think I could say I would have understood. I think I could have been easily triggered.' 'Now, even if I am and if we come across a situation that we're in conflict about [something], I can take a step back. 'I can let some time pass and then we can re-engage in a conversation where I'm looking at everything from [Flynn's] perspective whilst trying to lay in my thinking without it overwhelming or getting in the way of his process,' he shared. Although the actor didn't name the partner that 'triggered' him, Bloom was in a long-term relationship with Kerr at the time of the incident. His candid confession comes after exclusively revealed that he had sold his four-bedroom, four-bathroom California home one month after listing it. The home was originally built in 1959. Mexican architect Miguel Angel Aragonés, who sold the home to Bloom, had expanded and enhanced the home's midcentury modern architecture. Bloom's renovations included a new, zero-edge pool with an ipe wood deck. The outdoor area features bulit-in seating and a fire pit, and can be accessed via floor-to-ceiling sliders from several rooms in the house. The actor initially listed the abode in 2019 for $9 million, after having paid $7 million for the pad in 2017. The 4,011-square-foot, single-story home has four bedrooms and four baths. It sits on a hillside overlooking the city and the ocean. A mature hedge out front provides privacy. Bloom also opened up the floor plan, expanding the kitchen and allowing in more natural light. He added bespoke Poliform fixtures and finishes as well as indoor LED lighting. The master suite also had some work done. After the actor moved in, he opened the space so it could open out to the pool and has generous closet space. The master bath has a wet room with a free-standing tub and shower. There's a private patio right outside the floor-to ceiling windows. One of the home's more fascinating features is a sunken conversation pit lined with sumptuous sofas in the living room. News of the actor's home sale comes after it was revealed that Perry and Bloom had called it quits. The former couple began dating in 2016 after meeting at a Golden Globes after-party, where they fought over an In 'N' Out burger, the singer previously revealed during an episode of 'American Idol.' Related Articles 200-Year-Old Spanish Hacienda Time Capsule With Wildly Intriguing History Hits the Market in New Mexico for $950,000 From Down Payments to Deeds: A Parent's Role in Their Child's First Home The Magic Mortgage Rate Number That Will Push Americans To Buy, Survey Finds Solve the daily Crossword
