Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i 5280 Magazine

DEAN SOBEL Former director of the Clyfford Still Museum; professor of the practice of art history and museum studies, University of Denver “I can’t think of any reputable museum that would do an exhibition of a living artist against their wishes. Plus, I’m shocked the entertainment company would advertise the monetary value of all of these works. [Editor’s note: Toronto-based Starvox Entertainment publicly values the collection of 80-plus original paper works, purchased from private collectors, at $35 million.] No professional arts organization would ever do something like that. However, assuming the works displayed are real, it would be really nice to see them. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an authentic Banksy piece.” LOUISE MARTORANO Executive director, RedLine Contemporary Art Center “It would be completely antithetical for us at RedLine…

MACRODOSING The Argument For: Macrodosing—that is, taking a large enough dose of psilocybin to trip (usually three grams or more of dried mushroom)—is the most effective therapeutic option if done with intention and with guidance. Only with large doses do people have the opportunity to experience long-lasting shifts in their beliefs and behaviors. The Argument Against: If the set and setting are wrong, if there’s no intention, or if integration is ignored, a macrodose can be anxiety-inducing, scary, or downright traumatic. Another important note: For those with pre-existing serious mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia or acute suicidal ideation, a psilocybin trip can cause further destabilization. MICRODOSING The Argument For: Microdosing, or taking sub-perceptible doses (0.05 to 0.3 grams of dried mushrooms) of psilocybin on a fairly regular basis, is…

PRICE KEY (Average Entrée)$ UNDER $ 10• $$$ 11 TO $ 15• $$$ $ 16 TO $ 25• $$$$ $ 26 AND HIGHER. Want More Dining Options? Visit our online listings at 5280.com/restaurants. SYMBOL KEY NEW Indicates a restaurant featured in 5280 for the first time (though not necessarily a restaurant that has just opened). A A5 $$$$ Downtown / Steak House The team behind Forget Me Not and Tap and Burger offers a refreshing chophouse experience in a delightfully funky bar and dining room. Reservations accepted. 1600 15th St., 303-623-0534. Dinner Acreage by Stem Ciders $$ Lafayette / Seasonal Stem Ciders’ ciderhouse and eatery pairs its drinks with house-grown produce and sustainable sourcing. Reservations accepted for parties of nine or more. 1380 Horizon Ave., Lafayette, 720-443-3007. Lunch, Dinner Apple…

Multidisciplinary Artist Young, an Indigenous muralist and painter, centered two of the illustrations she created for “Is This Land Your Land?” (page 106), an examination of land acknowledgments, on photographs of a Comanche woman and a Ute man, both from Colorado. MEANINGFUL MOTIVATION ”I hope to encourage those that see the artwork and read the story to educate themselves about what land they are on and to acknowledge and respect our Earth.” ON INSPIRATION ”My ancestry informs the kin that are a focal point in my work, but so does land and water. From charcoal to pencil to paint—even this keyboard I use to type—these mediums all derive from the land.” ON 5280.COM Magic Moment April 9, Denverite Scotty Wiese will become the first magician to headline Red Rocks Amphitheatre.…

In July 2019, while serving on the board of Romance Writers of America (RWA), Heidi Bond—who prefers to go by her pen name, Courtney Milan—won an award for promoting diversity within the trade association. Several months later, however, the organization suspended the Front Range author and barred her from hold ing future RWA leadership positions. Her crime? Calling out another member’s depiction of a half-Chinese character as a “racist mess” on Twitter. That wasn’t the first time Milan called out a bad actor. Although she grew up in Southern California dreaming of becoming a writer, she went to law school instead, perusing romance novels as a release from academic pressure. In 2007, during a clerkship for Alex Kozinski, Milan says the prominent federal appeals judge subjected her to abusive behavior,…

TOP TREK LOWER & UPPER FISH CREEK FALLS NEARBY CITY: Steamboat Springs DRIVE TIME FROM DENVER: 3 hours HIKE LENGTH: 5 miles round trip DIFFICULTY: Moderate APRÈS-HIKE: Just northwest of downtown, pop into How Ya Doin’ Pizza N’ Eats to order a to-go pie. We recommend chasing it with a Chowder hazy IPA at Storm Peak Brewing Company next door, where a new rooftop deck is due to open this summer. Lower Fish Creek Falls is a magnificent, 283-foot behemoth you can view from a paved overlook path or a wooden bridge at the base, both of which are about a quarter-mile from the parking lot. (Note: You’ll need $5 cash or a check for the day-use fee.) Leave those spots to the tourists and continue up the trail: Your true destination…

STEP 1MAKE SOME CONNECTIONS Because psilocybin is still illegal in Colorado, there’s no such thing as an aboveboard session with a licensed therapist. Instead, the mushroom-curious will need to find those who have experience assisting people with psilocybin journeys despite the illegality of the pursuit. This is no easy task. Almost everyone involved in what the community calls “medicine work” finds clients through hush-hush methods, since decriminalization doesn’t yet allow people to share mushrooms or use them in a communal setting. That could change soon, but for now finding a facilitator means asking around in the right circles (see “Mycelium Web” on page 102). MENTAL NOTE “My practice is all word-of-mouth. No website, no advertising. If someone contacts me out of the blue with no referral, I ignore them. I…

NAROPA UNIVERSITY Naropa recently announced a new certificate in psychedelic assisted therapies. In March, the first cohort of students—all professionals in psychotherapy, nursing, medicine, or chaplaincy—began the 10-month course, which teaches students about psychedelic therapy modalities that use MDMA, ketamine, and psilocybin. PSYCHEDELIC RESEARCH & TRAINING INSTITUTE Founded in 2019 in Fort Collins, PRATI provides licensed therapists and medical professionals with training on ketamine-assisted therapy and uses that model to explore the potential of other psychedelics in mental health care. The nonprofit also hosts webinars that are open and free to the public. NOWAK SOCIETY The Fort Collins–based nonprofit nurtures the psychedelic community and gives voice to the movement. In practice, that looks like Q&A sessions, professional networking get-togethers, and, this year, its first Psychedelic Education Festival, being held in…

While COVID-19 has made most of our physical lives smaller, it appears to have made our dream lives bigger. A March 2020 poll found that a third of Americans experienced greater dream recall, and, as COVID-19 dragged on, people began describing ever more vibrant visions. “As a dream ‘event,’ the pandemic is unprecedented,” reported Scientific American. That doesn’t surprise Deborah Bryon, who holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Denver and is chair of the dream exam (think: the bar exam for dream interpreters) for certifying prospective members of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. “Dreams can be a way that we try to metabolize and work through things,” Bryon says—and, boy, have the past two years delivered some serious baggage. To start the unpacking, we asked…

Since November, motorists passing through Glenwood Canyon have been greeted by a jarring scene: backhoes and excavators toiling in the Colorado River. The heavy machinery is there to remove 240,000 tons of debris left when flash flooding in July 2021 caused a rock flow to rush down the canyon’s walls, which had been burned bare by the Grizzly Creek fire a year earlier. The flood wrecked portions of I-70 and blocked the river with mud, sediment, and rock. The cost of mitigation will total $24.2 million, but the Colorado Department of Transportation predicts the road and the waterway will be cleared by early this month—just in time for the next flash flood season. With more impermeable soil and less vegetation because of the fire, even modest amounts of rain could…

Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) is preaching a new gospel to the masses: Thou shalt not harm the Earth. Founded in 2012, the national nonprofit has mobilized 25,000 Gen Z Christians to spread a “What Would Jesus Do” message to members of their faith who don’t believe in climate change. (In 2015, 37 percent of white evangelical Protestants said there was no solid evidence of climate change, according to the Pew Research Center.) Helping lead that mission is Littleton resident and YECA’s new director of communications, 26-year-old Lindsay Garcia. Ahead of Earth Day, we spoke with Garcia about being a burning bush for climate skeptics. 5280: What message resonates with evangelicals? Lindsay Garcia: One of the first things God says to humans in Genesis is to be good stewards…

Mycophiles Unite THE STORY CHANGES a little bit each time it’s told, but the basic details of how Denver became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms remain mostly the same: A group of people, some of whom had taken to calling themselves the Psychedelic Club of Denver, began meeting at St. Mark’s and Hooked on Colfax coffeeshops in late 2017 and developed a plan to change city law. “It’s just one more example of a small band of rebels making something big happen,” says Kevin Matthews, who ultimately led the Decriminalize Denver campaign. “Two and a half years later, Initiative 301 passed.” Matthews didn’t start out looking to rebel. After graduating from East High School in 2004, he went to the U.S. Military Academy and planned to make…

MUSHROOMS GROW IN MY BACKYARD. They proliferate in the park near my house. I see them lining trails in the high country. It seemed to me that, as living things go, mushrooms must not be all that fussy about where they sprout. And that’s mostly true. Or, maybe more accurately, it’s not difficult to create the environmental conditions necessary for toadstools to fruit, even in the basement of your Denver home. Of course, I didn’t want to grow buttons or bellas. I was hoping to nurture psilocybes, which decriminalization says I can do without worrying about going to jail. As one might imagine, though, ordering a mushroom grow kit for psychedelic mushrooms off Amazon isn’t possible, even if you have Prime. Instead, I would have to source the growing supplies…