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Week of August 4, 2022
DENVER, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 95 | ISSUE 37
An a-mazing art exhbit
Rocky Mountain National Park making a comeback COVID, East Troublesome packed a one-two punch BY MICHAEL BOOTH THE COLORADO SUN
Attendees of local artist Warren Stokes’ opening reception gather for a photo during the event on July 22, which took place at the Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado building in Washington Park. Stokes is pictured in the center, next to the youth holding the artPHOTOS BY CHRISTY STEADMAN work.
Local maze artist spotlighted at Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado art exhibit BY CHRISTY STEADMAN CSTEADMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Freedom. Gratification. Expression. This what local artist Warren
Stokes gets from creating his maze art. “In everything I’ve tried, I’ve never gotten such a positive response as with my art,” Stokes said. Stokes, a self-proclaimed mazeologist, has drawn roughly 2,000 artistic mazes. Each is unique and they vary in size — often, Stokes will create them on discarded materials, such as a broken-up dresser drawer or shelf. Though intricate and detailed, each
borhoods. Colorado has proposed a statewide ban on plastic bags expected to go into effect beginning in 2024, but in the meantime, shoppers across Denver are subject to a fee of 10 cents per disposable bag. The Bring Your Own Bag program, which passed Denver City
The same few months of 2020 that Colorado crown jewel Rocky Mountain National Park was suffering its worst losses from COVID closures, the whole place also nearly burned down. Now, things are looking up in the original Switzerland of the West. The park’s in-house firefighting crew, which said they’d been prepping for a sparkfest like East Troublesome for 20 years, used a landscaping “catcher’s mitt” to stop the record fire from blazing on into Estes Park in October 2020. Those crews will be following up on that success with new federal grants to bolster firewall efforts on Deer Mountain, which stands sentinel between prime wildfire paths and Estes Park, evacuated as a precaution before East Troublesome smoldered out. And with COVID’s grip loosened from much of the American psyche, the park returned to 4.4 million visitors last year — not a record, but enough to reinforce a timed-entry system that by some
SEE BYOB, P2
SEE COMEBACK, P8
work of art is a solvable maze. Stokes has always had an interest in art, and started creating his maze art in 2008. “Art is a way to save me,” Stokes said. Stokes’ art is available through various organic platforms — particularly word-of-mouth or reaching him through social media — but it has SEE A-MAZING, P4
Revisiting Denver’s Bring Your Own Bag fee One year later — is it working as intended? ELICIA HESSELGRAVE SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Barbara MacFarlane wishes Denver would ban plastic bags altogether.
“You gotta roll with the times,” she said. “The times (now) are reusable.” MacFarlane is the co-owner and self-proclaimed Queen Bee of Marczyk Fine Foods, a locally-owned neighborhood market that has two locations in Denver — one at 770 E. 17th Ave. in Uptown; and the other at 5100 E. Colfax Ave., which borders the Hale and South Park Hill neigh-
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 11
EAR YOU GO
Colorado’s signature Olathe sweet corn reaches stores
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