Emily Korson

My Sundays usually entail attending either a Pilates or barre class at Lifetime Fitness, working in my garden, and taking a walk around Wash Park. I also always make use of open studio time at the Art Students League of Denver, where I take weekly ceramics classes. My educational background is in fine art, primarily painting and drawing, and art education, so I feel very much at home in the studio. Before moving to Denver, my husband and I lived in Portland, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, and Seattle, where I co-founded Seattle ReCreative. That laid the groundwork for ReCreative Denver, which I founded here nearly ten years ago.

Over the past decade, we’ve grown from having a single employee (my childhood friend and co-founder, Chris Scott) to a six-member staff and ten-member Board of Directors. This year, we’re projecting that our organization will serve 25,000 customers, engage over 275 volunteers, and house ten resident artists in our creative reuse store, art classes, gallery, and woodworking workshop. It’s been a rather wild ride getting two nonprofit creative reuse centers off the ground, but I love the community that ReCreative creates.

After I’ve finished working in the studio, my family likes to dine out at Hapa in Cherry Creek. We also love Local Goudy’s Deli & Market, Devil’s Food Bakery, Homegrown Tap & Dough, Perdida, Rebel Bread, and Bonnie Brae Ice Cream. There’s so much to enjoy about our cluster of neighborhoods—from the shops to the parks to the people—and that makes living here so rewarding. My husband and I are co-chairs of the Denver Reed College Alumni chapter, and have planned numerous events in and around our neighborhood. Our favorite has been lawn bowling with the Wash Park Lawn Bowling Club, Colorado’s only such club, which recently celebrated its 102nd anniversary! That’s the sort of tradition that makes Wash Park, Bonnie Brae, and our community so special.