In a video commentary about the art piece, Parker Robinson talked about her dreams for the piece. “What I love is people will be able to go and say, ‘That’s my bag, I contributed it.’ … Those kinds of things are going to be great.” Evans is looking ahead to the new stories he can tell: He’s traveling to Holland, Mich., to create a mural for the town’s next tulip festival, and he’ll be in Houston working on a mural at a new housing development. Each project will pose new creative problems for Evans to solve and offer new communities for him to get to know and to understand — a process that consumes him, gladly. “I don’t want to be handcuffed to my studio desk,” he said. “It’s Not What You Take, It’s What You Bring Back,” a largescale, public sculpture Thomas Evans — the artist known as Detour — created from donated luggage and bags located in Concourse B at Denver International Airport. Photo courtesy of the Denver International Airport Thomas Evans’ colorful murals often champion community. In this image, Evans painted a sweeping mural of Clara Brown, a freed slave and early Colorado settler who became one of the state’s first female entrepreneurs and a philanthropist, on the side of a housing community that bears her name. | Photo by Thomas Evans DENVER VOICE SEPTEMBER 2026 11
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