Who: Jim and Julie Behrens, Golden
Media: Fused glass, wood, software, electronics
Their story: Partners in business and art as well as in marriage, the Behrenses are corporate refugees reinventing themselves as artists. Julie Behrens was a marketing and public relations representative at the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Botanic Gardens. Her husband, Jim, designs and creates the unusual frames that house flat-panel screens that display up to 100,000 images, plus audio and video.
Agog Art frames are pricey. Tack an extra zero or two to the prices of digital photograph screens that fit in conventional commercial frames and offer a more modest image storage capacity.
“The beauty of ours is that they’re art, and they’re the highest resolution you can get,” Julie Behrens said.
Before devoting himself to art, Jim Behrens was CEO of several startup software companies, all in California. A few years ago, when he was still traveling several days a week from the Behrens’ home in Golden to his work in California, he bought a kiln and taught himself to fuse glass. Jim Behrens designed the prototype Agog frame shortly afterward, incorporating his software engineering skills and the woodworking artistry he learned from his father. (His father ran a fixture company that provided fixtures and custom woodwork for the May Co. in Colorado.)
Behrens designed his Agog frames with a high-resolution screen and an embedded computer and software that links wirelessly to a desktop folder. Typically, the images change every 6 seconds.
The Behrenses see their eye- catching pieces both as frames and stand-alone artworks. The “Chasing Rainbows” frame centers pictures inside an abstract starburst set in irridescent glass. The best-selling frame is the serene “Once in a Blue Moon” design, which invokes a sense of Zen, with a curved wood frame embraced by fluid blue glass.
Their frames were featured in the Celebrations home at the Denver Parade of Homes at SouthShore earlier this month.
“In the Parade of Homes, we had five Agog frames in one house, and it was the number-one design aspect that drew the most comments,” Julie Behrens said.
Cost range: $2,500-$5,000
Where to find their work: Each frame is custom-made. Go online to , or call 303-919-3035.
