Denver bartender turns 43 years of bar work into a new art career

Candlelight Tavern in West Washington Park was still crowded at 1:30 a.m. on a recent Saturday. Scott Hanley, who has worked behind that bar for 28 years, called last call and walked guests out to the street. He knows the regulars by name and knows what they drink. He has been tending bar since 1983.

Last November, the Colorado Restaurant Association named Hanley Bartender of the Year at the 2025 HOSPY Awards. The recognition follows a long career that included serving drinks during a bout of stage four cancer in 2018. He also survived a gunshot at the bar in 2001 that missed his liver. The bar remains a constant in his life.

Hanley, 65, is preparing to share a second career with the public. He creates art in clay, stone, and silver. His work has remained a private passion for decades, known only through word of mouth and small art shows. A friend is currently building a website for him to display and sell his pieces.

“I think the universe is doing things right now where it’s really pulling me that way,” Hanley said. He describes himself as a visual thinker with a mind that does not stop. He says the characters in his head drive both his bartending and his art. He lets those personalities out through the people he serves and the objects he creates.

He works in different mediums depending on the weather and his mood. He carves stone in his backyard and works with clay at a studio. At home, he makes silver pieces at a jeweler’s bench next to a tabletop kiln. Clay is his most forgiving medium. If a piece does not work, he folds it up and starts over. Stone is harder to work with and more expensive. Mistakes are permanent.

Hanley creates pieces with specific meanings. One series featured figures slashed with knives and studded with metal pins. He calls them soul images. Each cut represents an impression life leaves on a person. “To a lot of people it looks creepy and negative … to me, it’s just, like, we all are marked up in one way or another, and it makes us who we are, and it’s not necessarily ugly,” he said. He prefers to let viewers interpret the work themselves rather than explaining the story behind each piece.

His bracelets have become his most visible work. He has worn them for years while serving drinks. Some are friendship bracelets from his 20s. Others are silver pieces he made himself. One features small silver bottles. Another has stone inlay between stars. Each piece has a history. One POW bracelet has been worn so long that the name on it has worn off. A customer once brought him a piece from Turkey.

Guests at the Candlelight often ask if he makes the bracelets. He used to say no. Now he says yes. He rotates the pieces he wears on different shifts. When someone asks what else he has made, he points to the next item on his arm. His son has tried to get him to livestream his work on Twitch, but Hanley prefers people to buy pieces because they like the art, not the artist. He has no interest in selling behind a computer all day.

The new website will go under the name Booze to Bling. It will make his art more visible than it has been in the past. “I’ll be able to say, ‘Look at my website and see what you like, and if there’s something you like, buy it,'” Hanley said. Until the site is live, the bar is the only place to see his original work. The same reputation that made him a well-known bartender is now bringing people to ask about his art.

Hanley said the bar helps him network. People ask what he is working on. They find it interesting. He says that gets his story out there a little bit more. He works person by person, from the first drink of the night to last call.