Wente: Art Daily’s legacy

Saturday, Dec. 7, marks the fourth anniversary of Art Daily’s passing. Art and I worked together at the law offices of Holland & Hart, where I was lucky to learn from and practice alongside him for nearly a decade. I loved him dearly, as many of you did.

Those of us here in 1995 remember the most profound and unimaginable loss in Glenwood Canyon that claimed the lives of Art’s then-wife (Kathy) and two boys (Tanner and Shea). Nobody knows how Art emerged from the deepest and darkest grief — only that he did. He was the man who remarried (Allison Daily) and raised two more boys (Ryder and Burke). He was a maverick and a free spirit with wild hair and a jade necklace worn close to his heart. He knew all too well what mattered most. You’d see it in the way he’d greet a passerby a faint but telling smile, or how he’d go to those grieving to sit with them at their rock bottom. He was not without flaws, like each of us, but he never got hung up on them. He was at peace in who he was and what he could offer the world.

Upon Art’s passing in 2020, he left this community with a three-part legacy: the resilience of spirit; our shared need for human connection; and the small but nevertheless impactful ways of showing up for our fellow man.

Join me in honoring Art’s legacy by donating to Pathfinders (pathfindersforyou.org), a local nonprofit providing meaningful counseling and personal care services, at minimal cost, for individuals and families coping with grief. The Art Daily Memorial Fund at Pathfinders was established to ensure that no one walks through grief alone.

He walked that walk, with his characteristically cool cowboy zen.

Alison Wente (formerly Eastley)

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