"Incantations" – A Renaissance-Inspired Shovelhead from Denver

Feature Build: “Incantations” by Joshua Wright

📍 Denver, Colorado
🛠 Built in 2024/2025
Instagram: @doom_cvlt

Photos by Enrique Parrilla @eparrillacreates

In a two-car garage in Denver, Colorado, surrounded by dogs and supported by a loving wife, 33-year-old Joshua Wright spends his free time building raw, soulful machines. His latest work — a 1979 Shovelhead named Incantations — is a haunting tribute to Renaissance art and the DIY spirit of American chopper culture.

Joshua’s love for bikes traces back to his teenage years. “I grew up during the golden age of Discovery Channel,” he says. Shows like Monster Garage and American Chopper fueled his imagination. Add to that the guy across the street who owned everything from sport bikes to an original Indian Larry chopper, and it was only a matter of time before he caught the bug. When his dad handed him the keys to an 883 Sporty in high school, that was it — he was hooked.

The first chopper he ever "built" was a hardtailed XS650 — a “perfect half-assed chopper” that hated starting, stopping, and everything in between, but absolutely ripped down the highway. It set the tone for the kind of bikes Joshua would go on to create: wild, imperfect, full of character.

Incantations began life as a bone stock ’79 FLH he scored off Marketplace — from a one-eyed seller, no less. “It was a steal,” he says, despite the bike’s condition: no brakes, bad fuel lines, rust everywhere, and oil leaking from just about every place oil could leak. The 4-mile ride home took him 3 hours. That was just the beginning.

After restoring the Shovelhead to a rideable state, he tore it all back down. “I can never leave well enough alone,” Joshua admits. What emerged from the bones and remains is Incantations, a deeply personal build inspired by Frans Francken the Younger’s Assembly of Witches. That single painting set the tone for the entire project. “From that moment, I knew exactly what this build was going to look like,” he says. “And I’m so stoked it came out exactly how I imagined.”

Built entirely by Joshua, the fabrication work was done in-house. He credits his background in “transmedia sculpture” — a minor he studied in college — for teaching him the fundamentals of metalworking. "What I took away most was how to make metal fit where you want it to." That knowledge paid off, as he welded and shaped the structure of the bike himself over the course of eight focused months (ten, if you count the initial restoration).

The paint job, handled by @daisysgeneralstore, complements the eerie, mystical tone of the bike. The imagery was created by Joshua himself, further emphasizing how hands-on this project really was.

When asked about his favorite moment, Joshua doesn’t hesitate: “That first start once the motor was in the frame. I was sweating whether or not she would kick after sitting so long. But that feeling when you finally get that one good kick in and she comes to life — it’s unbeatable.”

In a world that celebrates the polished and the perfect, Incantations is a reminder that real character comes from imperfection, vision, and persistence. It's gritty, artistic, and entirely built from passion.