Author Archive: Monica Surfaro Spigelman

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Ephemera and Eccentricities

October 6, 2013 |

Tradition and a 40th Anniversary Spice Up Tucson Meet Yourself, October 11-13

Celebrations of Tucson’s ethnic cultures are the reason for Tucson Meet Yourself!
photo: Steven Meckler/courtesy Tucson Meet Yourself

Tuck in your sari; swallow that mouthful of paella and hang on to your delicate Ukrainian egg. Somewhere between the first spring roll and listening to the bagpipes – you’ll be swept away by an annual phenomenon that lies dormant in Tucson until the second weekend of October. But then, ethnic pride blooms into quite a feast, a meeting of yourself Downtown, a delicious celebration that mixes up shared cultures in the desert.

Authenticity is serious business at Tucson Meet Yourself (TMY), celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. So is the eating and learning about what is both exciting and everyday in a most remarkable cultural stew.

The giant of a man behind all this is hard to miss! Although now leaning on a walker or riding his scooter, Dr. Jim Griffith, practicing urban anthropologist, still looms large at the annual festival. Plucking his banjo, admiring a Mexican lady’s flowers, listening to and talking with Tohono O’odham and Turks and everyone else in between, this man of everyday people has made sharing the multi-cultures of the Arizona-Sonora region his life’s work, resulting in books, the past directorship of the Southwest Folklore Center at the University of Arizona, as well as the nation’s highest honor for folklorists from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Veterans of Big Jim will not be disappointed this year when his showcase of ourselves again covers every corner of the Presidio, Jácome Plaza and environs – a site selected 40 years ago as “neutral ground” for the city’s cultural collaboration. Like an old-fashioned, massive quilting circle, TMY activates Downtown as its own utopian community, a funky melting pot along the lines of what Big Jim and Loma Griffith, the founders of TMY, call “the fruitcake model” – full of textures and colors that stand on their own within a nutty cake.

Doing the 40th
Even if you’re not a fruitcake fan you’ll still enjoy this party of the people. The 2013 event has some new elements, including:

photo: Steven Meckler/courtesy TMY

The 40th Anniversary Cultural Kitchen foodway includes 25 food demonstrations from local cooking gurus, ranging from Ethiopian red lentil stew, to chiltepin chocolate ice cream and Swedish spritz cookies. Also expect prickly pear cheese cake, cholla bud/nopalito salad, Congolese lenga lenga (amaranth stew) and Russian beet vinaigrette salad. The kitchen runs until 7pm Saturday and all day Sunday, and of course the 50+ food booths are open until festival lights out.

The Lowrider Show and Shine returns to its original TMY location (Tucson Museum of Art), while nearby at La Cocina Old Town Artisans – there’ll be a satellite storytelling stage hosted by Pima County Library Foundation.

A new visual and educational exhibit on the Chinese in Tucson will be sponsored by the Chinese Cultural Center in a tent outside the main library at Jácome Plaza, while the Western History Association (conducting its annual meeting up in the Foothills) will host a panel discussion on one TMY stage, bringing scholars who study the history of the west Downtown to join the festival fusion.

Expect the 25th Annual AIDSWalk Tucson to traverse through the festival, kicking off Sunday’s program, beginning at 9am.

Tall Tales
While for many TMY is all about the food, others are interested in the peculiar folklore that has grown up around the festival over four decades. If you haven’t heard the storytelling, here are a few tales:

  • Setting for miracles: The worst tropical storm in Arizona’s history occurred in 1983, with this 100-year flood reporting the highest crests in the Rillito and the Santa Cruz. Campbell Avenue was a river and Grant Road a lake, and distraught festival planners worked out contingency plans with the city and Pima County, so that the cultural clubs who relied on TMY food sales wouldn’t be devastated by the downpours. As it turned out, that year the rains abruptly ceased the Friday of the festival, opening a circle of blue sky over TMY Friday through Sunday – whereupon the rains began again all over Tucson. Or so the folklore goes.

  • The Name Game: The first “Tucson, Meet Yourself” (an intentional comma provided a grammatically correct invitation) was a two-day affair, kicked off by a Friday night “Fandango” (animated dance party) at a newly built La Placita Village. In 1975, the name changed to “TMY and Friends,” to allow all the ethnic you’d ever want from other parts of the country to join in the Tucson party. That year, TMY hosted national recording artist and first lady of Tejano Lydia Mendoza, among other national artists. The name returned to “Tucson Meet Yourself”(without the comma) in 1976, and that name stuck (except for a 1995-2000 hiatus, when the festival was called “THE Tucson Heritage Experience,” and not run by Jim and Loma).

  • Experimentation: Although the mission remained the same over 40 years, Jim often looked for ways to keep the festival fresh. Some ideas, like the Liar’s Contest, which had as its top prize a bronzed cow pie on a plaque, came in 1979 and stayed for a few years. Others, like the corrido contest, begun in 1982, remain an important part of the festival.

  • Supper breaks: In the early years, TMY employed a very-extended supper break on Saturdays to allow tradition bearers to eat and refresh before the evening program. Back in 1974, the festival needed a way to let folks know the festival was starting up again after the supper break. Someone suggested that the pipers process from their courtyard practice area to the city hall stage, bellowing away to herald the program restart. The tradition stuck (even after supper breaks ended in the mid-1990s).

  • Paseo: In the 1980s, when one group wanted to do a fashion show onstage, Jim and team responded by asking all groups to participate in a traditional Show and Tell called the Paseo. For many years, promenades of ethnic costumes were the de rigueur of the Saturday programs. Women and men wearing traditional and contemporary styles of dress proudly displayed their outfits while an emcee explained the intricacies as well as the meaning of the colors and the ornamentation.  The Paseo continued off and on but in a minimal way after the formal supper breaks ended.

  • Gang of Five: What started as a gathering put together by Jim and Loma’s close friends evolved even in the early years as a complex undertaking requiring hundreds of volunteers. The beginning core volunteer group was called the Gang of Five (a nod to the Mao Zedong era and his revolutionary political group known as the Gang of Four). The Tucson gang that planned and ran the festival from the late 1970s until 1995 actually never numbered five. Started after strong urgings from Loma, the group always numbered somewhere between four and 15. Mike and Frieda Stafford, who met doing garbage detail at the festival, and celebrated their honeymoon hauling a white garbage cart through the park with “Just Married” written on it, were part of the early Gang of Five. They’re still married and still attend TMY.

Inevitably, as you lick the last remnants of fry bread from your fingers, someone asks a question about the origins of the treat, or how to spell how to spell chivichanga. And that leads to an exchange at the heart of Jim and Loma’s festival vision: The more we appreciate, the more we’ll respect, increasing the chances of understanding and working together.

The generosity of simple people allowing strangers into their cultures for 40 years is something to remember as we eat or dance or touch that priceless traditional artwork. After the TMY blitz of culture overload that hits the sweet spot this month, ordinary life will seem that much more extraordinary to you.

The free festivities take place at the main library plaza, El Presidio Park, and surrounding streets from 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Oct 11-12 and 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Oct 13. Schedule and parking information is available at TucsonMeetYourself.org.

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TMY Time Capsule
If you want a head start (or a follow up) to the festival, be sure to visit Special Collections, UA Main Library, where a rich repository of TMY folklore is on display, in an exhibit that crisscrosses culture with historical documents and enough visual ephemera to call up festival fun.

“Big Jim” Griffith with his banjo, likely sharing a story before playing a song.
photo courtesy TMY/date unknown

This time capsule of posters, t-shirts, music, leaflets, tickets, albums and all sorts of Big Jim memorabilia was assembled by UA associate librarian Bob Diaz (who also is Library coordinator of exhibits and events and curator of the Library’s Performing Arts collection).

The exhibit is organized by eras and themes, which unfold into unique TMY snapshots, past and present. Each display case, panel or kiosk feels like its own treasure chest, worthy of pleasurable browsing. Adding to the complexity and fun is a music kiosk, containing audio from the festival’s early years. Another large monitor gives great pictorial punch and, sometimes, emotion, to the exhibit via a photographic faces of the festival display.

The overall history itself comes alive through material that tells a different side of the well-known story: for example, there are Jim’s 1974 handwritten and typed notes that show ideas and budget for the 1974 event. In another case, the first corrido contest is brought to life by its printed ephemera. Dog eared old photos provide a connection with the past in ways that today’s digital images cannot – illuminating TMY history to new generations.

An hour before what turned out to be a packed opening-night reception in mid-September, Big Jim and Loma were seen surveying the cases with apparent delight. All told, the exhibition presents hundreds of items from a collection Jim donated to the archives several years ago. Fascinating and even a little weird (the bronzed Liar’s Contest cow pie plaque is on display), this Big Jim exhibition is worth a trip.

“40 Years of Tucson Meet Yourself” is on view at Special Collections, UA Main Library, 1510 E. University Blvd., through January 12, 2014. Hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entry is free, as is use of the vast and interesting Special Collections archives, where anyone is allowed to research priceless documents and memorabilia on subjects as varied as mining, Gabrielle Giffords or Stewart Udall archives, and an oddly wonderful vaudeville collection. All that is required is to complete some paperwork. A professional band of archivists and librarians are always available to help you discover something interesting about the Southwest. Learn more at: SpecColl.Library.Arizona.edu.

 

Cool and Communal Artistic Haunts

June 11, 2013 |

Many Hands Courtyard

Courtyards inspire collaboration inside the lines of special spaces.

One thing is abundantly clear in the weeks ahead – the sun will shock Tucson into a baked city, reprising a predictable May urge to scatter for cool cover.  Lucky for us, history’s unbroken practice of gathering in shaded courtyards still thrives in Tucson.

What sets courtyards apart, let’s say, from malls or parks, is the way they enclose you, encouraging you to think carefully about connections to the larger environment of time and place. Roofless and eclectic, courtyards are all around us for both artistic and social ends, extending our living space as semi-private “zócalos.” These odd desert zones also make you feel like you are further away from civilization than you actually are.

So It Begins

By their architectural framework, courtyards offer ventilated environments for commerce, art or well-being.  By their history, courtyards have intensified mood and community conversation for more than a century.

One of Tucson’s first was La Plaza de la Mesilla, erected by Mexican residents along the old El Camino Real at the site of the original San Agustín cathedral (nearby what is now the Broadway/Congress intersection). La Placita Village, opened in 1974, symbolically represents Tucson’s first communal gathering point, and the Placita courtyard today remains another gathering point for Tucsonans, via a Thursday evening outdoor film series during summers.

Where there is community conversation there are artists, and in Tucson’s first and most colorful arts enclave, Ash Alley, there were many studios with back courtyards that set the scene for shows and artist gathering. The Contreras family silversmithing business, one of the original Ash Alley studios, identifies the Ash Alley heyday from the 1950s through the 1970s, when parties were hosted with live entertainment on these patios to entice prospective customers. A 1965 Arizona Daily Star article quotes one circa 1950s Ash Alley artist, Jack Petty, as saying, “We used to show paintings at those parties. We’d bring up Mexican gin from Nogales to try to lower visitors’ sales resistance.”

Although Ash Alley is now dominated by parking lots, other courtyards have assumed roles as a center of community life. How could that not be so for a city that itself was one massive walled courtyard in the form of a Spanish Presidio?  Courtyards remain a Tucson environment where unintentional encounters happen in intentional places.  Why not sit for a spell in one of Zócalo’s choices?

Crafts Collaboration:
Many Hands Courtyard
3054 1st Ave.
www.manyhandscourtyard.com

This home to traditional crafters and shopkeepers began life in the 1950s as the Sunshine Motel. Woodworker Cynthia Haas and partner Joseph Bruno purchased the complex in 1999, refurbishing the rundown adobes into the Many Hands Artist Cooperative, an art school, a furniture repair shop, as well as well as several retail businesses.

The Vibe: Artists in the cooperative gather informally on Thursday mornings, to critique works and to plan activities. Classes for children and adults are often conducted in the landscaped courtyard, which is dotted with tables, chairs and vending machines. Visitors may browse the shops, watch a weaver spin, and also purchase a blended natural, fair trade tea and snacks from Tea and More.

Intriguing Times to Visit: You will find shops and studios open Tuesdays through Saturdays. Third Saturday evening open studios and events are planned through July. Check the website for details about a June photo contest.   Many Hands also offers a meeting space for community non-profits.

Field Trip: Nine Courtyards for Collaboration and Community

Placita de La Luna

Plein Air Plaza:
Placita de La Luna
2409 North Castro, off Grant
www.placitadelaluna.com

In a 1934 adobe with arches and thick walls hand-formed by Pascua Yaqui artisans, an eclectic mix of oil painters, potters and tattoo artists thrive. There also are service and retail businesses to anchor the complex owned by Greg and Susan Alexander of Maggie Maye’s Tucson Tattoo Studio, which has operated in the complex since 1998.

The Vibe: Native desert landscaping and passive solar elements complement artists, students, customers and visitors who use the courtyard for work and socializing. Often one of the painters will bring a class out to the patio to paint en plein air. Light comes through glass blocks softly while ocotillo metal gates and a gardening project embellish the courtyard surrounded by the original farmhouses.

Intriguing Times to Visit: Check the website for classes offered by the studios. Individual visits to art studios or Susan’s Studio B tattoo salon also may be scheduled by appointment. Some painters have evening classes, and with Maggie Maye’s enclave of tattoo artists open Tuesday through Saturday until 10pm, there is regular access to the courtyard.

Metal Arts Village

Metal Meet-Up:
Metal Arts Village
3230 North Dodge Blvd.
www.metalartsvillage.com

In 2004, attorney-blacksmith Steve Kimble created this destination for all things metal in the Fort Lowell furniture district. Welders now work alongside glass blowers, woodworkers and metal artists in this specialized community, which includes an outdoor sculpture garden as well as a coffee shop, popular with dog lovers who frequent nearby dog parks.

The Vibe:  Kimble’s inspiration for the Village comes from the architecture of old rust belt manufacture and assembly plants. Each of the 11 studios has its own character and is built out of steel. The Coffee Loft, directly off the complex courtyard, serves as a gathering place for the artists who socialize there as well as meet with customers.

Intriguing Times to Visit: Once a week sculptors and designers from across Tucson meet to discuss techniques or opportunities, and formal artist collaborations take place the first Monday of the month at 10am. The coffee shop is open Monday through Saturday, 7am-2pm.  Next open studio under the full moon: Saturday, May 25, 6-9pm.

Scribes & Poets:
Casa Libre en la Solana
228 North 4th Ave.
www.casalibre.com

Tucked on the south end of Fourth Avenue, nearby the bars and the foam house, is a history-rich complex that’s also home to a creative and diverse literary salon where people meet for conversation, poetry readings, workshops, art-making and performance. Writer and Casa Libre founder Kristen Nelson purchased the property in 2003, renovating the 1898 property into library and meeting rooms up front, with writer/artist residencies in the back. What was once a dormitory for railroad workers and then a home for retired sex workers, is now the setting for hundreds of literary endeavors hosted each year by the non-profit.

Vibe: There’s a side breezeway and courtyard where youth and adult writers, interested onlookers and visual artists exchange creative energy and participate in diverse programming.

 Intriguing Times to Visit: Tucson’s first Trans and Genderqueer Poetry Symposium will be held May 9-12, bringing together contemporary poets from across the country. Edge, a reading series of emerging and younger writers, will host its 54th reading on May 15. Also check the website for workshops, including a June journaling and sketching class for writers of all skill levels.

Old Town Artisans

Adobe Artisans:
Old Town Artisans
201 North Court Ave.
www.oldtownartisans.com

This mid-1800s adobe complex has been a distillery, private residence, gasoline station and grocery through many iterations, and was owned by parking lot king Don Jones before being purchased by the Cele Peterson family. You can still see original saguaro cactus rib ceilings and odd signage in the complex’s nooks and crannies.

The Vibe: Without question, the courtyard with its mature plantings draws you in, encircling you with history, culture and shopping. Because the La Cocina Restaurant, Cantina and Coffee Bar routinely hosts performances, visitors may visit the courtyard to relax, enjoy food and spirits, shop and have a total experience.  Jewelry artist Eddie Gallego is the courtyard’s veteran artist, part of Old Town Artisans since 1991 He regularly hosts traditional Aztec performances and displays ofrendas honoring Día De Los Muertos observances.

Intriguing Times to Visit: With the grill open till the wee hours and the performance venue hopping almost every night, Old Town Artisans can be your shopping, cultural and cuisine experience whenever you fancy one.  The La Cocina stage also is Tucson Folk Festival venue on May 4-5. Tolteca Tlacuilo hosts fourth Saturday traditional art demonstrations; check the website for May or June programs.

Ben’s Bells Courtyard

Kindness Collective:
Ben’s Bells Downtown Courtyard
40 West Broadway
www.bensbells.org

Kindness has swept through downtown’s Charles Brown House and activated the courtyard of this historic complex. Once the site of Territorial Arizona’s Congress Hall and saloon, it’s now the downtown headquarters of the Ben’s Bells organization. A photography studio, shops, and nonprofit offices also hum around the courtyard. A nano-brewery-specialty coffee bar should open in June.

The Vibe: Ben’s Bells founder Jeannette Mare knows that courtyards are collaborative spaces for the curious and the creative. Interest grew for the original Ben’s Bells, she says, in part because of the outdoor visibility of its Geronimo Plaza, Main Gate location. The downtown courtyard is a welcoming space with outdoor kitchen, colorful tiles and historic plantings. Benches are shaded under historic arcades.

 Intriguing Times to Visit: Kindness seekers of the community may stop in to create a mosaic bell during open studios, held Tuesday through Saturday, 10am-5pm. Check the Ben’s Bells website for a fall party and the opening of a Kindness Shop in line with street car construction completion.

Cottage Community:
Main Street Arts: Kaitlin’s Cottage & Dry River Collective
740 North Main Avenue
www.kaitlinmeadows.com or thundermoonstudios.wordpress.com

Around 1916, Wong Yu built his Sunnyside Grocery at the corner of North Main and University. Over the years this landmark has incubated many artist groups, through conservation efforts first by what was the John Spring Neighborhood preservationist team, and later by historian/developer Steve Leal, who purchased the structures for artist working spaces in 1986.

The Vibe: This unique complex of adobes and tin roof buildings still contain historic touches from when railroad workers and Wong Yu’s mercantile operation were first housed there. The courtyard, with huge, 100-year-plus trees, also contains a garden cultivated by one anchor artisan, Kaitlin’s Creative Cottage and Thunder Moon Collective.  Other tenants include Read Between the Bars collective, a sound editor, bronze artist, weaver, as well as southwest impressionist artist Jack Bybee.  Signs for the Dry River radical resource collective still front the adobe, although “Tucson’s only anarchist-run establishment” is officially closed.

 Intriguing Times to Visit: Kaitlin Meadows regularly hosts art classes and creative playdays for women as well as a number of all-inclusive community events. Check her website for news about Saturday open studios (also held by artist Bybee) and community programs to coincide with the full moon and El Día de San Juan day in June.

Mercado San Agustin

Mission & Market:
Mercado San Agustín
100 South Avenida del Convento
www.mercadosanagustin.com

Melding agriculture history and the hip urban fabric of open air markets, the Mercado opened to the public in May 2011.  With architecture inspired by best practices of Spanish colonial design and modern green building ethics, the Mercado highlights heritage in its diverse assortment of small businesses and restaurants. The Mercado’s central courtyard is regularly activated by events and its weekly farmer’s market.

The Vibe: Wander around the arcade of small kiosks featuring traditional and locally-grown arts and eats. The Mercado offerings range from handcrafted moccasins to sno-cones and silver. Hang out, shop or enjoy an open air market that showcases a Mission heritage and locavore items processed in a shared commercial kitchen.

Intriguing Times to Visit: The award-winning Santa Cruz River Farmers Market is held every Thursday, 4-7pm. A Gay Pride fundraiser will be held June 22. Get set for the traditional July 4 “A” Mountain fireworks blowout, and a food truck event for Hot August Nights. Check website for details.

Monterey Court

Roundup Retro:
Monterey Court Studios & Cafe
505 West Miracle Mile
www.montereycourtaz.com

This 1938 motor court was the pride of Miracle Mile in its heyday, and after 18 months of renovation, partners Kelly McLear and Greg Haver opened the complex with 12 rental spaces for studios and shops, a café and park-like courtyard including performance stage.

The Vibe:  So many original features including beams and signage have been preserved, so a walk around the spaces is a retro visual experience. Courtyards are magnets for people to generate ideas and collectively produce art, says McLear, who recalls musicians jamming and talking by the fireplace in the south courtyard this past winter. Garden art, metal sculptures and native plantings offer creative interest and green overhead shade for guests, who are found sitting solo reading books or sharing conversation with artists.

Intriguing Times to Visit: The Miracle Mile Neon Tour and Open House will be held May 10, with the free event starting and ending at the Monterey Court. Check the website for both a May 5 first anniversary celebration and a June 21 summer solstice party.

During summers, Tucson’s desert courtyards have a cadence all their own, seducing us with unique conversation or diversions.  “Creative energy feeds from one to the next,” says Monica Prillaman, whose Obsidian Gallery in The Historic Depot is the scene of evening exhibits that often open up onto another of Tucson’s more unique courtyards.  Here, there’s nothing like an art show evolving into a night stroll set against a backdrop of freight trains and stars.

Courtyards catering to every stripe are found all over this town. Go see how these mini-meccas will ignite your spirit, expand your expertise or find you in a new conversation.

Borders & Baskets

March 14, 2013 |

Stirring the Imagination Via Photos and Fiber

In two contrasting exhibitions, the iconography of intimate photos and the designs of traditional weaving invite audiences to reconsider their understanding of our region’s culture…and soul.

Step into the Main Hall of the Arizona State Museum (ASM) and soon you will have a quandary. To one side is a current exhibition that plunges into the power of traditional basketry as a source of inspiration, function and beauty. To the other, beginning March 8, is a new conversation in the form of intricate photography, in an exhibition that makes you look again at the immigration discussion. Where to turn first?

The creative excitement stirred in these striking ASM exhibits comes from a sense of place that is undeniably Sonora, a celebration of a region reborn in images and baskets. You need all your senses and imagination to undercover the stories behind these two unique exhibits that demonstrate the intersection of culture, conscience and community in amazing ways.

“A World Without Borders.” untitled, by Alejandra Platt-Torres

Provocateur in Focus
A World Separated By Borders
Photography of Alejandra Platt-Torres
ASM Exhibition March 8 – October 19, 2013

Written in the language of the camera, an exhibition opening next month already is stirring a deeper collective thought about migration.

Alejandra Platt-Torres’ photographs are full of dramatic social commentary, and paint magical realism with melancholy and optimism. There is no flamboyancy in her images, just the vivid honesty of larger-format film photography that fractures the notion of pixel-perfect beauty.

The upcoming ASM exhibition will be multi-layered, featuring as its central focus 20 of Platt-Torres’ most stunning black-and-white photographs. The photos depict migrants, their desert journeys, human repatriation, border history and ecology.

In another layer, the exhibit experience will begin almost as a pilgrimage via a “desert walk” – Images of desert floor footprints and fragments become a walkway leading exhibit-goers into the Museum and the core of the “journey,” the photographic exhibition. There, a concluding layer will feature a conceptual “Sanctuary” installation –a slide show of additional Platt-Torres photos projected on to a desert shrine image – accompanied by a soundtrack by Salvador Duran.

According to ASM Curator of Exhibits Davison Packard Koenig, the exhibit offers visitors an opportunity to comment and reflect.”The exhibit is not necessarily to present all aspects of the border dilemma, but rather to humanize the border through the lens of Alejandra’s compelling imagery,” he notes.

The project represents over four years of Platt-Torres documentation of the border, which began after September 11, 2001.  At the time, the photographer had been at the border crossing, and she recalls vividly the changes that began occurring after that terrorism event.

“I am the third generation in a family of migrants and my great grandfather was born in New York City,” says Platt-Torres. “Since I was a child, I’ve been crossing the border with my family – there is no border in my world.”

But post-September 11 reaction prompted Platt-Torres to photograph images that symbolized the tension fueled by border issues as well as human casualties. “The photos began to reveal their meaning to me,” she says.

Platt-Torres’ most compelling works convey a sense of personal connection, almost engaging the viewers in conversation. She employs a Hasselblad 500 film camera, bringing viewers closer to the monumental subject matter by way of large-scale images.

The University of Arizona Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry is a partner in the exhibit. “Alejandra Platt-Torres is one of the most accomplished photographers of contemporary Mexico, says Dr. Javier Duran, director of the UA Confluencenter.  “Her photos evoke the strength, the struggles and the sorrows of the migrant people and reflect the lives of those who made it across and those who didn’t.”

Torres-Platt was born in Hermosillo, Sonora and now divides her time between Mexico and Tucson. She began photography when she was seven, using an Instamatic as her tool. Her photos reveal the truth of often uncomfortable subject matter in ways that can surprise the spectator. Like the desert itself, the photographs of A World Separated by Borders are both fragile and timeless.


Arizona State Museum’s largest example is a stunning Yavapai or Western Apache coiled olla that is almost 3.5 feet tall. It probably was made just after 1900 by an anonymous but extremely talented weaver who may have lived at San Carlos. Photo by Jannelle Weakly, from the permanent collections of Arizona State Museum.

Vessels of Tradition
Basketry Treasured
ASM Exhibition through January 4, 2014

You come here for the gravitas. If you haven’t visited the exhibition’s sampling of the world’s largest collection of American Indian basketry, you should. Some 500 rare pieces, representing every indigenous basket-making group in North America from 6,000 years ago to the present, take viewers on a visual journey into culture. It’s a display of objects at first familiar but upon inspection transform into artful experiences of tradition and technique.

Basketry Treasured was unveiled last year as part of ASM’s Arizona Centennial programming and is a sweeping spectacle of baskets and what the Museum calls “other woven wonders” (including sandals, mats and cradles made from native botanicals). The exhibit gives viewers a window into the past and future of a traditional art used for ceremony and function. Through displays that are almost architectural, the exhibit provides a modern commentary on beautifully structured and designed cultural objects. Diverse ground is covered and no matter what your style, the baskets resonate. Visitors explore the nature of tradition in an inviting touch-and-feel area, or get connected via an introductory film full of native voices.  In a display of miniature baskets, viewers are enriched by small-scale artistic structures that pay homage to ancestral traditions. Personal collections of three major Museum influencers dating to early 20th century are displayed around an entertaining “Indian Room,” where absorbing contextual posters embellish storytelling.

The future of basketry is also elegantly realized in the exhibit’s collection of contemporary pieces. This display demonstrates how today’s artists successfully adapt knowledge of elders to reflect images that capture a modern essence with intense design. Terrol Dew Johnson, a contemporary Tohono O’odham weaver, is collaborating curator of the exhibit. His community organization, TOCA, based in Sells, creates opportunities for learning, exchange and livelihood, and has helped his Tohono O’odham nation retain balance in honoring the past while entering mainstream. Dew Johnson’s work is showcased along with other contemporary artists in the show, building upon traditional patterns with originality that extends the expressive range of the craft.

Basketry Treasured is also presented in honor of a $400,000 Save America’s Treasures challenge grant, which intends to kick-start the construction of a climate-controlled “visible vault” and interpretive space for the woven wonders.  ASM hopes the exhibition inspires viewers to support a new, upgraded venue for the collection, which continues to face risks of deterioration. As you walk the exhibit and reflect about what baskets old and new teach about the cultures of the people who made them, perhaps you’ll wonder what other baskets are hidden in the museum and what stories they might tell you.

Tucson Meet Yourself Tapestry

October 8, 2012 |

Prepare to meet, eat and dance yourself silly

Relish that Cubano sandwich quickly, because it’s almost time for foot-tapping and the waila band. Head over to the courtyard to admire that Hopi carver, but save a minute to talk shop with the lowriders and get a mehndi tattoo. Swim back into El Presidio crowds, because next you’re ready for fry bread and folklorico.

It’s coming, this scenario of incessant Tucson folk life that you’ve dreamed about since last year. Whatever traditional performer, art or food you crave, the 39th annual iteration of Tucson Meet Yourself (TMY), scheduled for Friday, October 12 through Sunday October 14, certainly will have it all.

Tucson’s largest and most jubilant street festival is rolling back into 60 acres of downtown – combining cultural magic with a procession of ethnic pageantry that will start in Jácome Plaza, wind across Church Avenue into El Presidio Park, continue across the bridge through La Placita Village, rumble past Eckbo Fountains and finally fill TCC Plaza.  As in previous years, this cultural pulse on Tucson’s diversified communities will be a free and authentic folk life experience, an educational platform that also serves up fun and a thoughtful mélange of tradition for the crowds.

Themed “Live your story, share your world,” this year’s TMY transforms downtown into its own city of cultural self-expression, featuring more than 180 traditional artists and 45 ethnic and occupational groups. “Whether you come for the music, the food or the folk arts, there’s something for everyone at this participatory multi-cultural celebration,“ says Dr. Maribel Alvarez, folklorist and TMY’s Program Director who also is UA Associate Research Social Scientist/Research Professor. “Tucson Meet Yourself invites a dialogue between our city and our cultures, and in a festive way pays homage to the traditional, living arts of the folk groups who reside here.”

What’s New
Attendees should watch for surprises and unique happenings throughout this year’s event. Some highlights:

  • Cultural Kitchen: Start your tradition-happy TMY fun with a meander through the Cultural Kitchen, a new Pavilion in Jácome Plaza where there will be hands-on activities and demonstrations from local farmers, ranchers, heritage food artists, chefs and gardeners who support local food economy.
  • Kidlore: If you’re looking for what’s kid-inspired  and family-friendly, caravan over to TCC where Kidlore: The Culture of Kids will offer a heritage-rich playground and activity area focused on the rhymes and traditions of play, such as games, riddles, jokes and rituals enjoyed by children between the ages of  6 and 15.
  • Lowriders: This “Show and Shine” along Church between Alameda & Pennington will be TMY’s tribute to lowriders, a mix of hot rod fever and fun presented in conjunction with the world’s oldest lowrider car club, the Dukes. Cash prizes and trophies will complement a “Chop Shop” garage, storytelling with car owners, and “oldies” DJ music in the tradition of lowrider gatherings.
  • AIDS Walk: In this 25th anniversary year of the AIDS WALK nationally, TMY will add a dimension and reflect on the traditions of AIDS activism (including the Red Ribbon and the NAMES Quilt Project) through exhibits, talking stages, a guest lecture by the foremost expert on AIDS lore and inclusion of the Tucson AIDS walk in TMY’s Sunday Festival footprint. The Tucson AIDS Walk will begin on Sunday morning, October 14, at Jacome Plaza, and traverse the Festival, culminating with the ritual unfolding and display of 10 national and 10 local NAMES Quilt panels.
  • Pow Wow: Extending out from the Festival this year in a coming-together of native tradition will be the first installment of TMY’s new statewide folk arts scope “Arizona Traditional Arts.” Through a fun and meaningful exchange, Pow Wow 101 in Jácome Plaza will introduce this intertribal Native gathering to the public, offering drumming and singing, drum maker demonstration, sales of Native crafts, fancy and traditional dancers and community dance.
  • Caribbean Tradition: An authentic interpretation of Trinidad’s annual Carnival will be ongoing throughout TMY, with performances, dress-making and limbo demonstrations, arts and calypso bumping shoulders with attendees.

Old Favorites Return
As always, attendees will be able to feast on the works of veteran participants, some appearing at TMY for decades. These artisans will explain as well as serve-up cultural heritage through performance, folk arts or foods. In addition, a TMY Marketplace will be located in the Folk Arts Courtyard, providing festival-goers an opportunity to take home unique arts not found elsewhere. This pleasingly old-fashioned bazaar, styled in the tradition of the Mercado, will be quaint and Tucson-eclectic all in one, offering curated and out-of-the-ordinary books, CDs and handmade gifts.

To keep the poets among us spellbound and engaged, there will be Gran Concurso de Corridos that will lavish senses with ballads. Enjoy the love songs or enter yourself for cash prizes. This year’s corridos can be heard October 13, 3pm, in El Presidio Park.

Watch for entry areas at TCC, Jacome Plaza and El Presidio, where volunteers will distribute programs, passports for kids and offer directions. Once inside, more teams will be patrolling to keep the Festival area clean and green. You’ll also find information booths (check map for locations) where more volunteers will help festival goers get cozy with updates and merriment.

Dr. Alvarez underscores the context of scholarly research and extensive relationship-building within the region that have led up to the festival. “It all demonstrates how our cultures knit together in some way,” she says. “Tucson Meet Yourself was conceived and has always tried to exist as an educational experience, opening windows onto all different cultures that coexist in this region.”

“Of course it’s all about fun, too,” the professor adds with a grin.
TMY Fast Facts

  • TMY has been held each year in Downtown Tucson, Arizona since 1974.
  • TMY was founded by University of Arizona folklorist and anthropologist Dr. James “Big Jim” Griffith, who in 2011 was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts with a prestigious recognition as a “National Heritage” treasure.
  • TMY funnels the revenue generated at the festival directly back into the local economy. In 2011, participating ethnic clubs and nonprofit associations raised collectively $250,000 through their sales at the festival.
  • TMY presents the Festival in collaboration with sponsors including Arizona Bilingual Magazine/Learning A-Z, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Arizona Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Arts, The City of Tucson, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Pepsi, Pima County, Pima Dermatology, Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, Southwestern Center at the University of Arizona, State Department Western Passport Center and Tucson Pima Arts Council.
  • You can set up a schedule on your mobile. Go online to TucsonMeetYourself.org for additional information, or to create a customized route.

Tucson Iced

September 6, 2012 |

by Monica Surfaro Spigelmen

(All photos: Promotional images taken prior to the construction of the Ice House Lofts (2004). Photos by Liam Frederick, courtesy of Deep Freeze Development, LLC.)

The sidewalks fry, the dust devils spiral, the snow birds flee north. Summer is here. You may be boiling, but relief is usually an air conditioner away. Yet, if there was a power outage and no escape from the meltdown, yikes! It’s enough to make you wilt.

And so we ponder: How did desert rats handle the Old Pueblo’s inferno in the days before refrigeration?

Ah, yes – there was ice.

Ice Man Rising
Towards the close of the 19th century Tucson was coming of age, balancing disaster and prosperity, full of a colorful population eager to beat the desert heat. Our gritty streets were bustling with street vendors who set up noisy bazaars, beer halls and amusement complexes that catered to tastes of various neighborhoods. New methods of merchandising were contrived on the principle of quick sale and profit.

One of the great merchandising landmarks back then focused on a mechanical wonder recently introduced to Tucson by a lawyer named Paul Moroney, who also happened to own the Cosmopolitan Hotel downtown at the corner of Pennington Street and Main Avenue.

Moroney brought the ice business to Tucson after moving his family here sometime after 1875. The January 29, 1880 Arizona Weekly Star reported on Moroney constructing the first ice machine in Tucson. This fact was confirmed in the June 24, 1944 Arizona Daily Star, when then 75-year-old native Tucsonan Harry Drachman reported, “In 1875-76 a man named Paul Moroney built the first ice plant in Tucson in Levine’s Park with machinery brought from the west coast. The plant equipment was shipped to Colton California by train and from there to Tucson by freight wagon, drawn by 16 mules.”

At first Moroney had the concession from the Southern Pacific (now Union) Railroad Company to sell ice to the public. But he also sold to barkeeps and proprietors like Alex Boss Levin, who ran Levin’s Park, the theater and refreshment complex built in a cottonwood grove off of West Pennington Street.

The beer hall, stage show and ice cream vendors offered a cool retreat for summer evenings. Moroney’s success brought competitors and soon ice was made in ice houses that dotted downtown. These houses had inner and outer ice rooms, insulated with hay ceilings which secured the ice against desert temps. In the houses, water was steam-pumped from wells and it took 48 hours of whirring mechanics and lathes to produce 3,500 pounds of ice.

Business boomed. As ice became a necessary part of Tucson refreshment, nearly every family, street grocer and beer hall had an icebox. An 1880 advertisement listed the price of ice (20 pounds and under) as 5 cents per pound, including delivery around town. There’s no doubt that Moroney and his early form of refrigeration gave rise to our city, making our dusty desert valley a more hospitable place.

Arroyo Chico
The ice houses seemed to congregate nearby the rich resources of the Arroyo Chico – our city’s 10 mile watercourse that still snakes, in dry and wet states, from around what is now Alvernon and Reid Park to the Santa Cruz River and 1-10. The houses churned out 300-pound blocks of tasty, old fashioned ice from frozen, treated filtered water. Built along this critical Arroyo Chico watershed downtown were companies like Moroney’s and the Arctic Ice Company. The Arizona Weekly Star reported in 1886 a near crisis, when the Arctic Ice Company’s machinery was stuck back east on a freight train, after being shipped there for repairs. Company officials calmed a frantic public by announcing in the newspaper there was at least several weeks’ ice stored, enough to hold Tucson until the machinery was returned.

As consumption of ice rose steadily, so did new inventions like soda fountain shops. It’s reported that the ice cream “Sunday” was created in the 1890s with the name eventually changed to “sundae” to disconnect from ties to the Sabbath. Advertisements promoted raw ice “incomparably the best for cooling drinks” and urged families “not to risk baby’s health by skimping on ice.”

ice3a.jpg

To meet demand, other ice houses as well as dry cleaners set up nearby the Arroyo Chico and the railroad track line. Arizona Ice and Cold Storage Company, founded 1923, was probably Tucson’s biggest and most influential. Bonnie Henry’s July 26, 1992 Arizona Daily Star column reported on the ice companies that came to town, noting that in its prime, Arizona Ice and Cold Storage had 32 delivery routes and other outlets like vending machines, cold storage facilities and the business of icing rail cars.

Another of the popular companies of the 1930s and 1940s was Home Ice and Coal Company, known for its yellow trucks which lined up along the 7th Avenue block near the railroad tracks.

Progress Trumps the Wagon
As industrialization and household refrigeration appliances took hold, things started to change for the ice industry. Ironically, what originally created all the demand and dependence on cool comforts created problems for the industry and ultimately caused its demise. First came the issue of finding good water sources for pure ice, as all the industry teeming along the arroyo brought pollution. Then, with refrigeration inventions going mass market, there was little need for the cumbersome ice plants. By the 1920s, most households had refrigerators and after World War II fresh harvested ice was replaced with machine-made. Air conditioning for the masses was not far behind. Without public dependence on fresh ice, the icemen lost their routes and their wagons. Ice house businesses left the arroyo.

The warehouse neighborhoods with the ice houses started a downward slide, and it took decades for arts and historic preservation to hint at reviving them. There have been some bright spots in the cloudy, local ice house history. Mark Berman and his family’s Benjamin Supply plumbing business, downtown more than half a century, bought the Home Ice and Coal building (which had been swallowed up by Arizona Ice and then Tucson Warehouse & Transfer Company).

Berman, a Tucson preservation advocate with training in architecture, has retained the architectural integrity of the Josias Joesler designed warehouse and its tall tower, incorporating the original structural and architectural components into his showroom and warehouse complex. The old well fed by the Arroyo Chico is there, although capped, and the massive ice chute is still visible in the Benjamin Supply’s main showroom area.

Another ice relic, the downtown Arizona Ice and Cold Storage facility, closed in 2002, but it rose re-purposed as Ice House Lofts, preserving the authentic industrial character of the building. Adaptive reuse has turned machinery into loft construction and sculptural entryway markers for residential complex.

ice2a.jpg

Today, if you see the once-mighty Tucson ice industry, it’s now mostly in the form of ice cooler kiosks sitting alongside gas stations or abutting convenience stores. The kiosks are mostly managed locally but owned by larger national conglomerates that sell pre-packaged stuff.

Still, looking at the historic tower saved by Benjamin Supply or walking by the machinery-turned sculpture in the Ice Loft residences, we can dream about the good old days.

So, next time you slurp that snow cone with its shaved ice, taste some artisan ice cream, or click the ice cubes inside your margarita, remember to be grateful for a bygone industry, which considered pure water its gold.

Two-Steppin Tucson’s Musical Roots

August 6, 2012 |

Tradition & Tejaño, Folk & Fest

It’s the time of year when the charm and depth of Tucson’s musical diversity is most magically apparent. Clubs resonate with norteño accordions or fast picking fiddles. There are train whistles and steel drum, two-step rhythms of relaxed waila or frenetic cumbia, mariachi harmonies of violins and trumpets. Suffice to say that Tucson is home to one of the longest and most eclectic musical tables in the West.

Some say that Tucson’s multicultural party is tied to a larger trend of incorporating traditional themes and instrumentation in indie music. For example, there’s Beirut, who worked with The Jimenez Band for March of the Zapotec. And of course there’s Calexico, with its tejaño-norteño influences.

Perhaps Tucson is just part of this bigger picture. But so many believe that the way Tucson borrows on and interprets its multicultural roots for music is miles above the rest.

Traditionally Yours

Tucson is a huge small market with a self-perpetuating cultural music scene that takes pride in what it is, looking to its roots for inspiration and new sounds, says Susan Holden, whose husband was one of the fathers of Tucson cultural music. Jonathan Holden, who died earlier this year, helped start KXCI community radio in 1970s and later founded Rhythm & Roots Concert Series in the mid 1990s. Susan and a team of volunteers continue “music as medicine,” the Rhythm & Roots mission. “Jonathan would say that music was like an electrical current that moves seamlessly throughout the world,” she says. “What starts in the cultural bones of one place, like Tucson, adds its unique sounds to a global energy source that influences everything.”

Tucson’s unique musical current takes its charge from sources that are inspired by our borderland culture, founded in local Native American social music and spiced up by American West alternative country. What is so musically alluring is how this city just mixes it all up.

Pete Rodriquez, DJ and owner of Five Star Productions, sees how cultural music blends with Hip Hop and R&B as he travels around Southern Arizona for quinceañeras and other community events.

“You can see that a lot of the music from O’odham and Yaqui groups is influenced by sounds from Sonora and Texas,” says Rodriquez, who also is Yaqui. “For example, Selena tunes often are remade into Chicken Scratch by Tohono O’odham bands, or rancheras are remade into Yaqui language songs,” he notes.

Musical influences cross folklore and culture, melding international rhythm and instruments and modernizing sound with techno and pop. The bottom line is that everyone participates: kids to middle-aged or elder – it doesn’t matter. Tucson turns out to take in diversified music, with everyone dressed in their unique fabulousness to just have fun.   DJ Rodiquez highlights cumbia as a popular style and tempo which always packs the dance floors. “Ask a band to play “Mi Yaquicita” and watch the dance floors rock,” he says.

Two-Step Salute

One regional social dance demonstrating a most widespread and diverse influence is waila. In this music also known as chicken scratch, Tohono O’odham traditions and people give life to an extraordinary range of local music.

Waila’s altered variant of polka crosses genres in melodies passed on from generation to generation since the 19th century. Waila-style two-step is rooted in the music of German immigrants who came to Tucson to help build railroad. It blends imported continental European polka with Spanish-influenced norteño and other border sounds. In the old-style waila, bands only used fiddles and stringed instruments. Accordions and saxophones were added mid-1900s.  Contemporary bands now use more rocking amplified sound with electric guitar, bass and drums.

Rock the Root 

Around town, stand-out bands are rocking the local scene with their culturally-inspired popular music. Rodriquez, who knows the trends as a mobile DJ, points to Gertie and the T.O. Boys as a popular waila band. Gertie has performed at Tucson Meet Yourself, the Tucson Festival of Books and around Tucson.

For tejaño lovers, there are other top performers who headline regularly at the local casinos and clubs like Blue Moon on South 4th. One, Los Gallegos, is a group of brothers who create borderland dance-floor energy. They have regularly have scheduled sets at the Desert Diamond Casino’s Monsoon Night Club. Their last studio album, titled “Viejas Canciones,” translates as “Old Songs,” (which is a tribute to the way many groups first learn their music, according to Rodriquez).

Los Hermanos Quatro of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe is prominent in the Arizona Yaqui community, he continues. Another band playing music together in South Tucson for almost 14 years is La Nueva Onda.

One more local favorite, according to Rhythm & Roots’ Holden, is Carnivaleros, a band “almost norteño in a white-guy kind of way,” she says.  For about a decade this group has combined back-porch BBQ-style music with mariachi, polka, Tex-Mex as well as blues. Many of its songs spin stories of local folklore (like the song, “Black Cloud Over Oracle,” inspired by the 2010 sheriff-inspired uproar at the Glow Festival) and use traditional instrumentation like the kazoo and triangle.

Singing Sonora

Underneath all the local accents are themes related to the desert and the region’s environment. Guitarist Gabriel Ayala, the current Native American Awards “Artist of the Year” who’s also a member of the Yaqui Nation, knows that the desert and cultural roots help shape his compositions. Although he performs globally, Ayala lives and composes in Tucson, where song is an important expression in both Yaqui religious ceremony and social dance. Ayala often composes outside, say, in a monsoon, and allows his musical composition to come from the place where heart meets mind and nature.  “When I compose I sing the melody first,” he explains. “The desert can inspire my work.”

Dr. Jim Griffith, Southern Arizona’s cultural curator and founder of Tucson Meet Yourself, says the musical identity in our region is a richly complex picture, much of being played out at parties, processions and ceremonies. From Dr. Griffith’s book, Southern Arizona Folk Arts: “What is really going on is a kind of ethnic service left over from the days when the communities were much smaller and self contained, and when entertainment, when it happened, was usually provided by friends, neighbors or family members.”

As musicians continue to use traditional elements that reaffirm a connection to roots, fans of local sounds have plenty to celebrate this fall. Leading the pack and pulling together the biggest and most unique assortment of all that’s ethnic is Tucson Meet Yourself, the free folk-life festival scheduled October 12-14.

In addition, Tucsonans wanting to learn more about the history and the variety of waila styles should visit Himdag Ki:, the Tohono O’odham Nation’s Cultural Center and Museum located in Topawa, just south of Sells. The “Tohono Kaidalig: Tohono O’odham Piast Ñe’ñei” exhibit opens this month, featuring a rich selection of historical waila photos and multi-media. The exhibition is accompanied by a re-creation of old-time waila stage as well as instrument displays and recordings.  There’s an opening reception on September 13 with traditional foods and live waila performances. The Cultural Center and Museum also will bring together local musicians in a waila series to be scheduled in conjunction with the exhibit, which will run for about six months.

If all this isn’t enough, there are small clubs around town featuring performers rooted in the city’s abundant cultural diversity.

Tucson is still that collection of small communities which blends roots in many ways to create great music.  In the end, it all means the same: Tucson’s traditions totally rock. Go out and enjoy them this season.

photo, top: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com. photo, bottom: Gabriel Ayala, Native American Artist of the Year


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