Tucson Weekly reviewed the Four Seasons show!

This past Friday was the opening of the FACE Four Seasons show. The show is of women artists, and it includes emerging (juried), mid-career (invited), and advanced (jurors) artists. It is pretty open-themed, but the goal of the show is to give a sense of the multi-facets of women’s lives.

The show is split between three galleries in Tucson: Stone Dragon, Kachina, and 5th on 6th. I have a photo diptych in the Kachina Gallery (3rd floor of the SUMC at UofA), so come by and visit!

See works by the artists here: http://www.face-uofa.com/Artists.php

————
Feb. 3-Mar. 31 Four Seasons show Dragon Stone Gallery, 1122 N. Stone Ave.
Feb. 1-Mar. 31 Four Seasons show Kachina Gallery
Mar. 8-21 Four Seasons show 5th on 6th Gallery, 439 N. 6th Ave.

Feb. 13 5-6pm Opening ceremony at Kachina Gallery, The University of Arizona, Student Union Memorial Center, Level 3
6-8pm Panel discussion: Life as women artists The Union Kiva
Panelists: Julie Sasse, Chief Curator of TMA; The University of Arizona Prof. Barbara Rogers, Prof. Beiley Doogan, Student Union Memorial Center, Level 2
Feb. 26 5:30-7:30pm Workshop on career development Stone Dragon Gallery
Mar. 2 6-7:30pm Co-event with the Women’s Resource Center: Kachina Gallery, Launch of movie on professional artists, The University of Arizona, “Who Does She Think She Is?” Student Union Memorial Center, Level 3
Mar. 3 7pm Movie: “Who Does She Think She Is?” Gallagher Theatre, The University of Arizona, Student Union Memorial Center
Mar. 20 6-9pm Closing ceremony at 5th on 6th Gallery
Mar. 27 12-2:30pm Potluck and closing ceremony of Four Seasons Dragon Stone Gallery

In Arizona it’s not very common to have residential areas, shops and restaurants tightly intermingled. There are clearly defined blocks of houses, and once you drive out of the housing areas you enter a clearly defined shopping center area. 

I live a block from the university, and shops, living areas, and restaurants are fairly well mixed. There’s a small art gallery attached to a laundry mat a couple blocks north of my house; a Mexican taco shop is a five minute walk south. My bank is about a mile away, but I usually walk there.

I like to pretend that I live in a European city because I can walk or bike to get whatever I need, and the buildings in my neighborhood were built in the 1930-40s so they are all brick or cinderblock. 

The building in the photo is across the street from where I live. It has been closed up for as long as I’ve lived in Tucson, but I hope that it opens soon.

Mary, a friend from Wyoming, visited Tucson a couple weekends back. She had never been to Tucson before, so we went to Fourth Ave., naturally.

Bookstop, an eclectic used bookstore, recently moved locations to Fourth Ave. I fell in love and I wish that I owned everything in that store. And by everything I mean the pinewood bookshelves, 1950s industrial furniture, 100+ year-old cash register, and the yellow-tinged books.

I was in Three Points, Arizona, over the weekend. There were hoards of flying bugs, a kind of bug that I had never seen before in my life, but they flew and played dead if you scared them. The scorpion that we found did not play dead, but it is dead now.

The other day I went and took some photos of my favorite places on campus. I think that the most recognizable building on campus is Old Main (the very first building where farmers and miners studied). It’s also one of the most boring buildings to look at.

So the following are some some scenes that I saw every day on campus this semester.

This liquid nitrogen tank was always suspiciously leaky sounding. One time I saw someone in a hazmat suit messing around with it. It still sounds leaky, even after I saw that person.

I pass through this wall after my English class. I bet you never would have thought that Arizona is so green.

I like Tucson. It has a small town attitude despite its size, and the people here are consistently among the most friendly I’ve ever met in Arizona. I’m pretty sure you have to be at least half hippie to live here year-round.

My friend said that I don’t actually like Tucson–that I actually like the UofA campus. He said that if I would leave the downtown area I wouldn’t like Tucson so much. I’m content with the downtown area though. It’s nice. It has what I need.

Most of the buildings in Tucson are old and a little dilapidated. They stand in stark contrast with the bright, new cookie cutter strip malls of Phoenix. Tucson stands like a defiant record of the past. A past where houses were original, where the tree in every single front yard has a history to tell.

Tucson is like a favorite pair of old shoes: the soles are a bit too thin, the laces are fraying, the style is out-dated.  But, even though you spend the money to buy new shoes, you go back to your old pair because they’re comfortable, familiar, and the dirt on the bottom holds memories of where you’ve been.

Today in Human Geography discussion, we were given a blank map of the U.S. (it had state boundary lines) and a marker to draw where we think the U.S. Southwest is. We all drew on the same paper, and the idea was to have 25 different outlines showing the perspectives of 25 different people. So after the paper made its way around the room, the T.A. took it back to look at.

“You guys, it looks like you all copied off the person next to you. Why does it look like that only one person drew an outline even though all 25 of you were supposed to draw something? Why did everyone draw along the state boundaries? Let’s start over.”

He passed around a new map and we all re-drew our outlines.

“This looks the same. This is not how the other class’s map looked when they were done with it. Okay you didn’t all draw on the exact same line this time, but you all drew around state boundary lines! That’s not the point! So you guys consider northern Nevada to be in the Southwest, even though it’s all pretty and green up there?”

Everyone was staring at the table, so I answered, “Well, if I were driving through there, I wouldn’t consider northern Nevada to be the Southwest, but if someone was talking about Nevada as a whole, then I would consider it the Southwest.”

“So why didn’t you draw a line around where you think the Southwest stops in Nevada?”

“Um… because it looks prettier to follow state boundaries.”

“Because it looks prettier. Does everyone here agree with this?”

Everyone stared at the table.

One guy looked up and proffered, “I’m anal retentive, that’s why I did it.”