Jossy Lownes remembers painting with her aunt as a child in Rhode Island. But it wasn’t until she was in her forties that she embarked on a career as an artist. “I never gave up on wanting to be an artist, but sometimes life takes you in different directions,” says Lownes, who returned to the canvas after stints as a schoolteacher and real estate agent.
From activist pop art to contemporary graffiti basketry, the latest crop of Native American art in Arizona is outgrowing stereotypes.
“Where’s the horses?”
As Thomas Greyeyes hangs his paintings on the wall of Vida E Caffe in Globe, he answers the confused older lady’s question with as much diplomacy as the 23-year-old Navajo artist can muster, considering he’s been answering questions like this for years.
Remember when late-night TV legend Johnny Carson took extended breaks from The Tonight Show, leaving a revolving cast of guest-hosts (Bob Newhart, David Letterman, Joan Rivers) to crack jokes in his stead? The 2012-2013 season at the Phoenix Symphony will be kind of like that. Officially, outgoing music director Michael Christie is still in charge, but the 38-year-old maestro will be frequently MIA this year as he gets new tuxedo tails measured at the Minnesota Opera.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
Last March, Fred Tieken unveiled his wily vision of the First Friday art walk scene with “Buzzz,” a 126-foot-long mural at 124 W. McDowell Road. The creation features more than 50 characters, including the usual First Friday suspects – cops, a fire-breather, mohawked teens, and an assortment of art-scene regulars. “It’s a cross-section of a certain lifestyle that most people in Arizona don’t know exists,” Tieken says.
Former Scottsdale City Councilwoman Betty Drake has swapped politics for paintbrushes, though she hasn’t strayed far from the governmental sphere. She recently completed a commission for another well-known Scottsdale resident: a portrait of Jamie Drinkwater, daughter of the late Mayor Herb Drinkwater. “When I was heavily into the council, I didn’t have time to do any art,” says Drake, 67, a councilwoman from 2004 to 2009. “I am really enjoying getting back into the creative flow, post-politics.”
SMoCA Lounge coordinator Tania Katan calls the venue’s monthly fourth Friday event “a little bit This American Life and a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.” We call it a counterculture Hee Haw. Done in wall-to-wall red with wood-pallet benches and limpid lighting effects, the Lounge has been the wild stepchild of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art since its debut last fall. On fourth Fridays, it also serves as ground zero for the Valley’s coolest...
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Fans of Hot Tuna may wrangle grandchildren and hit the driving range in the here-and-now, but in the 1960s, it was all about hippies and free love, baby. Times have changed for Hot Tuna, too, but not their passion for guitar-based folkery. As members of Jefferson Airplane in the ’60s, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady sandwiched Hot Tuna performances between Airplane gigs and spun-off on their own in the ’70s. Over the years, the duo tweaked their sound to include blues, bluegrass and spacey folk jams, but lost none of their brio.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
Glendale artist David Zadroga really puts some punch into his performance art. His latest interactive technique involves wrapping canvases around giant punching bags – a notion that came to life while “processing” a problem with his sister, who happens to be a psychologist. Later, during a workout with a punching bag at the gym, the idea hit him full force.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
Like ancient leaves preserved in amber, lynette Andreasen’s jewelry captures a moment and holds it in time. “What I do with my work is take memories and time and freeze them,” says Andreasen, an artist-in-residence at the Mesa Arts Center. “I collect things that I find at thrift shops – things at the bottom of a pile that got tossed aside, and I try to restore them to their former glory.”
Pour yourself a martini, don your most dapper duds and plan a retro-chic night on the town with Broadway Pops International’s “The Rat Pack!” – an homage to the legendary Sands Hotel performances of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Conductor Joseph Young leads veteran Broadway performers Sal Viviano as Sinatra, Nat Chandler as Martin and Eric Jordan Young as Davis Jr. in an evening of music that will transport you to the decadent, smoky glamour of Old Blue Eyes and company’s 1960s lounge acts, sans the cancer sticks.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
Tayron Polequaptewa sold his first katsina doll from the back of a station wagon in a part of Arizona where “Don’t worry, be Hopi” T-shirts were bestsellers. The Hopi artist made $5 from the sale and returned to the reservation with a goal: to carve out a decent living by carving katsina dolls.
The name Geronimo is loaded: One can use it as a pejorative for a blood-thirsty savage, or as a cry of abandon while leaping into the Salt River.
Beyond Geronimo: The Apache Experience tells the story behind the name. The Heard Museum exhibit runs through January 20, 2013 and offers an unvarnished glimpse of the Apache warrior including Geronimo-bilia never seen by the general public.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH
In 1969, when most Western artists were depicting sentimental scenes of spear-brandishing braves atop piebald ponies, Fritz Scholder – who was one-quarter American Indian – was startling audiences with “Indian with Beer Can,” a simple painting of a man sitting at a bar with a can of Coors.
The oldest mural along 16th street is “Prayer of St. Francis,” painted in 1998 by the late Rose Johnson. Located at Thomas Road, the six-panel mural depicts the cultural evolution of the Coronado community and includes inspirational quotes from Benito Juarez and St. Francis of Assisi. Over the years, it’s become a beloved street art icon, but it’s also been eroded by wind, bleached by the sun, and defaced by vandals.
If your limited memory of third-grade Arizona history lessons just isn’t cutting it at all those Arizona Centennial parties you’ve been attending, a new book by historian Jim Turner is sure to bring your cocktail conversation up to par.
