Smith’s love of ceramics came early. Born and raised in Augusta, Georgia – what he calls “the epicenter of pre- and post-Civil War ceramic production” – Smith began throwing pots as a kid. His work caught on with local collectors, and he started selling his pieces at local art markets.
When clay artist Lori McMinn decided to make ceramic bowls from local cactus, the first thing she did was to phone the Arizona Department of Agriculture.
“Wigs is a science I’m still learning,” says Chris Zizzo, who has been Arizona Broadway Theatre’s wig master for the past five years. “It can be stressful, but I find joy in telling a story by creating a wig. I’m delving deep into the characters themselves and trying to convey something about them to an audience based on how they do their hair.”
Ask Ariana Enriquez about creating an outdoor mural rendered in oil paint, and she’ll burst out laughing.
“I’ve been drawing and painting since before I could speak, really,” artist K. Nari says. “Back then, a set of crayons for Christmas was a really good thing.”
The Wisconsin native, whose oil paintings and jewelry will be exhibited in the Sonoran Arts League’s 29th annual Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour this November, figures she’s been making art – and other things – her whole life.
“Everything that I’ve chosen for subject matter has been based off things I have read,” sculptor Phillip Payne says.
There’s something beautifully wrong with artist Luke Watson’s oil paintings. His landscapes are lush with pointy turquoise trees, wet with exquisitely violet rivers, and overgrown with paper-maze-like foliage.
Watts has spent the last 14 years immersed in petals and pistils as one of the most luxe and in-demand florists in Arizona.
Weller, who teaches art at the same Phoenix high school she attended as a kid, somehow managed to miss lessons on perspective and shading skills.
Ulfers works in two disparate media, making gouache-and-pencil portraits of fantastical flying creatures and intricate clock-inspired assemblages he calls “timepieces.”
Her cactus-inspired pots and hyper-textured bowls are stamped with barnacles she applies one at a time using tools she’s made herself.
When she pulls out her film camera, photographer Chole Huls aims to capture the “little moments” of life.
The muralist, vehicle painter and graffiti maestro Javier Cordova has a core specialty: lettering. Cordova, who grew up in South Phoenix and goes by “Spawk,” sprays and brushes scripts around Phoenix, often tagging his curvaceous letters on murals and vehicles with gold leaf. His work appears in skate parks, bars, barbershop windows and even Phoenix Suns murals. But you’d never know it. Spawk doesn’t sign his work. “I’m doing it for me,” he says. “If...
