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Arts
 A Look Back at the Early Days of Tucson’s Arts District
by Pamela Portwood
 hen the Wall Street Journal described Tucson in that now-famous phrase as an up and coming “mini mecca” of the arts in 1987, they were describing a grassroots arts community on the verge of becoming an official Arts District. In 1986, the city had adopted the report commissioned by the Downtown Development Corporation that provided the guidelines for the creation of the Arts District, but the funding didn’t begin until 1988.
The early heyday of Tucson’s arts scene began in the mid-1980s. Specifically, in 1984, alternative outlets that covered Tucson’s cultural life were established in three media: the Tucson Weekly, KXCI radio and Tucson Community Cable Corporation (now Access Tucson). As the Tucson Weekly’s first art critic, I have found myself considering why so many people believed in the future of Tucson’s cultural life 20 years ago. I decided to look back at part of the world that I covered in 1984: Tucson’s downtown, visual-arts scene.
The art scene overall was basically split between downtown and the University of Arizona in 1984. The UA had six galleries on campus. The UA’s Center for Creative Photography, which even then had a terrific photography collection, was squeezed into a small, former bank building on University Blvd. A few galleries, including the Tucson Art Institute, Davis Dominguez Gallery and Sanders Gallery, were scattered throughout the city. (Davis Dominguez moved into the Warehouse District in 1999.)
Most of the downtown art galleries were clustered in the 200 block of Congress St. Etherton Gallery, which had opened in 1982 in a small space at 424 E. Sixth St., was an important exception. Terry Etherton was showing only photography, but his space was the first commercial gallery to open in the downtown area since the 1970s. The Tucson Museum of Art was in its current location at 140 N. Main Ave., although it had not yet been renovated.
On Congress St., the art scene centered on cooperative galleries. Dinnerware Artists’ Cooperative Gallery (now Dinnerware Contemporary Arts) was in a gigantic space at 274-276 E. Congress at the corner of Fifth Ave., while the Central Arts Collective, which closed in the 1990s, was at 250 E. Congress at the corner of the alley Arizona Ave.
In 1984, the popular and short-lived Silverware Gallery, which was owned by photographers Camille Bonzani and Sharon Holnback, was open at 219 E. Congress. The After Six Gallery, a truly short-lived gallery, was located at 203 E. Congress. Christina McNearney, a member of Central Arts, remembers that several artists had studio spaces on Congress that doubled as galleries.
In 1984, Art Network, which promoted contemporary art and artists, opened in the Hotel Congress. The Ronstadt Transit Center hadn’t been built yet. Instead, a couple of bars – the Esquire and the Manhattan – added a seedy element to the scene.
The Arts District’s organized events did not start until 1988, but Congress St. galleries were holding joint openings by 1984. According to Barbara Grygutis, one of Dinnerware’s founding members, the first opening was started by artists to recognize Gladys Carroll, a downtown property owner who fostered the arts by keeping rental rates on her properties affordable.
At a joint reception in April of 1984 that I covered as a columnist for the UA’s Arizona Daily Wildcat, Dinnerware was serving beer from a keg. Silverware had Oreo-cookie, ice-cream cones, and another gallery was selling 25-cent, rum old-fashions. Large crowds made it hard to look at the art, and as I wrote then, “The openings and the crowds on Congress gave me the feeling that art is alive and well in Tucson.”
Dinnerware was the only organization doing art-auction fundraisers, and they were the social event of the art season. Bailey Doogan, a Dinnerware member, remembers that performance art, which was new to Tucson, drew especially large crowds downtown. “There was a tremendous sense of permission back then, (a sense) that you could do anything,” she says.
Grygutis remembers a lot of excitement in the air in 1984. She describes artists’ thoughts at the time as: “This is the place to be. This is the time. We’ve been doing this. It’s come alive.”
What was coming alive were the artist-driven and the city-driven projects that would create the Arts District. In 1984, the city established the Tucson Pima Arts Council as the city’s official, community-arts, development agency to handle funding requests from arts organizations. In 1984, local artists created the Tucson Arts Coalition, an arts advocacy group that later helped save the Temple of Music and Art from conversion to offices.
Yet, in 1984, most of the political wrangling and the economic downturn for downtown were still ahead. As Grygutis says, “In some ways, it was kind of a magical time. You believed in the power of art to change people’s lives and the power of art to make a difference.” She adds, “It was like it was the high point on the roller coaster.”
Limited Vision
by Marissa Amoni-Jansons
ith one show to go, photography lovers are in for a big disappointment as Metroform Limited photographic art will close its doors. After four and a half years of displaying the creative talents of both internationally known and fledgling artists, local craftsman and artist D. Scott Baker will say goodbye to his Sixth Street locale.
Metroform Limited is the brainchild of Baker, who moved it from its original downtown location to the current studio at 110 E. Sixth St. The move was intended to draw on the overflow from the popular Davis Dominquez Gallery located next door. Unfortunately, the artful photography shown at Metroform has not been as enticing to buyers as its neighbor’s fine contemporary art.
Listed as “the only gallery in Tucson dedicated solely to the exhibition and sale of fine art photography by contemporary and emerging artists,” Metroform’s closing will create a huge void for Tucsonans.
Baker has done a superb job at creating a welcoming space and enlisting talented photographers to show their work. An exceptional show last fall featured the magical works of Rosanna Salonia and Kristin Giordano, and currently Blake Hine’s almost fantastical images are on exhibit. Despite his list of distinguished clients, Baker admits that the overhead at the gallery has been too overwhelming compared with the sales it has generated. The decision to close however is an unfortunate one for frequenters of the gallery.
Metroform has been a really fabulous place for those who thrive on photography, and also those just plain curious. There are folks, like myself, who use great photography to remind them that the world is beautiful and that beauty can be found in many places. A great photo is something you can slip into; it explodes the senses and awakens our emotions. Metroform has offered some of this appreciation to those who have ventured in the well-lit, modern space, and it will be missed.
Baker maintains that he will still be working doing virtually the same thing, but just not in a gallery setting. Staying in the Sixth St. gallery will be too expensive considering that only a small microcosm of Tucson has been buying photography as art.
Hopefully, Baker will continue to gain fans, and especially buyers, so that we may all look forward to a future opening of another Baker gallery.
This Month on Access Tucson: A Cult Classic by a Tucson Filmmaker
by Diane Daly
 ugs Untied” won top honors at the 1996 Arizona International Film Festival but slipped quietly past the rest of America because it was a student film. Created by Michael Lahey, Phil Dalton and Dan Zimny for Jeffrey Chown’s Northern Illinois University film class, it introduces team leader Chris Cosentino and his Pi Kappa Alpha (“Pike”) fraternity tuggers as they lose the inter-fraternity tug of war competition in 1995. “It happened on a day that had to be one of the worst days of my life,” Cosentino tells us. Pikes “had won 22 out of 24 years,” he says, “and nobody really saw it comin’.”
The film follows the Pikes as they prepare for the ‘96 Tugs competition and grapple with depression, desperation, and “tremendous pressure” from Pike alumni who have crystallized their own identities around the Pikes’ former legacy as Tugs champions. These direct interviews with the artless Cosentino reveal a heartbreaking awareness of the gravity of this tradition, awareness that could only be found in one so vulnerable to it. Tugs appears to the viewer as a primitive sport wherein lines of teeth-gnashing men face each other and pull a rough rope while grunting, screaming, chanting and cursing until the bodies of one team start to break--and that’s just during Pike tugs practice. Cosentino’s humanity is a respite amid this brutal footage, like a soldier’s letters to Mom narrated over bloody battle scenes.
“Tugs Untied” was filmed in Illinois but Lahey edited the film while living in Tucson, where the film has become a cult favorite.
“Tugs Untied” will be shown June 12th through June 18th at 8pm on Access Tucson’s Channel 74, followed each evening by “Making Waves”, Lahey’s 2004 documentary about pirate radio pioneers in Tucson that was part of the 2004 Arizona International Film Festival.
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