NOVEMBER 2003
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Arts
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Downtown’s Ubiquitous Visual Arts |
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Eric Osborne, curator at Epic Café.
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You’d think you’d be safe from art at least in a pizza parlor, where you don’t generally have to contend with much more than neon beer signs and a harmless mural involving grapes and gondoliers. But no. Even at Brooklyn Pizza, 534 N. Fourth Ave., if you’re not careful to divert your gaze from the south wall, you’ll see a diverse display of photographs and canvases by several different artists.
Says Brooklyn Pizza owner Tony Vaccaro, “We get a wide spectrum of people coming in here, people who may not normally go to an art gallery. They see something they might not normally see and it catches their eye, and they say ‘I want that.’”
Actually, it’s not that often that the words “I want that” are followed by money placed in the restaurateur’s hand in exchange for the artwork. Diana Stapleton of Rainbow Planet Coffee House, 606 N. Fourth Ave., isn’t alone when she admits that she hasn’t sold anything “in a long, long time.” Customers often browse without buying, or deal directly with the artists to bypass the restaurant’s 10- to 20-percent commission—a rate substantially lower than that imposed by a regular gallery.
Elizabeth Cherry, who among other things ran her own Grant Road gallery for several years, curates the art displays in the lobby of Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St. As a bridge between the Cup Café and the popular nightspot Club Congress, the lobby is a high-traffic area. Yet, says Cherry, in the five years she’s been curating work there, only one piece was ever damaged, a banner-type poster on vinyl. “Usually people have a certain amount of respect for artwork,” she says.
So, if this isn’t a sideline that generates much income for a restaurateur, why bother? Largely for aesthetic and social reasons.
“I get bored looking at the same damn thing all the time,” says Matthew Myers of Delectables, 533 N. Fourth Ave. So Myers goes hunting for artists to showcase, people who do anything from painting to photography, ink-jet prints on watercolor paper to stained glass. “I’m looking for something pleasing to the eye, something our customers will appreciate, and something beyond the norm,” he says.
Indeed, many proprietors see art displays as, if nothing else, an interesting way to decorate their establishments.
“Colors are pretty important to me, so if the color (of the art) totally clashes, I might not have it up there,” says Vaccaro of Brooklyn Pizza. “This is already a pretty colorful place.”
Cherry is only half joking when she says of her work at Hotel Congress, “I look for something that matches the couch. Really, I look for something that’s going to complement this space. The art can be abstract or representational, just as long as it works with the period style of the lobby. It’s not a problem finding something right; there are so many artists in Tucson, with such a wide range of work to choose from.”
“I try to create a feeling of a community forum,” says Natalie Svenson of Café Quebec, 121 E. Broadway Blvd. “I like the idea of people having a space where they can claim, ‘I had an art show there last year,’ or ‘I did a slam poetry show there two years ago and it was awesome.’ I like to create a space where people can revel in their creativity. I encounter a lot of interesting characters because I hang art in here.”
The one concern shared by most of these restaurant-art promoters is finding work whose content won’t offend the families and others who arrive expecting caffeine, not culture.
The biggest problem they face isn’t obtaining something to put on the wall—with shows changing every one to two months, most of these establishments are booked well into 2004—but hanging it appropriately in a space with inconvenient nooks and non-specialized lighting.
Tucson artist Eric Osborne curates the art at the Epic Café, 745 N. Fourth Ave. “They used to just stick nails in the wall, but now we have cables and a tracking system, and we’ve done more with the lighting,” he says. “We try to present the art in a professional manner, and leave the details of the hanging to the artists, who are the experts; before, it was kind of a free-for-all.”
Pizzeria padrone Vaccaro hasn’t done anything so fancy with his wall, but that’s not for lack of enthusiasm for displaying art. “I can support the local art community at no cost to me,” he says, “and in return they’re supporting me by putting things on the wall that people appreciate looking at, so it makes my space more appealing. With something like this, you can’t lose.” 
Open Studio Tour
A Scavenger Hunt for the Senses
by Barbara Zelano
his city is teeming with artists. If you’ve lived here long enough, or perhaps settled here for that reason, this is not a revelation. When I try to explain to artist friends in the Pacific Northwest, (where I moved from almost three years ago), that there are literally hundreds of studios in just the downtown area and historic neighborhoods alone, they are a bit jealous. Some of those people would, well, maybe not KILL… but might give away their first-born pup to have so many options for doing their work. From one neighborhood to the next, there are hundreds of studios in soulful historic warehouses, private homes, and designated “art buildings” where you would least expect them. If you don’t live, work, and play in artist neighborhoods, you simply can’t know who may be out there creating work that “speaks to you” like never before. It’s exciting to imagine. Somewhere, tucked away in the privacy of their studios, artists are in “mind-bending, process mode”, creating vibrant, wild riots of color for empty walls, peaceful sentinels out of cool rock, or twisted-wire necklaces that catch the desert light.
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Susan Johnson’s “Crossroads”
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This is why the Fall and Spring Open Studio Tours, sponsored by the Tucson Arts District Partnership, the City of Tucson, and a generous group of sponsors, are really too amazing to pass up. It only happens twice a year. Hundreds of doors fly open and you are welcomed in to private studios to view and buy art. Part of the beauty and complexity of this large seasonal event lies in the fact that the tour includes artists of many cultural and economic backgrounds. Powerful art can rise up out of the humblest warehouse studios, or some of the most recognized in the country. The search and element of surprise is part of the fun.
The Tucson Arts District Partnership continues to expand on the many ways one or more can seek-and-find these hidden prizes. Art bus tours, in a variety of forms, are now an option for community members to cover more ground. Now you can park your car, hop on a TICET bus with an entertaining professional guide from Southern Arizona Guide Association, a detailed map, and other happy people who love the idea of leaving the driving to someone else. If you buy art in one studio, you won’t have to haul it around to the next. You can store it safely on the bus and keep moving. All of this is $15. Steal of a deal, really.
Want lunch with that? This can be arranged too. The hard-working volunteers at the Tucson Arts District have wrangled together a comfortable package for larger groups that includes all of the above, lunch at a great downtown restaurant, plus a quiet air-conditioned coach for your touring comfort. There’s also the art tour and mixer package on Saturday, November 15, designed for people in the business community. For $25, you catch the art bus, tour the district, and then socialize in the banquet room at the Hotel Congress. This one comes complete with live acoustic jazz and delicious treats provided by the Cup Café.
For some, walking, biking, or winding through the neighborhoods in your own gas-powered machine are still the methods of choice for studio touring. For you, it’s easy. Maps of the entire tour are available for $5 at the Tucson Arts District Partnership office, and one of the three art information stations placed around the district on the days of the Tours.
This Fall’s tour is November 15th and 16th from 12:00-5:00pm. Here are a few highlights:
If you’re into contemporary cutting edge, digital and mixed media art with flare, swing by the studio of Maurice J. Sevigny, Dean of Fine Arts at the UofA, who experiments with computer imaging and painting, further enhanced with traditional media and papers. According to Sevigny, “My current body of mixed-media work has grown out of experimentation in using the computer as a creative painting, design, drawing and distortion tool. The combined techniques I use are adapted from the impressionist painters and the iconography and gold leaf work found in museums and churches in Cyprus, Egypt, France and St. Petersburg, Russia.”
Or, if your bent is art and architecture, you’re in for a treat over at multi-media artist Susan K. Johnson’s newly renovated studio/home housed in a former church, complete with bell tower, stained glass windows and cathedral ceilings. Johnson is best known for her signature life-size, sculpted in clay, gray human figures. “I’m really looking forward to the Studio Tour as I’ve been out of commission for the last two and a half years-- concentrating all my energies on the renovation. I’m finally feeling like it’s become a fabulous place to create, and make my art.”
For something truly captivating, there’s the colorful reverse glass paintings of self-taught artist Janet K. Miller. She first encountered this rare traditional art form known as peinture sous verre, an obscure process involving painting backwards on clear glass, while living in Senegal, West Africa. “The synergy of paint and glass created with this technique has a depth and luminousness I’ve not seen in any other art form. I love participating in the Studio Tour as it brings new people to see and share this work with, and lots of serious buyers. I greatly enjoy the chance to reconnect with the community.”
For a complete listing of all Open Studio Tour artists, check out the November 6th issue of Tucson Weekly.
What: Fall Open Studio Tour 2003- Over 200 artists exhibiting and selling work
When: November 15th & 16th, 12:00-5:00 p.m.
Who: Tucson Arts District Partnership
Information: 624- 9977
Public Art for Downtown – Your Vision
hat is your vision, and your expectation, for public art in our Downtown? Your input can help establish parameters that can guide and inform the design process for public art for immediate and upcoming projects.
Public art is part of the visual character of a community, through the aesthetics and quality of the artworks and their success in reflecting and enhancing a community’s sense of place. Public art, like urban design, creates lingering impressions, alters perceptions and ultimately can impact our investment of time and additional resources.
Three artists or artist teams have been selected to design and produce public art for two major Downtown redevelopment projects, the former Southern Pacific Railroad Depot and the 4th Avenue Underpass. The projects are underway with the selected artists about to begin, or resume, design of public art, adding a tangible physical addition and broadened experience to the projects.
The two artists selected for the 4th Avenue Underpass project, Kevin Osborn and Melody Peters, have participated fully with the Project Design Team since 1997, with their artistic ideas incorporated into the design of the new 4th Avenue Underpass, soon to be constructed. A common practice in public art is to select an artist early in the planning or design phase of an improvement, allowing the greatest collaborative influence on design between artists, architects, landscape architects, engineers and other project professionals. John Davis and Siobhan Roome were selected as a team in the summer of 2002 as part of the Downtown Intermodal Center improvement. These artists now have an opportunity to create significant artworks for the two adjacent properties and their environs, in open spaces on or near the Depot property and near the north and south exterior areas of the underpass improvement.
The selected artists bring public art experience and broad sets of professional skills and visual vocabularies that range stylistically from representational to abstract and conceptual. Designing and producing public art can be an exploration for the artist as well as the viewing public. In public art, artists ideally design for a site and its meaning, bringing their education, training and professional experience to create a unique, expressive and evocative work.
The goal of the following survey is to provide information to the artists and Project Design Team about community values and expectations for consideration during the processes of design, development and review of preliminary designs and subsequent art production.
An opportunity for community members to view and comment on the preliminary designs for public art for the Depot and 4th Avenue Underpass will be offered early in 2004. The artworks are funded through the City’s Public Art Program with 1% of the Capital Improvement Project budgets allocated for artwork. The Tucson Pima Arts Council adminsters the Public Art Program for the City of Tucson and Pima County. The artists were selected through competitions facilitated by the Tucson Pima Arts Council.
Public Art in Downtown Tucson – Your Vision: A Survey
Please complete and return to the Tucson Pima Arts Council.
1. How do you perceive the function or value of public art in a community?
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2. What is your favorite public artwork in Tucson or Pima County? In any community? Why?
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3. What public artwork have you recently discovered? Did you like it? Why or why not?
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4. What styles of public art do you appreciate? Check as many as apply.
Representational
Abstract
Functional
Historical/commemorative
Conceptual
Integrated
5. What aspects of the Tucson community should be reflected in its public art for Downtown?
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6. What ideas would you suggest to the artists as being most important to you for incorporation into public art for the Depot and 4th Avenue Underpass?
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Phone 624-0595, ext. 10 to receive an additional copy of this survey or for more information. You may also find out more about the Tucson Pima Arts Council and public art projects at www.tucsonpimaartscouncil.org. Provide your name, address, phone number and email address if you would like more information about the design process for public art for the Depot and Underpass.
Please complete and return by November 28, 2003 to:
Public Art for Downtown Tucson
Tucson Pima Arts Council
10 E. Broadway #106
Tucson, AZ 85701