The Tucson Museum of Art is holding its Spring Artisans’ Market this weekend, March 17–19, featuring more than 100 of the Southwest’s best artists and artisans. Come find that something special while you and your family enjoy great food, craft brews, blacksmithing demonstrations, free admission to the museum, and more! I will be in Booth 16 (the booths have been renumbered), which is right next to my usual spot, in front of the blue wall on the east side of the museum, catercorner from Old Town Artisans. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The museum is in downtown Tucson at 140 N. Main Ave.
Tag Archives: Tucson Museum of Art
2016 Spring Artisans’ Market
The Tucson Museum of Art is holding its Spring Artisans’ Market this weekend, March 18–20. More than 100 of the Southwest’s best artisans will have set up shop in the museum’s courtyards. Come find that something special while you and your family enjoy great food, craft brews, live music, children’s activities, free admission to the museum, and more! I will be in my usual spot, Booth 104, in front of the blue wall on the east side of the museum, catercorner from Old Town Artisans. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The museum is in downtown Tucson at 140 N. Main Ave.
Fall events and beyond
My next public event will be the Flux anniversary celebration on Friday, October 14, from 5 to 8 p.m. Come celebrate our 2nd birthday with us and help kick off our third year with a bang.
Following that are my fall shows:
- the St. Philip’s Outdoor Art Show, October 22 and 23 (my first time here);
- the Tucson Artists’ Open Studio Tour, November 12 and 13;
- and the Tucson Museum of Art Holiday Artisans’ Market, November 18 to 20.
I will post details for the shows and events as I get them. Please note that one of my usual fall shows, the Big Brothers Big Sisters Southwest Flair A-Fair, scheduled for October 28 to 30, has been canceled this year by the organizers.
And looking further forward, come next year, from February 2 to March 13, I will be showing my work at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, in a two-person show with fellow Flux artist C. J. Shane.
TMA Spring Artisans’ Market
This coming weekend, the Tucson Museum of Art will present its Spring Artisans’ Market at the museum (140 N Main Ave). Not only will you find a wide variety of fine art and crafts for sale, you can also view the current Andy Warhol and Ed Mell special exhibits at the museum without an entrance fee. And the food at the museum is worth a visit by itself. The weather is predicted to be sunny in the high 70s–low 80s, so come out and celebrate spring, glorious spring!
I will be in Booth 104, on the east side of the museum in front of the blue wall, next to Casa Cordova and catercorner from Old Town Artisans. See you there!
Two more events
I am busy getting ready for my next two events. First up is the Tucson Open Studio Tour, this weekend. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, 167 artists all over Tucson will open their studios to the public. You can download a combination calendar and map guide showing the locations of all the studios at the Tucson Pima Arts Council site or pick one up at various locations around town, such as libraries and galleries. I am taking a short stack to Flux Gallery tomorrow (actually later today), when I staff the gallery. Five of the Flux artists will be opening their studios: me, Maurice Sevigny, and, at the same shared studio, Bryan Crow, Steven Derks, and Peter Eisner.
If you want more info, the Arizona Daily Star had an article about the tour in its Sunday paper. If you forgot to get the paper or already recycled it, and you’re willing to register and login, you can read it online at azstarnet.com.
The studio tour gives you a chance to see how (or at least, where) your favorite artists work. My studio will, of course, be a lot cleaner than it usually is (although I can never entirely get rid of the sawdust), but you can see my equipment and my wood and learn about my process. You can also see my work, of course, including some in progress, especially pieces I am trying to finish before the following weekend, when . . .
. . . the Tucson Museum of Art holds its annual Holiday Artisans’ Market at the museum (140 N. Main Ave.). The show is open from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. You can find me in my usual spot, Booth 105, on the east side of the museum, catercorner from Old Town Artisans. This will be my last show of 2009, so after Thanksgiving I will finally get to finish laying the new floors in my house.
Heartwood
As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, last month I prepared (and gave) a talk for the docents of the Tucson Museum of Art, on woodturning as an artform. Besides giving a brief history of artistic turning, I described the basic anatomy of trees and discussed some of the characteristics of wood and the vessel form.
Thinking about the anatomy of a tree unsettled me this time around. Trees are living organisms; that wood was once alive, I feel, makes it unlike other media (except maybe basket materials). But the heartwood that woodworkers so value is dead wood. Heartwood is formed as a tree’s cells die; the life of a tree is all in those layers between the heartwood and the bark.
Heartwood, dead wood; a living organism dead at its center. The image has been stuck in my mind like a sand grain in my shoe.
Today, my perspective shifted. It occurred to me that heartwood is the tree’s past. It lives in the tree as our past—also dead, having literally passed—lives in us. Our history forms our structure, storing molecular bits of ourselves, recording cycles of abundance and privation, unseasonable frosts, long summers, lightning strikes, patterns of growth. Like trees, we become who we are as each old layer dies, as each new layer forms.
We live in the layers between our past and the (also dead) outer bark that protects us.
Crazy busy
I’m wondering if the universe just wants me to shut up for a while. I’m so crazy busy that I barely have time to breathe!
I leave for a show in Casa Grande in a couple of hours, then I come back to prepare a talk for the docents of the Tucson Museum of Art and prepare for the spring show at the museum. And, oh yeah, my significant other and I are trying to buy our first house at the same time! One with my own workshop, of course.