Fall &Winter 2015 DESERT CORNER JOURNAL Nature Workshops & Special Events 1 Fall Plant Sale 9-10 Prospecting for Docents | "Fall" Back to Yoga! | The Reason for Flowers | Downtown for Dummies | Botanical Gourds | Sustainable Residential Landscape Design 11-12 Books about Birds… | Mindfulness and Meditation | Earth Journaling | Chasing Arizona | Along the River… | Art Considering Congress Street 13 Gardening Where We Live | Metallic Gourd Ornaments Dia de los Muertos | Season of the Saguaro | 2-3 for the Holidays | The Ft. Lowell District Featured Artists | Tarahumara Wood Carvings | Small Works Exhibition | Taking Flight: Birds in Art Travel Ed-ventures 4 Southwest Inspiration | Featured Artist | 30 Objects Celebrating 30 Years 14 Sonoran Borderlands Day of the Dead | Rio Grande Pueblos and Georgia O'Keeffe Culture 15-16 More Kino Heritage | A Walking Tour of The Ft. Lowell District | Sandhill Snowbirds 5 Holiday Nights | ACT One…another Library Partnership 6 Chiles & Chocolate & Day of the Dead! | Guatemalan Arts and Crafts Sale Tours & Misc. 7 New Member Tours | Members’ Reception | Sonoran Seasons Gala 17 General Tours | Specialty Tours | 8 Member Spotlight – Betty Ojeda Eco-Stations at the Overlook | Hawk Happening Back Page: Sundays in the Garden Concert Series 18 Seasonal Calendar of Events TOHONO CHUL | 7366 N. PASEO DEL NORTE, TUCSON, AZ 85704 | 520.742.6455 | TOHONOCHUL.ORG 1 | nature Fall Plant Sale Fall is the Time to Plant! MEMBERS’ PREVIEW: WEDNESDAY | OCT. 14 | 12 P.M. – 6 P.M. GENERAL PUBLIC: SATURDAY | OCT. 17 | 9 A.M. – 5 P.M. GENERAL PUBLIC: SUNDAY | OCT. 18 | 10 A.M. – 4 P.M. Visit Tohono Chul’s Fall Plant Sale for an extensive offering of both the typical and the and unusual, native, cold-hardy, and arid-adapted plants from agaves to Zauschneria and everything in- between. Our Members’ Only Preview hours have been extended due to the ever- growing popularity of this event. We encourage you to bring your own wagon, but we will have plenty on hand if you don’t have one. Those planning to attend should enter from Northern Avenue on the east side of the Park. Don't forget to check out our propagation greenhouse. In the propagation greenhouse there will be a special selection of “collector” plants including succulents as accent plants for containers, and Bonsai suitable plants and pots. 2 | art Día de los Muertos AUGUST 28 - NOVEMBER 8 | EXHIBIT HOUSE MAIN GALLERY Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a time to honor and remember ancestors and loved ones who have died. Before colonization, elaborate rituals were performed by cultures throughout Mesoamerica to worship and remember the dead. After the Spanish Conquest, the ancient celebrations of the dead were shifted on the calendar to correspond with the Catholic observances of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Día de los Muertos is a joyful remembrance with feasts and festivities in which death is recognized as part of the natural process of living. Día de los Muertos is the eighth biennial exhibition since our inaugural El Día de los Muertos: Traditions, Offerings, and Contemporary Expressions in 2000, and features a very special Community Ofrenda designed and created by José Duran. La Mariposa | acrylic on panel | Regina Lord (cropped) Season of the Saguaro CONTINUING THROUGH OCTOBER 4 | EXHIBIT HOUSE ENTRY GALLERY Season of the Saguaro focuses on the series of gouache paintings Michael Chiago was commissioned to create for Tohono Chul’s Saguaro Discovery Trail. The project, made possible with funds from the Tucson Pima Arts Council, explores the importance of the saguaro for the Tohono O’odham people. Chiago is a well-known Tohono O’odham artist who was born on the O’odham reservation west of Tucson. His paintings depict traditional gatherings that bring his people together in friendship and prayer and are often set against a backdrop of mountains and the desert where he lives. The paintings and a series of ink drawings are part of Tohono Chul’s Permanent Collection. Season of the Saguaro also features folk art objects from the Permanent Collection and implements from the Desert Discovery Education Center. Saguaro Harvest | Michael Chiago | gouache on paper | (cropped) 2003.02.05 | Commissioned with funds from the Tucson Pima Arts Council Featured Artists Marcy Miranda Janes & Martin Quintanilla AUGUST 28 – NOVEMBER 8, 2015 | EXHIBIT HOUSE WELCOME GALLERY Over the past several years Marcy Miranda Janes and Martin Quintanilla have developed unique bodies of work that dig deep into art making traditions that are synonymous with Día de los Muertos. Janes has combined her love of cut paper Victorian valentines and Mexican papel picado into highly personal, intensely precise, and hypnotically elegant paper cuts that speak of universal themes and the supernatural. Quintanilla infuses his Gila Monster 1 | cut paper | Marcy Miranda Janes (cropped) playful and colorful paintings and Continued on the next page >> 3 | art CONTINUED: Marcy Miranda Janes & Martin Quintanilla graphically bold block prints with a tremendous sense of humor. His oeuvre draws on the timeless images generated by Mexico’s legendary Taller de Gráphica Popular and serves as sly commentary on current societal and political frictions. Permanent Collection Spotlight Tarahumara Wood Carvings & Guadalupe de Muerto by Royce Davenport AUGUST 28 – NOVEMBER 8, 2015 | EXHIBIT HOUSE WELCOME GALLERY Three wood carvings created by an unknown Tarahumara artist from the region of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains in Chihuahua share the Permanent Collection Spotlight with a piece from Royce Davenport. Davenport’s Guadalupe de Muerto is a mixed media retablo that embraces Mexico’s culture and folk art traditions. The piece was featured in Tohono Chul's first Dia de los Muertos exhibition in 2000. Javelina | ponderosa pine bark | Unknown Tarahumara Artist | Gift of The Estate of Agnes T. and Don L. Smith 1998.1.88 (detail) UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS Small Works OCTOBER 9 – DECEMBER 13, 2015 | EXHIBIT HOUSE WELCOME GALLERY This invitational exhibition highlights the many artists who have made the exhibits at Tohono Chul shine throughout the past year. This is a chance to see work by over 100 of our highly- Dusk Topography | Ceramic | talented regional artists all together in one gallery. Eclectic and energetic, this exhibition Nicolas Bernard features sculpture, paintings, prints, and mixed media works that are all under 12 inches in size and modestly priced. Additionally, the artwork on display changes periodically over the course of the exhibition, with new works making an appearance throughout. Return visits offer chances to see even more artistic visions as they are expressed on a smaller scale. Taking Flight: Birds in Art NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – FEBRUARY 14, 2016 | EXHIBIT HOUSE MAIN GALLERY Just as birders are finely tuned to their surroundings so too is the artist. Knowledge, patience, and a heightening of all of the senses is required for imaginative and informative discoveries in both fields. Taking Flight: Birds in Art sets its sights squarely on a group of artists exploring a variety of themes and environments with each path leading to a better Cardinal/Havana Ribbon | mixed media on cigar box | Ed understanding of the natural world. Continued on the next page >> Musante (cropped) 4 | art CONTINUED: Taking Flight: Birds in Art This inquiry into the avian world through the modes of allegory, symbolism, abstraction, and representation will unveil formal investigations of color, pattern, and form as well as statements concerned with science, history, and conservation. Binoculars will not be necessary. Southwest Inspiration Selections from the Tucson Pastel Society DECEMBER 18, 2015 – MARCH 13, 2016 | EXHIBIT HOUSE ENTRY GALLERY Southwest Inspiration investigates the wonders of the flora, fauna, and landscape of the Sonoran Desert through the medium of pastel by member artists of the Tucson Pastel Society. The exhibition is juried by Tucson based artist, Brenda Semanick, and reveals the endless possibilities of the expressive, colorful and versatile medium of colored pastel. More information on the Tucson Pastel Society can be found at their website: tucsonpastelsociety.org Tiny Treasures | pastel on paper | Fran Odum (cropped) Featured Artist – Greg Corman NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – FEBRUARY 14, 2016 | EXHIBIT HOUSE WELCOME GALLERY Tucson based artist Greg Corman operates on a variety of levels: sculptor, thinker, and landscape designer. For the past several years Corman has created some of the region’s most amazing and curious creations. His influence is one of quiet ubiquity. At times minimal, at times maximal; Corman has the innate ability to take the most disparate of materials, the most expansive of ideas, and the most intriguing and sparest of parts and shape them into visually and conceptually compelling sculptures, assemblages, and habitats. His art is an art of materials and imaginations repurposed to offer a new vision on what things can be. Untitled | wood, found objects, and milk paint | Greg Corman (surface detail) 30 Objects Celebrating 30 Years CONTINUING INTO 2016 | WELLS FARGO FOYER GALLERY In celebration of our 30th anniversary, 30 Objects Celebrating 30 Years is a semi-permanent exhibition that tells the story of Tohono Chul in words, pictures, and artifacts. The Wells Fargo Foyer Gallery is located in the Desert Discovery Education Center. Dick & Jean Wilson | archive photograph | unknown photographer 5 | art HOLIDAY NIGHTS A Million Twinkling Lights! DECEMBER 4 & 5 | 5:30 – 8:30 P.M. DECEMBER 11 & 12 | 5:30 – 8:30 P.M. DECEMBER 18 & 19 | 5:30 – 8:30 P.M. Holiday Nights is fun for everyone! Stroll along paths garlanded with over a million twinkling lights while musicians and artists perform throughout the Gardens. Who can resist a sing- along or viewing the stars through a telescope? You're sure to enjoy the families, and everyone in between! The Magicians with Nate Anderson many distinct performances located & John Redmon throughout the Gardens while you sip PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE hot chocolate and enjoy tasty treats! FRIDAY & SATURDAY, DEC.