Tamara (Tammy) Poff is a Tucson artist, author, and teacher. Here she introduces us to her latest book, In the Company of Fiber Artists: Creative Inspiration for Creative Heddle Weavers.
  
Tammy, you are known as a fiber artist and weaver primarily working with the rigid heddle loom.  Can you tell us about weaving as a form of fiber art, how you were drawn to it, and what its appeal is for you?
 
Weaving is the foundation of fiber arts. I've read that evidence of interlacing thread on thread can be traced as far back as the Paleolithic era, 27,000 years ago. It surged as an art form in our time, from the 1950s onward, finding its way from a functional to an aesthetic purpose.
 
For those sensitive to fiber then, I think there is a primal call to express ourselves with this medium. As a knitter from age five onward, I can't remember a time when a skein of yarn didn't excite me. As a painter and a weaver, working with fibers allows me to respond to the materials differently than painting does. Weaving is another way of getting your hands dirty with yarn – it's a unique form of therapy.
 
One of my favorite (true) stories of "fiber therapy" was of a young man who bought eight knitting needle sets from his local yarn shop. When the shop owner asked what he needed eight sets for, he answered, "I'm buying them for my study group. We found that when one person reads the material, and the others knit, we get better scores on our tests!" As fiber passes through our hands in repetition, it quiets the everyday buzz in the back of our minds for multiple benefits.
 
So, it is the process that lured me in. I was a floor loom weaver in my art school days. As a wholesale yarn representative many years later, I saw a rising demand for the portability, accessibility, and quick results of the little loom. I devoured everything I could find to learn the rigid heddle from multiple perspectives, then developed some quirky little tricks of my own and taught 100's of new weavers from there. I taught in yarn shops throughout five states of the eastern time zone where I could see, close-up, what my new weavers struggled with and what they wanted. I never thought I would be writing patterns – writing books was just a joke I started. I would have to say that my students dragged me into this, and my network of loyal weavers internationally is what drives me onward.

​You've written three books now on rigid heddle loom weaving, the most recent of which is In the company of Fiber Artists: Creative Inspiration for Rigid Heddle Weavers. Tell us about this latest book.
 
With book three, I wanted to change course a bit.  I am known, since book one, as the designer who takes rigid heddle weaving beyond the traditional path to a more contemporary approach. My readers write me to say that they didn't realize that their simple weaving tool has so much potential. I wanted to continue that, but with a twist. I felt my weavers deserved inspiration to go further "beyond the rectangle," as my tag line implies.
 
Additionally, I wanted to pack more of what I value into this more expansive work – more creativity from diverse sources, more connection to our community, and more concern for our planet's future. So I researched and reached out to the eight national and international artists whose amazingly generous and inspiring response is the cornerstone of this book.
 
One of the strengths of this book, in addition to gorgeous illustrations and instructional material, are the interviews with several artists working in this medium. What did you hope to achieve by giving these different artists' perspectives?
 
The celebrity interview format to encourage new ideas has been available to most other seekers - authors, painters, sports lovers, and so on. I found a hole in what was available to inspire my weavers similarly.
 
I did not know at the onset, however, how much the genius of the artists interviewed would change my own direction. I feel like the patterns in this book are some of my best work because the pieces had to be worthy of the artist who inspired them.
 
My end game here was to light a little firecracker under my readers to get going, keep going, and try something new – something outside their comfort zone with more of their own genius involved. The response from my early readers has been overwhelming with all of the new ideas they are generating. In that sense, mission accomplished. I also hope to inspire weavers to think hard about their materials - what we are contributing to the planet and the community. Weaving uses a lot of yarn with a certain amount of waste. It's tempting to fall for synthetics due to the cost. Finally, we are beginning to understand the cost to our environment when we use these petroleum products, and we are finding affordable answers to that.

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You have devoted considerable space to instructional material, including diagrams, charts patterns, and techniques.  Do you see yourself as much a teacher as an artist?
 
Well, my undergraduate degree is in Art Education. For mere survival, I spent decades in business instead. I feel like I've returned to my roots now. I didn't think I wanted to teach back then. I wanted to paint, so my graduate work was in fine arts, painting. My students seem to respond favorably to my teaching style. So apparently, that remains my calling, and I find that gratifying. I do want to build in some painting time, though.
 

​
I really loved all the great quotes that are tucked away in the text. Do you have a favorite?
 
My favorite is from Sophia Loren: "There is a fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to life, to the lives of the people you love."
 
To me, this summarizes our reason for being. If I am remembered only for that, I am satisfied.
 
The chapter on Move Forward-Give Back is especially inspiring. Tell us about that, and in particular, the Linus Project.
 
As we feed our creativity, we generate a lot of stuff – stuff full of love, as I like to think of it. The process is a big part of the reward, and we can add to that reward by helping others in need.
 
I joined a knitting group here in Tucson that used to meet before the pandemic slowed us down. A chance to have a cup of coffee with other handcrafters feeds the soul. The group's organizer, Bev, is also the local coordinator for Project Linus. This national organization exists to donate handmade blankets of various sizes to comfort children in need.
 
I started by knitting a few blankets and sewing together a quilt. Then I realized that I didn't see anything about weavers in the requests. I thought this would be a perfect project for us. The challenge was to find fibers that would be soft, washable, natural, and affordable for weavers with a budget. I was excited to find some low-cost bamboo and lyocell yarns that work beautifully for my patterns.

​I was interested in your comments on sustainability in your latest book. Not only are you recycling yarns from cast off weavings, you also address the issue of synthetic materials in weavings, and also contamination of natural fibers. You call for use of "renewable fibers." Can you tell us a little more about that?
 
First, we must acknowledge that almost everything we do has an environmental impact. The other day I read that even a little text from our phones has a discernible cost to the eco-system. Each step toward a zero-carbon effect, while not perfect, is progress in giving this planet a longer life, not only for future generations but for the remainder of our lives as we see global warming effects in real-time.
 
Acrylic, nylon, and polyester have a considerable presence in the fiber world. These are plastics manufactured from petroleum that gained status in our mothers’ generation for their low cost, softness, and washability. We now know that they break down in the wash and in landfills and find their way into our bodies to destroy our health. As I say in the book, "Do we really want to wrap a baby in a petroleum product in the first place?"
 
Opting for natural fibers like cotton and wool appears to be a step forward. Still, the former is associated with excess water usage, toxic fertilizers, and pesticides, and the latter with methane contamination, animal cruelty, and poisonous chemicals in preparation.
 
Transforming plant material into rayons like bamboo and Tencel (brand name for lyocell) appears to be the answer for the future as these fibers are robustly sustainable and grown with very little toxic intervention. Alas, these too, have had a bad chemical footprint when we turn them into yarn.
 
Not to despair, weavers should give some serious thought to prioritizing natural fibers as a growing number of farmers join the movement of sustainable agriculture. Additionally, there are new manufacturing processes called closed-loop that reduce waste production and contamination. It's all about consciously taking steps in the right direction.

What's next for you?
 
As I mentioned, this book has kind of changed my direction. I have so many colleagues who do a great job of teaching new weavers how to use the rigid heddle, make a scarf, make a placemat, and all the basics.
 
While I'll always have the beginner in mind (I have an online course for beginners at weavingwithpoffstudio.com), the next big chapter in my life's book will probably be more deeply dedicated to this concept of finding inspiration for the weaver. I'm thinking about an online membership site for that purpose. And I want to get a little painting time in, too!
 







Websites:
Tamara Poff:
https://weaving-with-poff-studio.thinkific.com/
https://www.poffstudio.com/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/PoffStudio
 
Project Linus:
https://www.projectlinus.org/
http://www.projectlinustucson.org/
 
LINKS to Book and Book  Reviews.
 
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Company-Fiber-Artists-Creative-Inspiration/dp/099845902X/
 
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57060101-in-the-company-of-fiber-artists?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Jnw2dZYiAQ&rank=1

Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-the-company-of-fiber-artists-tamara-poff/1138864033?ean=9780998459028

I think it’s safe to say that we were ready for 2020 to be done and gone by last March or April. So here we are at the beginning of a new year with two signs of hope: 1) a Covid-19 vaccine will be widely available soon – that is, if our leaders can get it together and get the vaccine to us; and 2) Trump will be gone by January 20 (unless he tries to stage a coup which I wouldn’t put past him). Be prepared to defend American democracy from a proto-fascist.
 
Art:
How has this past year affected art and artists?  Artists are always looking for opportunities to show and sell their work. The year 2020 was the most challenging for artists in many years. Almost everything went “virtual.” We couldn’t have “live” Open Studio tours or popup events, and most galleries stopped having live exhibits and openings.
 
I turned to Etsy in an attempt to sell small artworks, among other things. I did indeed sell some small artworks, mainly in the Art:Flora and Art:Abstract categories. But the big surprise was the popularity of malas. FYI, a mala is a Buddhist/Hindu circular string of beads (kind of like a rosary) that is used in meditation to help concentrate and say mantras which are sort of like a prayer. A traditional mantra has 108 beads and an amulet attached. A lot of westerners wear them as necklaces.
 
At first, I thought that my buyers were using them as necklaces only. But I quickly found out that many are using them to meditate. That’s understandable. We’re all pretty stressed out because of the pandemic. To sit silently and say a prayer, mantra, or an affirmation helps calm the mind and body.

Etsy keeps very good statistics on who clicks on what and who makes an item a “favorite.” The stats told me that of every 20 “favorites,” 19 of them are malas. So Baja Arizona Treasures will be offering more malas in 2021. See more at Baja Arizona Treasures.
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​Books:
I could write a book (seriously) about what I’ve learned about the publishing industry in the past few years, and in particular, in 2020. Here’s a summary:

• The publishing industry is undergoing a change on the magnitude of when the printing press was invented (1436), and then later, when paper production became cheap enough to print newspapers and inexpensive books (late 1700s, early 1800s). These days, traditional publishers are consolidating and trying desperately to hang on to control of the book world in the face of greater and greater challenges from indie writers and publishers, the internet, and more.
• Indies (independent authors/publishers) face constant unrelenting discrimination from the “trads” (traditional publishers) who like to ignore indie writers, or disparage them as less than/not as good as trad-published authors. Fact is, some of the indies are the best writers out there.
• Some indie authors have been very successful. Several are making over $100,000 a year, and I know of one who made over $1 million last year. These authors usually are engaged in “rapid write-rapid release,” producing a 50,000 word book (not the typical 70K to 100K words) every six weeks or so. Almost always these books are in the genres of romance/romantic suspense or sci-fi “space operas.” (stories like Star Wars and Battlestar Gallactica). Also these more successful writers typically have a patron (usually a wife or husband) who pays the bills so that the writer can write. But most indie writers like me are spending more than we’re making trying to put books into production and then market them once they are published. Otherwise, the books just disappear, and no one knows they exist. The vast majority of indie writers don’t make much money at all, and are often going in the hole until they have enough books out there to start eeking out a profit. Trad-published authors aren’t doing much better. The publishers just are not providing the same level of support as they have in the past, especially in the area of marketing. Often trad-published authors have to provide these services themselves and at their own expense.

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•  A large secondary industry has grown up to “help” authors, which is another way of saying these “helpers” are making more money from providing these “services” than the authors are making from writing and publishing their books.
• I started writing to supplement my meager income. In the past, I had always been paid for my writing as a newspaper reporter and a freelance writer for magazines (locally, Zocalo, and The Desert Leaf). I was very naïve about making money by writing and selling books, especially fiction. I’ve concluded that the only way to succeed is: a) have enough money before even starting so that I can spend money on promotions and ads; and 2) follow the “rapid write, rapid release” method to produce as many books as humanly possible, preferably in romance or space operas. I don’t have lots of money to spend on ads and promos, I don’t want to spend 12 hours a day on a computer churning out books, and I don’t have a patron.

 
My conclusion: in 2021, I’ll be better off focusing on good physical health, spiritual and psychological wellness, and especially, having fun. So starting today and in 2021, I’m making art and writing books for fun. And hoping for the best.  

Feel free to comment. What are your plans for 2021?

Happy New Year!  

Home_Sunday morning, January 1, 2021

​For those of us who respect science, the new Netflix set of documentaries, Corona Virus: Explained, has some excellent information. There are three episodes: first, about the corona virus and how it works; second, about the development of a vaccine (very hopeful!); and third, how we can deal with any stress or anxiety we’re experiencing. I wrote earlier about those who are in “psychological denial.” These folks prefer to think Covid-19 isn’t even happening. This current blog is for those of us who recognize that the virus isn’t going away anytime soon. We want to respond creatively to that awareness. All three episodes in the Netflix series are very informative and interesting, but the third episode on handling stress really caught my attention.
 
The first suggestion to handle covid-19 stress is to breathe. Slowly breathe in on a count of five, and then slowly breathe out on a count of five. No, this isn’t some hippie-dippie New Age thing. It’s science-based. Slowing our breathing reduces the out-of-control effects of our sympathetic nervous system. This part of the human nervous system creates stress in our bodies in response to a threat, commonly referred to as fight or flight. Breathing slowly allows the other crucial part of the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, to come to the fore, slow down our heart rate and to help us to chill out.

​The next suggestion is on reducing stress:  limit your news to once a day. Constant input detailing news of the pandemic just leads to more stress. And don’t drink a lot of alcohol. Alcohol sales have gone way up since the pandemic began. But alcohol just numbs us for a while. It does not reduce stress. Same goes for drugs.
 
The third suggestion to reduce stress is to “reclaim agency” in our lives.  How do we do this?

• Keep a schedule. I go out first thing in the morning for a walk around the neighborhood. My schedule allows for both exercise and an experience of the natural world.
• Take care of something:  a cat, a dog, a plant or a garden, or a bird feeder. In my case, my son’s dog comes for a visit episodically, I have a small garden to care for (mainly tomatoes), and I feed the birds (which also unintentionally provides a lot of entertainment for my neighbor’s cat).
• Make something: There’s a lot of room here for focusing on a project that interests you. Some people are taking up long-delayed DIY projects such as putting up that bookshelf in the living room, or trying out (or creating) new recipes, or doing something in the arts:  I’m all for the arts, and music is an especially good thing to be doing now. Take up an instrument, write a song, or even better, sing along with others. Some friends and family are having Zoom or Google Meet sessions and singing together. There’s a reason why Italians went out on their balconies or into the streets, played their instruments, and sang to each other at the height of their pandemic quarantine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBByYjjvNzs   As the Italian poet Alda Merini said, “La musica fa respirare.” Music lets you breathe. 
• Connect with others and help others: There’s always a way to connect with others. Zoom or Google Meet encounters are just one way. We have email, phone calls, and texting. There’s plenty of ways to help out, too, even when stuck at home. Do you like to sew? You can make masks. If you’ve survived covid-19, a gift of your blood plasma to treat others is extremely helpful.
• Shift focus away from yourself. This will make for positive change later. What have we learned in this pandemic about what is NOT working in American society. What do we need to work on?  How about access to nutritious food for all, especially kids? Access to affordable health care? Dealing once and for all with racism?
• Shift focus away from yourself. Reading is a great way to shift focus away from yourself. Sci-fi, mystery, suspense, romance – read whatever takes you into a new world.
• Shifting focus away from yourself also means moving energy away from the monkey mind that fills our thoughts with worry and fear. Let go of yesterday. Let go of tomorrow. Live in this moment. Breathe.

​One of the speakers in the Italian video said, “I think the most efficient weapons we have are music and culture. So let’s fill up our days with beauty, beating the virus to the beat of music, and soon we’ll be able to hug everyone again.”

So with that in mind, my current production of malas, mandalas, and Spirit Joss artworks fit into the category of “make something”   There are also other ways to assist in the shift of focus away from stress and worry to a more contemplative life. Use the mala to repeat some comforting words bead-by-bead while breathing in and out – a prayer, a mantra, or an affirmation. Use the mandala to remember the sacred unity of life. Use the Spirit Joss words to remind yourself of key concepts: peace, love, courage, hope. While you are quarantined, you can experience the richness of the world: tomato plants, singing birds, a happy dog, incoming monsoon clouds, the sound of music or the voice of a socially-distanced neighbor calling out from across the street, “How are you?”
 
Explained: CoronaVirus trailer
https://www.netflix.com/title/81273378
27, 23, and 20 minutes long
 
My malas, mandalas, and Spirit Joss, and other artworks can be found on my Etsy site: BajaArizona Treasures. I add new things frequently.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/BajaArizonaTreasures
 
Feel free to comment. What are you doing to cope creatively with the current state of affairs?

​            Despite the richness of Tucson as an arts center, and by that I mean all of Tucson, too often art patrons have been channeled either to the galleries in the Foothills on Skyline Drive or to downtown galleries. In recent years, the constant push of city leaders to develop downtown has unfortunately led to many artists, art studios, and smaller galleries to be pushed out in favor of trendy restaurants and bars (83 and counting). Great effort has led to the blossoming of Steinfeld Warehouse galleries and studios, as well as Solar Culture Gallery and music venue, and the Tucson Sculpture Resource Center. Consequently, art lives and thrives downtown despite ongoing challenges.
            Lucky for us, in the past three years a new center for art studios has emerged on the east side of the city. Known as the East Hive, the center is a complex of three former office buildings which are now home to numerous artists’ studios. A stunningly beautiful courtyard in the center of these three diagonally-spaced buildings enhances the beauty of the East Hive. Owner Steven Fenton of Fenton Investment astutely turned over management of the East Hive Studios to long-time Tucsonan Steven Eye of Solar Culture fame. The complex is the largest studio complex in Tucson, and artists can recent space for as low as $150 a month.

​            I recently had the pleasure of visiting the East Hive on an open studios day. There I met several of the resident artists and also visited Mark Frighetti’s Healing Arts Qigong Center. (www.zyqigongaz.com/)  The Qigong center’s calm and meditative environment on the ground floor fit right in with the beautiful courtyard and the artists’ studios on two levels.
            While wandering around the three buildings, I met several artists and had a chance to see their work. Among them was Brian Osserman of Osserman Paintings (www.facebook.com/Osserman.Paintings). Brian is working with acrylic to paint on canvas and also to create lovely jewelry and amulet pieces with acrylic work.
            I met V. Romero (left below) who is in partnership with Yvette Madison. Their studio, Threading Seams, is where they create original costume designs. (www.facebook.com/ThreadingSeams/)  Iris Beaver of Rainbow Goddess Designs (center below) produces innovative “handcrafted headdresses, accessories, jewelry, and festival wear.”  (www.rainbowgoddessdesigns.com/ ) Iris showed me her special headdresses ready for holiday festivities. Photographer Ron McCoy (right below) has a working photography studio in the Hive. His specialty is architectural photography, and he also teaches photography classes in his studio. (www.ronmccoyphotography.com/ )  I also stumbled upon a large display of the paintings and drawings of Curtis Kiwak although I was not able to meet and talk to him. (www.curtiskiwak.com/)

​            Perhaps my favorite visit of the day was to Joyce Jaden’s studio. That may be because I’ve done a lot of fiber art myself. Joyce is a mixed media textile artist who weaves on the loom and also weaves baskets. She even had a couple of hand crafted artist’s books on display. (website?)
            Much to my pleasure, I ran into Steven Eye and had a chance to chat with him about the East Hive and about the art scene in general in Tucson. It’s quite clear that Steven has devoted himself for many years to helping the artists of Tucson to thrive and to create art despite the constant challenges we all face. Thank you, Steven!  www.solarculture.org/
            You can keep up with the East Hive on Facebook here:  www.facebook.com/EastHiveTucson
            Here’s how you find the East Hive. The complex is located quite close to the Park Place Mall. So go east on Broadway to just past the mall, then south on S. Wilmot to East 14th Street. Turn right (west) onto 14th and go half a block to find the Hive complex on your left (south side). If you miss E. 14th, go to the next turn to the west, Timrod Street. Understand that despite the address of 326 S. Wilmot, the East Hive doesn’t actually open directly onto Wilmot.
            Go by and visit! 

Since the fall of 2015 when Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC) experienced a severe reduction in funding for the Tucson Fall Open Studios Tour, I’ve been writing blog posts about both the fall and spring tours. If you’ve kept up with this, you know that a couple of very vibrant arts groups popped up to fill in the gap in response to TPAC’s funding loss. They are Heart of Tucson Art (mid-town Tucson) and Art Trails (west Tucson). Up until that time, TPAC’s studio tour had been scheduled for only one weekend. The new arts groups divided the city into sectors and hosted tours on four different weekends.
 
Much to my distress, Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance (SAACA) barged in, took over the tour in the fall of 2016 (or was subcontracted by TPAC - depending on your viewpoint). SAACA made a terrible mess of things. The mess was so bad that after one try with SAACA in 2016, I personally boycotted SAACA’s tour. I haven’t participated since then. I’m not the only artist to make the same decision.
 
Things have changed, and apparently for the better.
 
TPAC reorganized since losing open studios’ tour funding in 2015. TPAC is now known as Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona (Arts Foundation). Now for the first time in several years, Arts Foundation is running the fall studio tour again. The tour is being called Open Studio Tours with no reference to the city of Tucson. Unlike SAACA’s tour which included Benson, Tubac, and any place in between here and the Mexican border, the Arts Foundation tour is a more reasonable size, stretching from Catalina in the north to the southern edge of Tucson.
 
A persistent concern for many years among artists who do not live downtown has been that the wide area covered by the tour in only one weekend had the effect of funneling tour visitors to downtown studios. Visitors were able to see more art in a short period of time by going downtown. Artists who lived elsewhere were out of luck, despite paying the same tour fees as downtown artists. Heart of Tucson Art (HotArt) and Art Trails were direct results of this bias toward downtown.
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Jerry Cagle is a former cytologist, a profession that refers to the “microscopic interpretation of cells to detect cancer and other abnormalities.” (Wikipedia) He tells us that he decided rather abruptly late in his career to change professions and become a fine art photographer. He now refers to himself as a visual storyteller, and he explains the connection between his art and science.  See more of his work at:
https://limbicsystemphotoworks.zenfolio.com/

Jerry, what motivated you to move from a hard science profession, cytotechnology? And to do so “abruptly,” as you have said?  [click on images to enlarge]

​ 
I was at a dead-end in my profession; I was burnt out and had been passed over for promotion to a supervisory position the year before. A new manager from the lab in Phoenix had been brought in; there was a marked shift in the culture of the workplace, and I was having difficulty adapting to the new, more corporate environment. I hadn’t actually been planning to retire, but, after discussing the situation with my wife, I gave my two- weeks notice.
 
We had recently returned from a backpacking trip to the Escalante in Southern Utah, and I saw something in a number of the photos I had made with my little point and shoot camera that stirred my interest. I purchased the cheapest DSLR Nikon made and began taking pictures of anything and everything. I thought that I might, through the sale of my work, supplement my retirement income. That was a little over six years ago. I have experienced a fair amount of success with my work. I regularly exhibit locally, and last year I had work included in one national and one international competition. It turns out that my assumptions regarding the fiscal potential were, shall we say, naïve, and my long-suffering wife has become an unwitting patron of the arts.
 
Cytology is a highly visual profession, and much of the diagnostic process takes place on a subconscious level. When I was investigating the field, prior to enrolling in the university, I spoke with a practicing cytologist, and she asked me if I was an artist. I thought this a peculiar question. She remarked that artists tended to do very well in cytology. One of the nine sister muses, Urania, created astronomy, another visual science, so, perhaps, it isn’t such a leap as it might first appear.
 
Your Limbic System Photoworks refers to the limbic system in animals which you define as “a collection of structures in the brain that are the primary locus of emotional life and the formation of memories.”  Why do you see emotions and memory as the foundation of your artwork? Do you refer to emotions and memory in the viewers of your artwork or to your own emotions and memories, or both?
 
My wife came up with the idea of calling the business Limbic System Photoworks, both as a nod to my background in the sciences and as a way of bridging that and this new adventure I was embarking on. I thought it was brilliant! It was such an eloquent way of expressing the connection between science and art.
 
My goal in my nature work is, first and foremost, to elicit a strong emotional response from the viewer For what it’s worth, I consider myself as not just the creator, but, also, one of the viewers. But more to your question – I am referring to both my own and others’ responses. In my landscape and nature images the response I am usually seeking is a “positive” one – awe, contentment, peace, a sense that the world is a beautiful, friendly, and welcoming place, but other times I like to do something a little ominous, unsettling – impending storms and other extreme environments, processes of decay and mortality. In my more conceptual bodies of work, my intent is to pose questions or create situations that may make some viewers a bit uncomfortable, to create a degree of “psychological tension”. In that work I explore questions dealing, sometimes directly, other times obliquely, with religious beliefs, spirituality, mortality, fear, et. al.
 
The memory aspect relates loosely to the Jungian concept of the “collective unconscious” and “ancestral memory”. I admit to exercising artistic license in this concept. Photography is particularly well suited to bridging an individual’s personal experience with the experience of others, both in the present and across the arc of human history. The collective unconscious deals in archetypes and symbolism. Jung described it as encompassing “the soul of humanity at large”. Someone with no direct experience of wild natural environments, someone who has never ventured outside the confines of the city, can, nevertheless, be stirred by images that depict places, where the hand of man is not readily apparent. These places call out to us and draw us in on a deep level. 

​You work in color, black-and-white, and monochromatic sepia tones. How do you decide which palette to use? And does this choice have a role in eliciting emotion and memory?
 
At the risk of being branded as a little soft around the edges, I will say that I don’t make the decision as to what palette I use – the work tells me. Sometimes I create multiple iterations - color and straight black & white or toned monochromes, or all three. There is an old maxim in photography that holds the concept of “previsualization”, i.e.  knowing exactly what the finished image will look like prior to releasing the shutter, as the consummate expression of skill and artistry. It is held up as a sign of personal integrity (or lack thereof). Some would consider letting the work speak for itself in that way as akin to heresy, but I see it as an organic, evolutionary process. I don’t always know exactly what my motivation is when I release the shutter; there is something at work on a subconscious level that sometimes only reveals itself during subsequent review.
 
Regarding choice of color vs monochrome, each impacts how an image works on us in a variety of ways. Monochrome work abstracts an image and sepia tones evoke the past, an amorphous dream-like state. Color can abstract to a degree as well.  The limitations are essentially endless with digital work. Photography affords the luxury of being able to create, with relative ease, variations on a theme, whether in choice of palette or other aspects, e.g. dodging and burning (selectively lightening and darkening specific areas of the image), contrast, saturation/desaturation, etc. It’s a very powerful tool. Someone who thinks that photography is just a matter of pushing a button obviously hasn’t experienced the “plague of choices” you face in post-production work.
 
I am considering changing, somewhat in jest, the tagline on my website from “I don’t photograph what is in front of me. I photograph what is inside of me.” to “I hate landscape photography, but I can’t stop doing it.”
 
Your work is deeply informed by the American Southwest and the Sonoran Desert in particular. Is there any other place in the world that you would really like to photograph? And if so, why?
 
 
Yes. Definitely. The American South. I am enamored of The South. I spent my formative years there, and, even though I haven’t lived there in more than 25 years, I still identify as a Southerner. Despite the misconceptions, and, yes, uncomfortable truths that accompany that label, the fact is that the South, even with its issues of race, chauvinism, provincialism, and history of violent oppression, is a romantically and visually (have you ever seen the serviceberry blooming in the otherwise bare springtime woods?) rich and diverse region; culturally, socially, intellectually, and demographically. We of the South have a strong literary tradition - Donald Harington, Faulkner, Harper Lee, Eudora Welty, Foote, and W.B. DuBois.  “Southern Art” is an admittedly ill-defined genre, if, indeed, such a thing actually exists. There are Southern photographers whose work deals with the South directly and metaphorically – Greg Banks, Sally Mann, Keith Carter, Clarence John Laughlin, Gordon Parks. Painters from the South whose work holds together stylistically or thematically as “Southern” are harder to find. Southern music is legion and readily identifiable, in all its aspects, as a regional entity.
I would love to photograph in Savannah, Georgia, and I have been salivating over the possibility of being selected to participate in the artist-in-residence program in Hot Springs National Park (in Arkansas), but due to funding shortages it has been placed on moratorium for the past couple of years.
 
What do you think are the major challenges you and other artists in southern Arizona face today?
 
The availability of studio space is going to be reduced as the gentrification of downtown accelerates. Thirty artists on Toole Avenue were recently displaced when their studios were removed to accommodate a new restaurant. That will make it even harder for full-time artists to support themselves from their work.

Melody Sears is a Tucson-based pastel artist. She says in her artist’s statement:  “Most of my work depicts the desert landscapes around me because I am constantly moved by the effects of the light, the shapes and the colors I see here in Arizona and New Mexico. I do not take what I see for granted. I know things will change; I’ve experienced those changes firsthand. Wildfires, floods, monsoon rains, years of drought, years of plenty—I’ve lived through all of these. And each new season, each weather event, seems to remake the world again…and inspire new paintings!” See more of Melody’s artwork at https://melodysearsart.com/
[click on images to enlarge]
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Melody, why did you choose soft pastel to express the landscape?  In your view, what are the advantages of soft pastel over other mediums?
 
Pastel painting for me is a very personal, tactile experience. Unlike mediums that are applied with a brush, I hold pastel sticks with my thumb and one or two fingers so it almost feels like the color emanates directly from my hand—there is no distance between me and the painting.
 
Pastels are pure ground pigments held together with just a tiny bit of binder so in my eye they are color in its purest sense, undiluted by oils or water. The tiny ground-up particles reflect light and when applied to a sanded paper can create a subtle sparkle—a liveliness—that other mediums don’t share. Pastel manufacturers today have created hundreds of colors (thousands, more like) in various hardnesses suitable for techniques ranging from pure line drawings to rich painterly effects. Thus they are versatile. And since they require no drying time they are very practical, for I can start and stop on a painting as I choose.
 
The softest pastels have a creaminess that is simply delicious (metaphorically) to paint with. I can lay in the shape of a mountain with its deeper shadow colors then grab a lighter soft pastel representing the color from a lowering sun as its light hits some peaks and with a few strokes I’ve shaped and highlighted those peaks. The range of colors available, the differing hardnesses of various pastel brands, and the variety of marks I can make using pastels as if they were pencils or brushes make it a pleasure for me to express light, shadows and contours of the landscape with this medium.
  
Tell us about your experiences of plein air painting. Is it as pleasurable as working in the studio? more pleasurable? How do you deal with the challenges of plein air painting?
 
Plein air painting is simply a blast. To be outdoors trying to capture a beautiful view in a short amount of time is a daunting challenge—I have two hours or less to paint because the movement of the sun drastically changes the shadow shapes, colors and mood of any scene. When it works and I’ve accomplished what I hoped to, there is nothing quite like the exhilaration I feel. When it doesn’t work I’ve still had a great time being out in nature doing something I love.
 
Dealing with the challenges of plein air painting requires just a bit of advance planning. I have a hat, sunscreen, bug spray, plenty of water, a snack, a neckerchief to keep gnats out of my ears when necessary or to wet and wrap around my neck in hot weather, extra pastel paper, paper towels, a camera, my box of pastels, my easel attachment and tripod. I worked outside alone for 15 years without a cell phone or buddy. I now have a phone which doubles as a camera but I much prefer to paint alone and have never had a problem being on my own.
 
The one thing I do fret about is wind, having dealt with two experiences when my easel was knocked over by wind gusts. Imagine trying to find 150+ pieces of pastel, many of them shattered by the fall, in a patch of thick grass or rolling down a hill. Not fun!
 
Working in my studio is a more measured yet equally joyful and satisfying experience. Studio work for me is accompanied by a lot of time stepping back and letting my eyes and heart drift around the painting, feeling it out. I rarely work directly from smaller sketches or photographs to create larger versions of the same subject. Instead I try to discover more in a painting than I first imagined it to be, often adding elements from memory or by consulting my library of reference photos.

our website has two major collections of work. First, desert landscape and sky, and second, desert waters. Do you have a favorite location or locations that you find yourself returning to again and again to paint?
 
The deserts of Arizona and New Mexico have been my home for many decades. I feel like I understand these deserts at some personal, elemental level, and I paint them in order to remember them. If I could paint only one subject it would have to be desert waters, for water in the desert is such a precious gift. But then I would be grief-stricken if I couldn’t also paint rocks! Happily I can devote equal time to both and some of the paintings I enjoy most are a combination of landscapes and water.
 
As for favorite locations to paint, for eleven years in New Mexico I painted two different creeks during all seasons and in all conditions, including dry. I will continue to do so with regular trips back to that area. In Arizona my favorite spot is Catalina State Park, where the mountains continually inspire me and I can often find water to paint. I’ve recently moved back to Tucson from New Mexico and am reacquainting myself with favorite painting locales from years ago.
 
 
What do you think are the major challenges you and other artists in southern Arizona face today?
 
Major challenges for me, as for most artists, include finding collectors to buy my paintings. There are fewer and fewer traditional brick and mortar art galleries in operation, so artists are forced to spend a lot of their productive time finding other ways to promote and sell their artwork. I submit my work to several online showcases and apply to many local and national juried exhibitions, showing with several each year.
 
The internet can be a curse and a blessing both. Artists like myself now use websites and newsletters to connect with a wider audience, and some promote themselves via Facebook, Instagram, and other internet venues. Nevertheless, it seems that younger generations, hopefully our future art collectors, are less interested in original fine art than in acquiring posters and prints from online sources. I know this is reasonable given many are just starting out in life. But I fear that a lack of art education, in both the history of art and the doing of art, will result in a population that has no understanding or appreciation of the intrinsic value of original art, which saddens me.

​I was very pleased to see a four page spread in the January issue of Zócalo magazine about the Art Trails Spring Open Studio Tour, Saturday and Sunday, February 2-3. The Zócalo ad has an excellent map of studio locations on the tour which covers the northwest and west sides of Tucson stretching from Oro Valley to Tucson Estates. We also see listings of the artists and photos of their work. You can get the same information on Art Trail’s website. https://www.arttrails.org/
 
Also good to know is that Art Trails has survived the assault on local arts groups. By “local artists’ groups,” I refer to Art Trails and Heart of Tucson Art (HotArt). The assault has come from arts administrators in SAACA (Southern Arizona Arts and Culture Alliance) and Arts Foundation of Tucson and Southern Arizona. Despite a clear promise to support these groups, SAACA instead demanded obsequious compliance and when SAACA didn’t get this compliance in the fall of 2016, SAACA set up its own fall studio tour. Rather that support, SAACA completely undermined Art Trails and HotArt.

To repeat ad nauseam (I’ve written about this on the Editor’s Page of Sonoran Arts Network), here’s what is wrong with SAACA’s fall tour.
 
1. SAACA created a two weekend tour but stupidly divided the city into two parts: a northern, less populated part, and a southern highly-populated area in which both downtown and mid-town artists are lumped into one tour. To add insult to injury, SAACA extended the tour to all of southern Arizona (Bisbee and Tubac included!). Obviously there are too many studios to visit in this second weekend tour. In response, tour visitors go to clusters of studios where they can see as many studios as possible in a smaller area. This mainly means downtown. So mid-town artists got screwed despite paying the same fees as all other artists. That’s why a division north to south, not east to west, is needed. Art Trails takes the west and HotArt is in the east and mid-town.
 
2. Tour materials produced by SAACA are decidedly inferior. Last fall (2018), SAACA produced a map and guide to studios with no images of artwork and in print so tiny that a magnifying glass was needed to read it. Both Art Trails and HoT Art produced far better, colorful guides and maps. Unfortunately, we won’t see any decent fall tour guides and maps anymore because SAACA has completely taken control over the fall studio tour now. Art Trails and HotArt have been pushed out.
 
3. Ominously, Arts Foundation sent out a survey to artists asking them how much they’d be willing to pay to participate in the fall studio tour. The survey listed several levels of payment at more and more expensive levels. What the artists would get for all this money was not made clear at all. I won’t be a bit surprised to see artists being forced to pay higher and higher participation fees for various services of dubious quality.
 
5. The arts administrators don’t get what the purpose of a studio tour is. The purpose is to make it possible for artists to get as many visitors to their studios as possible. The purpose is not to brag to your fellow arts administrators that you signed up more artists than ever. It’s not about quantity. It’s about quality.
 
I wish the best of luck to Art Trails artists and also to Hot Art artists for its spring tour. You will need it. 

Artist Christon Anderson, a native of the Florida Panhandle, took this photo of his daughter walking in The Cove neighborhood of Panama City after Hurricane Michael stormed through. I think Anderson’s photo will become iconic, similar to the little girl running away from her napalmed village during the Vietnam War. Sometimes it takes an artist to find an image that says it all.
 
Michael was a Category 4 at 155 mph. A Cat 5 is 157 so Michael was at the upper range of Cat 4. So far 29 bodies have been found in the storm-ravaged region of Florida and Georgia. A K-9 sniffer dog named Tucker found one body under the wreckage of a house. A drone unit found another. As waters recede, searchers expect to find more.
 
As of Wednesday, October 17, 1,135 people are listed as still missing. Many on the list are disabled or elderly residents. There’s still hope that many of these missing persons simply haven’t been able to make contact with relatives or they may have evacuated and have not yet reported in. Or maybe they are waiting under the rubble for Tucker to find them.

What does climate change/global warming have to do with these massive storms? Read more here:  Hurricanes and Climate Change
​See more of Christon Anderson's photography on Instagram and Facebook.