The magazine, The Nation, has been around for 150 years, created, according to its website, "by anti-slavery abolitionists four months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln." The magazine is doing a victory lap with birthday celebrations around the country, and it's landing in Tucson during the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books, March 14 and 15. Tucson is the second of 15 cities where the celebration is touching down.

Here's the schedule of talks and events.

• Katha Pollitt, “Reclaiming Abortion Rights” March 14, 11:30 am
• John Nichols, Katha Pollitt, Lee Fang, and Congressman Raul Grijalva, “The Nation: 150 Years of Ideas” March 14, 4 pm (Live on CSPAN)
• John Nichols, Lee Fang, Mark Leibovich, and Mickey Edwards discuss “The Future of Politics” March 15, 1 pm
• Noam Chomsky in conversation with John Nichols, March 15, 4 pm 
• Exclusive, one-night, March 15 regional premier of Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple’s documentary, Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation followed by talk-back with John Nichols and others.

The magazine will have a booth at the book festival, and will also be putting on an investigative reporting workshop and a poetry workshop.

There is, perhaps, nothing more adorable in this world than an entire museum of meticulously designed and arranged miniatures, and, of course, Tucson has that market totally covered. Obviously, I'm talking about the maddeningly cute Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures.

Well, the museum just premiered a brand new exhibit that features famous historical figures and the bling that they loved. The "Diamonds are Forever" exhibit opened Jan. 27 and will run until April 19. The exhibit seeks to showcase the "incredible journeys of world-famous diamonds and the people who owned them," including the brand new Evalyn Walsh McLean figure.

In case you aren't familiar with McLean, she's the American mining heiress who last privately owned the Hope Diamond—an enormous 45.52 carat rock. According to the museum, McLean's fancy, gaudy gem came with a unique warning, though:

Mrs. McLean purchased the 45.52 carat Hope Diamond from Cartier in Paris in 1911. Her purchase may have been influenced by intrigue over the alleged curse the stone carried. McLean's flamboyant ownership of the stone (it is rumored she let her pet poodle wear it at parties), continued until her death in 1947. Harry Winston Inc. acquired the stone when they purchased McLean's entire jewelry collection, and eventually donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. The stone's previous history, dating back to the 1600s, is told through other Historical Figures in the exhibit- including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

You can check it out at the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, located at 4455 E. Camp Lowell Drive. Admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors and military, $6 for youths under 18, and free for small children three and under. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. until 4 p.m. For more information, visit the museum's website.

The work of internationally and locally famous Mexican artist Cristina Cárdenas has been showcased at the YWCA's Frances McClelland Community Center since the beginning of the month. 

If you haven't checked it out already, plan to go tomorrow between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. for the opening reception because Cárdenas will be there hanging out.

There will be music by the local band Tumbao. They play Cuban son, salsa and Latin jazz. 

The pieces at the YW will exhibit the past about 15 years of Cárdenas' work. The painter/sculptor/print maker/activist follows the traditions of other Latin American artists - like muralist Diego Rivera—of using her pieces to protest social and political issues affecting Latinos, women from all over and others. 

The show runs through Feb. 19.

Heads up, nature artists! Agua Caliente Park Ranch House Art Gallery is accepting applications for their four-week exhibition period in 2016. The pieces have to reflect nature, wildlife, landscapes, southwestern themes, or local cultures that fit thematically with the park setting.

To apply, send your application in by March 14. Here's what it needs to include:

• Cover Sheet with your name or name of organization, contact information: phone number, email address, and mailing address.
• Six – 10 color photographs (4”x 6” or no larger than 8”x 10” prints) that are representative of the work you propose to exhibit. Email submissions should be jpg or pdf attachments. Please label images with artist name, title of work, dimensions of the piece, and art medium.
• A brief resume or biography.
• An artist’s statement and description of work.
• Stamped, self-addressed envelope if you want application materials returned.

Apply by email at [email protected], using JPEG or PDF attachments or through snail mail at:

Agua Caliente Park Ranch House Art Gallery
Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation
3500 W. River Road
Tucson, AZ 85741
Or Email to: [email protected] (use jpeg or pdf attachments)

While our neighbors up north are gearing up for tons of out-of-towners flooding in to watch some sportsball, down here we can keep it a little classier and head to the sixth annual Tucson Sculpture Festival's opening night event on Saturday, Jan. 31. 

The event features over 75 local and international sculptors, including artists from New York, Germany and China. Hosted by the Drawing Studio, the event takes place at the Art Gallery at 1122 N. Stone Ave., just north of Speedway Boulevard. Works will also be on view at satellite locations including the Moen Mason Gallery, the Granada Gallery and the Sculpture Resource Center.

According to event director Tanya Rich, last year's festival brought over 800 attendees to the event and with more artists and participating galleries for 2015, they expect an even larger showing.

The opening reception will run from 6 until 9 p.m. on Jan. 31 at the Art Gallery, featuring North Indian classical duo Jugalbandhi who will play traditional Hindustani music during the event. Food and drink will also be served.

The festival runs for a total of two weeks, with the closing reception on Saturday, Feb. 14 from 6 until 9 p.m. You can also see the sculpture fest anytime between then from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. when the gallery is open.

jazz-TW.pdf

Yes, we love all our comics at Weekly World Central, but we have to admit we have special place in our hearts for Hoopleville's David Kish and the beautiful artwork he produces outside his comic world—large and small cardboard artworks full of color, layers and, quite often, with a statement to remind us about the planet, justice and community.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in celebration of the late Civil Rights Movement leader's work and birthday. The city march in honor of this day starts at Santa Rita Park, 401 E. 22nd St., 9 a.m. and goes to Armory Park, 221 S. 6th Ave. A community celebration takes place there until 3 p.m.

Kish something special planned in honor of the day. Here's your invitation:

Dear Friend of Hoopleville,

On Monday, January 19, 2015 (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), Hoopleville Comics will create a temporary installation beneath the 4th Avenue underpass in Tucson, Arizona. Between 12 noon and 4 p.m., an array of cardboard sculptures depicting people of all colors climbing from manholes will line the eastern pedestrian walkway of the new underpass, urging passersby to contemplate the pandemic of poverty and inequity which stifle too many Americans.

As a cartoonist and spouse of a French national, I have been especially troubled by the recent events in Paris. However, it has occurred to me that the "freedoms" discussed in the wake of this current tragedy mean very little to someone who can't eat! Please join me and my cardboard friends on MLK Day to remember, as Dr. King so often reminded, that poverty is our colorblind enemy. Thank you.

Sincerely,

David Kish

Explore vibrant Mexican landscapes and images of strong women through the work of Tucson-based artist Cristina Cardenas. A collection of some of Cardenas' pieces is now on view at the YWCA Francis McClelland Community Center.

Originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Cardenas' work focuses on making a political statement through images of empowerment. You may recognize Cardenas' style from her work on a ceramic mural for the street car, though her work has also been shown locally and internationally in the last two decades.

The exhibition at the YWCA will display her work in the last decade, including large scale pieces on amarate paper.

Cristina Cardenas' "Los Ojos de Mujer Artista que Emigra" or "The Eyes of the Immigrant Woman Artist" will be at the community center, which is located at 525 N. Bonita Ave., until Thursday, Feb. 19. You can view the exhibition from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. now until then for free. However, there will also be a special artist reception on Saturday, Jan. 28 from 6 until 8 p.m.

For more information and other events, visit the YWCA Tucson website.

Listen up, local artists. You have the opportunity to submit your work, no matter what medium you use, for consideration to be included in the upcoming Arizona Biennial 2015 exhibition. The exhibition will be on view from July 25 until Oct. 11, but submission must be made by Friday, March 13 at 4 p.m.

Submitted works by artists over 18 will be juried by special guest curator Irene Hoffman who is the Phillips Director and Chief Curator of SITE Santa Fe. Artists may submit a maximum of three works, and, if chosen, their art will be displayed at the museum for nearly three months during the show. After the exhibition, works will be auctioned off on October 11 as part of the closing party.

For more information and a list of entry specifications and requirements, you can visit the Tucson Museum of Art's website. Again, you have until Friday, March 13 but it wouldn't hurt to start conceptualizing, constructing, and crafting early to make sure your submission is solid.

Etherton Gallery's latest show is Then + Now, a collection of photography by Mark Klett. The show continues through March 21, with an opening reception from 7 to 10 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 10. More details here.

Here's the word on the show, via Etherton Gallery:

Etherton Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition of work by photographer Mark Klett, Then + Now. Both narrator and participant, poet and geologist, Mark Klett is renowned for reinventing landscape photography beginning in the 1970s by rephotographing locations previously visited by 19th and early 20th century photographers and pairing or incorporating the earlier images with his photographs to comment on physical and cultural changes in the western landscape. Klett has spent his career exploring the ways in which a subject—whether the Grand Canyon, Yosemite or Yellowstone—is defined and even misrepresented through photography. The show contrasts images from the series, Revealing Territory (c. late 1970s to late 1980s) with work from the recent series, Camino del Diablo (2011-2013). Both series record Klett’s personal observations of the landscape. Camino del Diablo is based on the memoir of Raphael Pumpelly, a young mining engineer who journeyed by stagecoach along the dangerous Camino del Diablo trail to take a job at the Santa Rita copper mine in 1860. His memoir, Across America and Asia (1870) was written roughly during the same period as the first western geological surveys that Klett covered in his early work. Revisiting the Camino del Diablo, which partly parallels the U.S.-Mexico border, took him through the Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range and the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, suggesting a continuous narrative of violence in the American west, from the lawlessness of the Camino del Diablo to the violence of border politics that now dominates the area.

Internationally and locally acclaimed Mexican artist Cristina Cárdenas, who for years has used her work to vocalize her discomfort with gender and cultural stereotypes, is going to be exhibiting some of her work at the YWCA's Frances McClelland Community Center starting next week.

Cárdenas' exhibit will be the first show under the new-ish curator of the Galleria, Valerie Galloway.

"We are proud and excited to be showing the work of this important artist at the YWCA, an organization that is committed to the empowerment of women and racial justice," she said in a press release.

The pieces at the YW will exhibit the past about 15 years of Cárdenas' work. The painter/sculptor/print maker/activist follows the traditions of other Latin American artists - like muralist Diego Rivera—of using her pieces to protest social and political issues affecting Latinos, women from all over and others. Her work is bi-cultural—an expression of her Mexican roots fused with having lived here for decades.

"I have had the pleasure of knowing Cristina for many years and that I have always loved her weaving of strong women into her visual narratives. She has way of telling these tales of Mexican experience, history and myth through her feminine gaze," said Liane Hernandez with the YW. "Unlike so many images of Mexican history, these women look back you, they confront you with their gaze, fingers, toes, hearts and story; they are beautiful, but self-possessed. Cristina's images are a perfect way to engage viewers and spark conversation."

The Galleria is part of the Francis McClelland Leadership Center, which is a place that's sponsored many chats among community members on "personal growth through journaling, financial literacy workshops, parenting and gender role constructions, sex trafficking, immigration reform and mass incarceration."

Cárdenas was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico but later came to Tucson to attend the UA for a master's in fine arts.

You can actually see one of her art installations at the Avenida del Convento and Congress Street streetcar stop. 

An opening reception with Cardenas is happening Jan. 28. So if you go, you'll probably get to meet her. It's from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and free.

The "Los Ojos de Mujer Artista que Emigra"/"The Eyes of the Immigrant Woman Artist" will be open from Jan. 9 to Feb. 19 at the Frances McClelland Community Center, 525 N. Bonita Ave. For more info, visit www.ywcatucson.org.