Walking into the University of Arizona Museum of Art, the scratch of graphite on plaster whispered across the gallery, soon to be overpowered by the slam of hammer on nail.

Ladders, scattered throughout the rooms, jutted out like aluminum stalagmites. Artists, balanced precariously, work away on masterpieces.

In the exhibit, Sol LeWitt Days, local artists are getting the opportunity to work in teams as they follow the instructions made by the famous minimalist artist.

Lauren Rabb, art curator, seemed to be pleased.

“I’m so happy with it,” said Rabb. “It’s perfect, it’s fantastic, it’s exactly, you know, what Sol LeWitt would have wanted.”

When LeWitt started, he made all of his own work. As he grew in popularity and his pieces grew in complexity, he began to take young artists under his wing. Following his instructions, they would then make the pieces, which led to LeWitt leaving directions to his work.

Jake Hunnicutt, a portrait artist, said he felt getting to explore his creativity through restrictions helps him to see LeWitt’s perspective.

“The steps that he’s laid out for creating the art does give you the ability to maybe see the world a little bit through his lens and understand how he viewed art and how he viewed the world,” Hunnicutt said.

The visitors experienced art in an new way, by watching the artists as they worked.

“It allows [people] to see working art, living art. It allows them to come down and participate and ask questions and become more involved, which is really a unique experience,” Carolyn Sotelo, another artist, said.
Sotelo and her group the Magnificent Five are creating pieces No. 103 and No. 869C. Both are done in graphite pencil and express LeWitt’s penchant for imperfect abstract art.

Another group called Construction Crew, made up of Hunnicutt and Leon McNeil, towered above others in the room as they hammered nails into painted patches on the wall. They used string to connect the various posts. Paint cans, brushes, nails and tape littered the plastic tarp protecting the floor beneath them as the sound of their work filled the gallery.

After already completing two of LeWitt’s pieces, No. 815 and No. 1097, the pair decided to write their own LeWitt inspired directions.

Made out of four squares of varying colors, which combine to create one large square, nails are then placed at random spots throughout the sections. The last step is to connect the nails by repeatedly tying black and white string from one point to another, as the piece displays influence from an earlier LeWitt artwork.

Rabb said she hoped the project will expose the community to art in a way that can involve everyone.

“Sol LeWitt’s premise is that art is for anybody and that you shouldn’t be afraid to do a project, it really is accessible to anybody,” Rabb said.

As well as benefiting Tucson, the exhibit attempts to improve the lives of local artists.

“I feel like it could give artists a chance to realize that you don’t have to be famous to do stuff in a museum,” McNeil said. “I mean that’s a big deal for somebody on my level who’s never done anything to this caliber, and so now I feel like I can go anywhere. I can do anything. I can be a famous artist.”

The artists will be working in the museum through July and the art will be displayed until the end of October. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday from 9am to 5pm and Saturday and Sunday from 12pm to 4pm with a $5.00 entry fee.

About three years ago, I stood in front of Teatro Carmen heading toward the main stage at what was the first Festival en el Barrio. With the marvel called the Tucson Convention Center behind me, I rushed to the stage as Calexico started their set with Salvador Duran and Sergio Mendoza, and all the other Tucson music people we love.

Later that night, I wrote about the festival's success and how I hoped for one thing — that as Calexico's Joey Burns sang into the mic somehow a long-needed exorcism took place. I thought of the destruction that occurred downtown in the name of renewal more than 40 years ago. Despite neighborhood activists gathering 10,000 signatures, most of the old neighborhood — the stores, the Spanish-language movie theater, and homes of my mother's childhood — was knocked down to make way for TCC, the Pima County government complex and other buildings.

As a soon-to-be former resident of the old neighborhood turned to leave he or she obviously put a curse on downtown and Tucson. It worked. That's progress - a progress so successful, years later people are still pissed and we are still dealing with the problem of redevelopment and just about everyone in Tucson flinches when they hear or read the word consultant. Sorry about that.

But perhaps this Saturday's "An Evening in Celebration of Mario Suarez: Tucson's Original Chicano," is the real-deal exorcism I've wished for. Perhaps it's also another way to continue to reclaim Tucson's history — especially at a time we've watched the destruction of Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American studies program and the ongoing fight to bring it back.

The last time we talked to Leslie Ann Epperson, she was screening a preview of her All Souls Procession documentary, Many Bones, One Heart, and asking the community to share their own All Souls Procession-inspired stories.

This month, Epperson kicked off an Indiegogo campaign to help raise $7,000 to complete the project. She's raised $1,820 and the campaign ends Saturday, Aug. 11. When we touched base with her about the campaign, Epperson told us that part of the dollars raised for the project will go to hire shooters. While she will film parts of the documentary, Epperson said she continues to recover from a car accident that's left her unable to do all the videography herself.

"I really believe in this story and its value—it will show the enormous power of people using creativity to heal sorrow, it will depict the range of talent and skill of Tucson's arts community and present the generosity of those artists as they try to keep the ASP healthy," Epperson wrote to us. "It will portray the importance of telling our stories and showing our common humanity (building tolerance) and show the ability of the people to claim their public spaces. It will be a wonderful showcase for life in the Borderlands, and will also portray some material about Day of the Dead. And it will be compelling, because unknown to the general public, every year the challenges facing the organizers threaten to overwhelm the enterprise."

Epperson added that the most important theme is the way the All Souls Procession and the Procession of Little Angels (a procession organized for children as part of the project) helps people heal from loss.

"I have had plenty of loss in my own life and it helped me to make some experimental videos about those people, and about loss. I saw people doing the same kind of thing at the All Souls Procession and it really moved me. I did not plan on making a long documentary about it—but as I began to understand how important the event is, and how hard some people work to make it happen, I realized it deserved to be an hour long or longer," she wrote.

Feel compelled to help Epperson with her documentary? Head to her Indiegogo page here.

Swindlers, TRES and Ciao Bella clothing stores in collaboration with ONE19 are holding a Backyard BBQ and Fashion Show this Saturday, June 30. The show will exhibit the latest trends in swimwear fashion, and students and alumni from the Regency Beauty School will provide hair and make-up for the show.

There will also be items available for purchase after the show along with booths of local artists selling their merchandise.

There will be live music along with some food and beer tastings from Borderlands. Tickets, which covers the barbeque and games, are on sale now at at TRES, Swindlers and Ciao Bella for $10 in advance, or if there are tickets remaining, you can get them for $12 at the door. An extra bonus for people willing to plan ahead and buy tickets in advance: those forward-thinkers will also receive a raffle ticket to win gift certificates and door prizes at the event itself.

The event will be held at 119 E. Toole Ave at ONE19 production space.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and the fashion show will begin at 8:30 p.m.

For more information about the event, visit the event’s Facebook page or contact Jennifer Olguin or Akiko Senda at ONE19 at 481-1818 or at [email protected].

Note from Dan Gibson: Mary Yohem is a student at Catalina Foothills High School and the daughter of Roger Yohem from our sister publication, Inside Tucson Business. She asked for an opportunity to plug a youth theater production she's involved in, so here you go.

One of the “biggest” theatre productions of the summer is “Big,” being staged by the Catalina Foothills Community Schools Summer Theatre program. It is the Broadway musical version of the popular 1988 movie starring Tom Hanks.

Directed by Terry Erbe, the high school’s theatre teacher, the play is about 12-year-old Josh Baskin who wishes he were "BIG" and wakes up the next morning as a 30-year-old man. He discovers there's much more to being an adult then he wished for.

Starring in the lead role is Drake Sherman, a Foothills high school junior, as adult Josh. Young Josh is played by Justyn Zeider, an eighth grader at Esperero Canyon Middle School, and James Cockrell, a Foothills high school freshman. Josh’s best friend Billy is played by Vaughn Sherman, a Foothills freshman.

Sharing the spotlight as Susan Lawrence, the female lead, are Sara Fallahi, a Foothills senior, and Savannah Runge, a Foothills freshman. The technical directors are Norm Testa and Clint Bryson. Musical accompaniment is by Khris Dodge.

The shows, held at Catalina Foothills High School Little Theatre, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive, open Thursday June 28 at 1 p.m. at a discounted rate of $5. All shows after that are $10, starting with a 7 p.m. performance that night. Friday and Saturday show times are 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

To order tickets, go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/255754

Daniel Buckley began a Kickstarter project last week to help support the final push for a documentary project on El Casino Ballroom, which will premiere in August at the Tucson Fox Theatre.

In March 2010, I went to the El Cine Plaza series at the Fox to watch great old movies my mother watched at the old theater when she was a kid. That theater was torn down in the name of downtown redevelopment. Before each screening, Buckley's first Tucson documentary series opened taking us back to that dear old theater, the destruction of Barrio Viejo (which continues today), and the people.

Buckley followed up with more documentaries, the latest on Barrio Hollywood. This anticipated gem on El Casino is expected, from my perspective, to bring together aspects of Tucson that those who understand and love this gravel-lot town know how it all comes together at El Casino.

From Buckley's Kickstarter (the goal is $7,500 and has $1,255 pledged so far):

The funds raised will go toward finishing the editing of the film, paying for transcription of all of the interviews involved, renting the Fox Theatre so that the premiere can be a free event AND the hiring of three young interns to participate in the film's creation. Two of the interns will come from Tucson's now-banned Mexican American Studies program. The third will be a high school graduate starting a journalism program at college in the fall.

There's a whole lot of rewards offered, ranging from the DVD of this and other Cine Plaza at the Fox documentaries to opportunities to attend portions of the filming of the documentary, credit in the film and much more.

All of the raw footage and all of the transcripts from the interviews will be turned over to the Arizona Historical Society for research and inclusion in other people's projects.

El Casino Ballroom turns 65 this year, and has been the home to more musical and cultural celebrations than just about any landmark in the city. Become part of preserving and celebrating its history by supporting this project in any way that you can. And please forward this to other friends who may be interested.

The film is being produced in partnership with CHISPA, The Fox Tucson, KXCI Radio, and the Arizona Historical Society with additional support from the Tucson Pima Arts Council's PLACE Initiative Grant. This will be the fifth installment of the Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series.

Michael McKisson, who readers of the Range may know from his weekly posts about Tucson's cycling scene, has partnered up with Julie Reed to start new blog called Tucson Style. It covers various aspects of Tucson fashion through interviews, photos and musings on local style at large.

Take a look.

It might be a coincidence, but the broadcast of the Tony Awards on CBS had their lowest ratings in 21 years just one day before one Broadway producer announced that she was moving forward with a terrible idea:

Producer Dianne Fraser has acquired stage rights to Gilligan’s Island: The Musical, and she plans to launch the show on Broadway, banking on the idea that the audience for the iconic TV show will want to see the characters brought to the stage.

It’s based on the classic 1960s series with a book that was written by series creator Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd, with a score by Schwartz’s daughter Hope and her husband Laurence Juber, a guitarist-composer. Schwartz, who also created The Brady Bunch, passed away last year, but not before the show was road-tested in small theaters across the country. It’s very similar to the format of the original show, with Gilligan, the Skipper, The Howells, Ginger, Maryanne and the Professor stranded on an island. They’ve added another character: an alien....

“It’s the type of show where you can stunt cast with movie stars to play the Howells, Ginger, even the Professor,” she said. “Maybe an American Idol contestant to play Gilligan, to open up the show.”

Before you ask, this isn't a story from a Broadway version of The Onion. Someone is actually trying to raise money for a all-singing-and-dancing Broadway show that adds an alien to the Gilligan's Island formula.

• Keith Perfetti
• Cesar Rubio speaks to the audience with his dance troupe behind him during ConDanza's first show.

Tucson has a number of dance companies and ConDanza has just opened a studio downtown. ConDanza is a contemporary ballet group, that was started by Cesar Rubio in 2010, formerly of the University of Arizona Danhttp://dance.arizona.edu/ce Department. While their first official show is not set until the seventh of June, they held their first informal show opening their new studio next to Borderlands Brewery.

• Keith Perfetti
• David Maurice performs a solo during ConDanza's inaugural performance.

• Keith Perfetti

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  • Keith Perfetti
  • ConDanza's dancers perform to a crowd of mostly friends and family.

• Keith Perfetti

Although it is just the beginning of summer, I have lately been finding myself saying, “I’m bored,” what should I do on my day off, or “what should I do this weekend?”

Well, if you're in the same boredom boat, Copper Country may be the answer to your question. A friend recommended that I spend a couple hours of my time looking at unique antiques, so I decided to take her advice and see what the she was raving about.

With 32,000 square feet you are guided through the “mini-mall” with signs indicating a Way Out West section, Treasure Trail section, Sunset Boulevard and several other sections to direct one through the maze.

Almost every inch of space is filled with collectibles ranging from modern to antique furniture, jewelry, clothes of all different styles, antique cameras, cowboy boots, books, clocks, stoves, artwork and much more.