More of the Ongoing Art Scene in Arivaca
June 1, 2009
Artists seem to come in all forms in Arivaca and talent spills over from one medium to the next, from art to music, dance and crafts. The encouraging atmosphere in this town brings out the latent talent in many who never expected to become artists, besides those whose life was only art from day one.
Nancy Fricchione, after years of working with her late husband Robert, has come into her own in the last few years with mesquite furniture, including all kinds of tables, chairs, benches and also smaller objects such as cutting boards. Nancy’s beautiful furniture shows her skill at working with wood, and her ability to see the object in the wood beforehand, seeing the lines of how the grain and color in the wood fits together. Recently, she began making small mesquite boxes decorated with wood burning techniques, using southwestern butterflies and plants as the subject matter. Nancy came from Oregon to the Gulch in 1978, with Obe and Sabrina. Nancy and Robert lived back in the hills near the border for 10 years, raising their children. Nancy had left Oregon, hoping to have an adventure, and her life became one. They lived 3⁄4 of a mile from the end of the road, and what she enjoyed most was the quiet, the plants and just walking. Nancy had attended Mt Hood and Portland Community College, but art was not her major. The creative move came one day when she and Robert were cutting firewood at the Sopori. Robert saw some very beautiful logs and didn’t want to waste them in a fire, so they made a stool for grandson Nicolas. That was 17 years ago and when people saw what they had made, the business took off. They made benches and tables and chairs. They were part of the original artists who started the Main Street Artists’ Co-op in the early 90s and Nancy is the bookkeeper. After Robert passed away, Nancy kept on with the mesquite furniture business, using a Lucas sawmill from Australia. She has had to adapt to working in her own strength, but her talent is there and her furniture is mellow, comfortable and beautiful.
Michelle Peacock is from New Orleans. She came to Arivaca seven years ago with a friend, and found it to be such a loving place that she returned to stay. The daughter of teachers, Michelle grew up in the French Quarter. She started as an art major and studied at the Memphis Art Academy and also Spellman College in Atlanta, also having lived in Montreal and Europe. She studied ballet and is a singer and songwriter, having worked in New Orleans’ Jackson Square as an entertainer. She even danced for a time with Isaac Hayes. We have heard her sing and play in Arivaca at the Coffee Shop and with the Druthers. She loves it here and will paint houses as well as doing signs and art paintings. Michelle is a true folk artist in the Southern tradition. Her scenes are unusual, original and can be everything from a Jamacan jungle to the Merc. There is no doubt that her farmhouse with chickens is somewhere on a bayou. Mixed media is one way to explain her art—using many layers of different kinds of materials for a 3-dimensional look, and focusing on acrylics as the medium. She has used whatever kind of paint there was available to her. Since her father’s people were from Jamaica, there is a Caribbean influence. She has shown in art galleries in Key West, New Orleans and Aspen, Colorado, and more recently has had her work in the Red Rooster Restaurant. Her home is her gallery, and a most unusually quaintly quintessentially Michelle place it is!
Richard Conway is the newest artist to show in the Arivaca Artists’ Coop. Richard is creating Andean bamboo flutes and pipes, using bamboo grown in Tucson at a big bamboo nursery and pipes made out of Barbara Stockwell’s reeds. He got involved in Andean music a couple of years ago while on a trip to Mexico. While having dinner, a storm came up over the Yucatan. After it was over, a wonderful flute sound came wafting down the street. Somehow that went right to Richard’s heart, and he immediately went down to find out what was playing. The Andean music muse had tapped him on the shoulder. He quickly learned that here are pan pipes called siku by the Quechua Indians in South America, which are called zampona in Spanish. There is also the quena, an end-blown flute similar to a recorder. Richard is making sikus and quenas and plays both. Andean music also uses drums and a small stringed instrument like a mandolin, called a charango, which has 5 pairs of strings. Richard played the trumpet in school as well as recorders and the dulcimer later on, so he was musically inclined from an early age. A geologist by profession, Richard was also a potter for many years, making Japanese inspired vessels. So he has always had an artistic bent, but this connection to Andean music is new. For a mentor, Richard has found a luthier or instrument maker from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who makes all kinds of bamboo instruments. By next fall, there should be a selection of Richard’s own flutes and pipes from which to choose at the Arivaca Artists’ Coop. Many of us were introduced to the music last December at Winterfest when Richard, Mary Scott, her mother Mary and Ed Kolhepp performed Andean music for us. Their new band is called Filo del Mundo, which translates as “The Edge of The World”. They plan complement the Arivaca music scene in the near future.
Mary Scott is the local Renaissance Woman, and the charango player in Richard Conway’s Andean band, Filo del Mundo. Musically, she’s better known from her days singing and playing guitar with Camelphat, a local cover band, and Kaivaly, a spiritual folk-rock band that played mainly Mary’s original music at equinox and solstice celebrations. Artistically, she’s probably best known for her photographs of birds, mammals, butterflies, flowers, landscapes, and more, which she has displayed at the Arivaca Artists Co-op since 2002. In the past two years she has created short films highlighting (and documenting) the richness of Arivaca’s natural world and presented them at the Arivaca Film Fest. Says Mary of her art, “It’s easy to be an artist when your subject is the beauty and diversity of nature!” It’s tough to predict where Mary’s artistic expression will take her next, but music and photography will most likely be involved.
Phil Bastien is a jack of all trades, and an artist to boot. You will find his mesquite lamps, candleholders and free-form sculptures at the Artists’ Co-op. Although a life spent on the open seas left little time for art, Phil had done some stained glass. He did some beautiful cabinet making using a lathe to turn bowls, boxes and wine bottle stoppers. Then he got into jewelry making after finding some fire opal while on a local prospecting trip. A jeweler friend from Peery Sound, Ontario, taught him to cut and mount stones that he had polished using a 6-wheeled Genie. He uses Arizona’s agate, opal and turquoise, set in sterling silver. He calls himself a “craftsperson” rather than artist and says, “I enjoy making things with my hands. That doesn’t mean I’m artistic. ” Begging to differ, one can see the artistic eye in the work he does, and hope that Phil continues to keep busy.
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