It's a beautiful morning in Tucson. Yesterday it rained all day, so I knew today would be a nice day. It rains just enough here to clear the air and make the sky so blue you can almost touch it, like a pastel painting.

I'm sitting on the patio of my favorite hangout near the University of Arizona campus drinking a "grande skinny cinnamon dolce latte", noted on my cup as a "SCDL". The air is crisp, the temperature is perfect for a sunny morning, and I'm doing nothing. What a life.


The view from here provides a glimpse of a major college campus on a school day. Bike riders pass me scooting along like wheeled snakes, darting in and out of traffic. Signs remind cars to park "Backwards Only for Bikers", so along University Drive every car is parked with headlights facing toward the street. Students walk past the patio where I've set up temporary camp, most with backpacks, pierced ears and noses. Flip-flops are the shoe of choice for many. I see one particular guy almost every morning walking to class, and I silently giggle at his dress code: big brown shoes and brown socks to the knee, Hawaiian shorts with a floral theme, white T-shirt (always a white T-shirt). He's a bulky human, not unlike a local Sasquatch, with dark hairy arms and unshaven beard. Of course, every Sasquatch you see must have an iPod, so this one is no exception.

The Marriott Hotel is in the distance across from me, and so is the La Salsa Mexican restaurant. A Pei Wei restaurant is next to the La Salsa, providing students with an international variety of foods. Local bars make up the remainder of University Drive, along with a donut shop, a few clothing stores and a student book store.

I took this picture to remind me of location. University Drive leads to the main entrance of the University of Arizona. The "Downtown Centro" sign is one of hundreds you see around town telling tourists where downtown is located. Actually, the city of Tucson is user-friendly and I've had no problem learning how to get around town. The colored banner hanging from the light post is a nice design highlighting the "Main Gate Square", the name given to this shopping development.

This tree reflects the time of year. It is winter. I noticed the one leaf, dead, hanging on, until the next wind gust blows it away. The tree is right in front of me as I sit here, and I took the picture to remind me that I'm alot like that leaf. Although I'm not dead, I sometimes feel like I'm hanging on, trying to avoid a gust of wind, so I might continue to enjoy the nice weather and blue sky above me.

University of Arizona Tour, Photography and Art

Yesterday, Friday, I spent a few hours walking the University of Arizona campus. My reason for going there was to attend a exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography.



My first problem was finding a place to park. Like most large univerisities, the UA public parking situation is a nightmare. Take my advice and bring a bike, or ride the bus, if you visit the campus. I finally found the parking gargage across from the Marriott Hotel that sits near the campus. It took me a while, but I finally found a spot. Signs were posted everywhere: "Take your parking ticket with you. Pay at the cashier BEFORE you return to your car." When I left, I went to the cashier and had to wait in line behind twenty other people. What a pain in the neck.





The campus itself is beautiful, of course. I walked from the garage in search of the Center for Creative Photography (CCP). I saw the Arizona Historical Society Museum building first, so I visited them.

My next stop was the UA Museum of Art. On the first floor, there were two exhibitions: from El Anatsui and Jacques Lipchitz. El Anatsui is from Ghana. His work "Versatility" was a massive quilt-like material made from whiskey and other alcoholic bottle labels that he collected. His other exhibit was a room full of "anthills" created from the tops of milk cans. Jacques Lipchitz's exhibit included numerous sculptures and some of the tools he used while creating the pieces.

The UA permanent collection is exhibited on the second floor. While I was there, students were performing musical works on classical guitars in one of the galleries. It provided a nice soundtrack for my visit. I viewed masterworks from artist like Diebenkorn, Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock, Picasso, Matisse, O'keeffe, Jacob Lawrence, Reginald Marsh, and Jusepe de Ribera. I especially liked Ribera's "A Greek Sage" from 1630.


I found the Center for Creative Photography across the street from the Art Museum. The photography exhibit was on the first floor and easy to find. The purpose of the exhibit was to show the creative process behind famous photographs, with particular emphasis on how the photographer works. The exhibition include contact sheets, letters, notes, personal journals, diaries, calendars and other original material from a number of photographers.

One photographer featured was Wynn Bullock. The exhibit revealed his philosophical approach to photography by emphasizing space and time. "The space of the room becomes a property of the room just as real as the room itself. . .space being an independent property of all containers," I noted while reading from his journal.

The exhibit also displayed actual contact sheets from Gary Winogrand (1928-1984), showing how he marked on each sheet his choices for printing and publishing. One of his favorite collections contained photos of women in public places. He wrote a letter to the University of Texas art department (1975), which was on display at the exhibit, and I noted his comments:
"Whenever I've seen an attractive woman, I've done my best to photograph her. . . I don't know if all of the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs."

The exhibit from W. Eugene Smith was my favorite. For Life Magazine, he suggested shooting an essay of Albert Schweitzer. The Nobel Peace Prize winner founded the the Lambaréné Hospital in Gabon, west central Africa. Smith traveled to Africa and photographed Schweitzer in his office and elsewhere over a few days. The exhibit contained some of Smith's contact sheets, his journal, and his personal calendar from the trip that noted the photos he wanted to take.

Another great exhibit was the "pepper" display from Edward Weston. Weston began to take photos of "assorted peppers" in 1930. In a handwritten letter they had on display, he said he delighted in shooting ". . . a pepper, but more than a pepper: abstract, in that it is completely outside subject matter. . . (and it) takes one into an inner reality." It was also amusing to see that he was finacially struggling as well, when he states, "We have been living on deposits from sittings, more than I ever had in a given period of time."

Other photographers featured included Frederick Sommer and Ansel Adams.