Bonus! Education in America

top: ASU Sun Devil stadium and satellite dishes
bottom: special Barak Obama t-shirts
(photos: MK)

Finally, a discussion about the importance of educating young people in America at the ASU graduation ceremony tonight. I grew up in Canada, so these discussions seem rather distressing. Of course you need to educate your populace! Education is a fundamental part of the Social Contract, as we know.

Dr. Michael Crow, president of ASU, is an astute, visionary leader who has set the stage for how Arizona can work its way out of its financial abyss--education!

Tonight's convocation by President Obama and Dr. Crow was inspiring, and makes my rather bleak image (above) of Sun Devil stadium appear to hold promise--despite the heat.

(Below) A consolation prize for not sitting outside in the 100+ degree heat.

Summer is here!

The Iowa - Phoenix connection

Barak Obama, Nevada, Iowa, December 2007
Photo: Marilu Knode

Iowa is on my mind today. Last Saturday we attended an opening of Phil Curtis's works at Cattle Track, an artist compound and ground zero for much of Phoenix's modern arts community, located in Scottsdale. Phil Curtis moved to the west to oversee several WPA programs, including the founding of the Phoenix Art Center (now the Phoenix Art Museum). In his work with the WPA, Curtis helped the now-named Des Moines Art Center make it past the depression and WW II.

The Des Moines reference reminded me of when we saw Barak Obama speak in Nevada, Iowa, in December 2007, well before Iowans played a leading role is setting Obama's march towards the White House. And Iowans just legalized gay marriage--surely this is part of the revolution in American attitudes towards itself and each other.

I think Phil Curtis represented a grounded, yet open-minded, attitude through the things he brought to the arts, both here and in Iowa.

Let's hope Arizonans embrace Obama when he speaks at ASU's commencement later this month--he may be key to our financial survival.

The new Phoenix

from the top:
Los Torreznos, "Identity," 2009, modified arts
Ralph Nader speaking at the Valley Forward Livability Summit, April 16, 2009
Janet Echelman "Her Secret is Patience," 2009, public unveiling, April 16, 2009

Happening in Phoenix the last few weeks: Spanish performance art duo Los Torreznos performed a new work, "Identity," a quasi nonsensical work that explored our shifting definitions of self. I heard Ralph Nader speak about the need to up-date all governmental regulations, for example, in order to facilitate new green businesses--where Phoenix should be a leader but is not yet. And Thursday night was the public celebration of Janet Echelman's floating dream in downtown Phoenix.

Pockets of the city are electric with activity--the dawn of a new era in this time of economic collapse? Are we becoming a place with a soul, a heart?

Former Phoenix Mayor / current Attorney General Terry Goddard once told me that civic leaders weren't sure that Phoenix needed a downtown (this you gotta love about Phoenix--when would a curator get to have a coffee with the attorney general?)--but over the past five years, the downtown (and, perhaps, the rest of the city) has been transformed, thanks largely to ASU's President Michael Crow, former governor Janet Napolitano and current Mayor Phil Gordon. Janet Echelman's public art "Her Secret is Patience" is the crowning glory of our new downtown civic space. In honor of the glorious desert in which we live, and referencing the changeable sky above, Echelman's work will change every day to match the shifting patterns of nature herself (lighting by Paul Deeb). But the work also focuses the energies of the various buildings around it--the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism, a bus depot, light rail and the Westward Ho, an historic hotel (part of the Ho chain of Southern Arizona), currently HUD housing for the disabled--in an unimagined way.

Through the efforts of Crow et all, Phoenix now has the appearance of a big city, filled with tall buildings. With the Echelman, we now have a heart.

Let's see if our city leaders can truly make the right decisions during this economic crisis, to support the kinds of things that will lead us out of this morass: real funds for education, diversification of our economy, encouragement of grass roots entrepreneurship and to allow for the types of things--like this significant public work of art--that will make us a great city.

Art can be the iconic emblem of a city's ambition; only its leaders can make the city viable.

March Madness #1

© Nina Katchadourian work installed on dirt lot

It's March Madness in Phoenix, the month of out-of-town visitors (New York, Milwaukee and Los Angeles), art, baseball and performances. This weekend was jam-packed with things to do and see along Roosevelt Street (modified arts, eye lounge, MADE) and Grand Avenue (Bragg's Pie Factory, The Chocolate Factory) et al. The scrappy, grassroots activists of this city have given dirt lot-riven central Phoenix a sense of place (work by Nina Katchadourian is part of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition "Seriously Funny"--Scottsdale yearns for the Phoenix audience). Now we need the big institutions in town to reconcile themselves to the new economy, and embrace the role local entrepreneurs (Local First) have in making us a great 21st century city.