Articles by Bo Mackison

Driving in Tucson – And a Visit to Tucson Botanical Gardens

"Daddy's Old Sportcoat" Cactus

source link “Grandpa’s Old Sports Coat” Cactus © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://www.52editions.com/career/ This cactus isn’t really named “Grandpa’s Old Sports Coat”, but honestly, my grand-dad had a coat with this exact plaid pattern in the mid 1960s. He never wore yellow flowers on the top of his head, not that I remember, but still. It made me laugh. And I needed some laughing the day I visited with these plants.

https://hymnsandhome.com/recipes-3/ It was the day I finally decided to drive in Tucson proper. It seemed time to get to know the city. For over two weeks, I’d been avoiding the busier roads, because that’s how I drive. Even in mid-sized Madison, I often choose to drive through the city rather than drive the more efficient expressway. I’m not one who particularly likes to drive when there’s lots of swerving in and out of traffic. But, being solo in Tucson means there is no one else to hand the car keys to, so I drive. Sigh!

Star Lines

follow Star Lines © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://anthonynewmancamps.com/basketball-camps/ I planned on making only three stops, first two stores and then the Tucson Botanical Gardens. I found my first destination, the bookstore. I wanted to get a decent map of Tucson, and it made sense to go there first. Later, when my iPhone ran out of power and I no longer had my “cheater” map on my phone, I was glad to have the paper map. Inconvenient though it was to keep pulling off the road to check the map, at least I had a vague idea where I was.

Lorazepam Purchase Online Actually, vague isn’t quite true. I was “lost and found” a half dozen times on that first day driving unfamiliar city streets. But I kept finding my way through.

source link What was it that Robert Frost said? “The only way out is through.” (It was Frost, I looked up the poem, it’s in A Servant to Servants, I always thought that poem unusual, but interesting.) And here I thought he was talking about getting out of a challenging situation, or walking through  life when you hadn’t the energy for one more step.

https://drbatayneh.com/pediatric-ophthalmology/ I didn’t realize it was a perfectly appropriate quote for my driving habits, too.

Buy Xanax Online Without Prescription After an hour of driving in circles–the one-way streets are always going the wrong way–I decided I couldn’t get too terribly lost if I kept heading south, then west, then south, then west. It worked. I wove my way through the streets, and finally arrived at a place that looked familiar. Whew!

https://www.thephysicaltherapyadvisor.com/home/ In the middle of all that lost driving, I stumbled upon the entrance to the Tucson Botanical Gardens. The house which belonged to the donor of the gardens (once a thriving landscaping business) is now the visitor center and gift store. I wandered through several gardens, including the childrens garden, a sensory garden, and a little Zen garden, though I didn’t see everything. Next time.

https://thesentinelgroup.com/cartiva-lawsuit-lawyers/ A few of the cactus looked like they had seen better days. The cactus have good reason for looking a little disheveled. Tucson and much of Arizona had record freezing temperatures a couple of weeks ago. The cacti are not adapted for temperature drops to 13 degrees. A docent I spoke with said it would be quite awhile before they knew the full impact of the cold spell, but many plants, including the aloe and the prickly pear, looked like they might not recover.

Packer Green and Gold in Tucson?

https://www.52editions.com/promotions/ Packer Green and Gold in Tucson? © 2011 Bo Mackison

https://gritandgracefamilyfarm.com/farm-journal/about-us/ I never did make it to my third stop – the REI on the other side of town. I wanted to get one of those snazzy flashlights that have a stretchy band like a head band. You can wear the light around your head, like a miner’s lamp, and then your hands are free for holding camera equipment and hiking sticks when you get caught a half mile from the trail and it gets dark. I think the sun sets more rapidly in Arizona than it does in Wisconsin.

https://geneticsandfertility.com/services/sperm-testing/ When I was at the botanical gardens, I was quite remiss in getting proper IDs for these plants. I took their photographs because they had such interesting details, but quite forgot about checking names. I even found a green and gold plant–do you think there are a lot of Green Bay Packer fans in the Southwest?

https://www.ztpackaging.com/soft-loop/ This post has been a rambling affair tonight. It’s been a long day, not driving around town or taking photos, but doing paperwork. Yes, even in Tucson, even on days that are utterly delightful, there are days when work needs to be done.

follow Actually, I am quite thrilled. I was invited to participate in a summer’s worth of shows in the Chicago area. And so today–for eight straight hours–I filled out paperwork and other goodies that were required for the five shows I’ll be doing. Then I had to dash to the post office before closing time to send the papers express mail. It’s exciting news and it is a great way to start planning my summer art fair season.

Order Tramadol Online Now to take a little time for some R & R, and then I’ve another drive planned for tomorrow. But not in the city. I’m heading to the mountains!

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Klonopin For Sale Online Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and living life “solo.”  And she is discovering more than she had anticipated.

In the Desert – Visiting Saguaro National Park

Sonoran Desert IV

Lorazepam Purchase Online In the Desert © 2011 Bo Mackison

The trip to Saguaro National Park has been one of the highlights of my stay in Arizona. I hiked in the Tuscon Mountain Unit on the west side of Tucson, the smaller of the two units that comprise the park. Rincon Mountain Unit is just east of Tucson. The two units are actually separated by the city of Tucson and together they protect more than 90,000 acres of the Sonoran Desert and thousands of saguaros.

Purples, Yellows, Greens in the Desert

Symphony of Desert Color © 2011 Bo Mackison

I love the Sonoran desert region. I love the desert surrounded by mountains. On some winter days, you can stand on the fringe of the desert, look into the mountains, and see the peaks covered with snow.

When I hiked in Saguaro NP, I stopped for a while along the trail. There was no other person in sight, just me and the cacti, the jackrabbits, and a pack of four or five coyotes that sprinted across an arroyo a hundred feet away. I stood there, the sun warming me when it appeared, but there was a fairly heavy cloud cover and the desert light seemed to flicker off and on.

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro © 2011 Bo Mackison

I put my camera in my backpack, and just stood there in silence, listening, watching. I became intensely aware of this “place”. The desert is very grounding for me. I felt very solid and strong, standing in its midst, surrounded by this expanse of land.

The desert is by no means a desolate area. My photographs are a testimony to the wealth and diversity of the many growing plants, the contours of the land, the occasional bird or animal flushed from its daytime resting place. I stood near several saguaros, all at least twice as tall as me, all like poles. They had not yet sprouted any arms.

Suddenly I peered at my feet. I thought for a moment I had sunk into the earth, I felt that connected with this desert.

But no, I was standing just as you would expect. I shook off the feeling, and laughed a bit at my sudden fancy. But I do, feel a strong connection with this land, with this whole region. I don’t know exactly what that is all about, but I’m going to keep exploring and I’ll pay close attention to what happens.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and living life “solo.”  And she is discovering more than she had anticipated.

Rocks and Crosses

Cemetery and Leaning Trees

Make Way © 2011 Bo Mackison

This is the larger section of the Tumacacori Cemetery. There are a dozen early 20th century graves that are marked with piles of heavy rocks and rustic, wooden crosses. Any evidence of mission era graves are no longer visible, most likely destroyed by weather and human activity in the area. In the late 1800s, the mission was used as a corral during cattle drives. But by 1900, the people moving into the area recognized this as “sacred ground” or “campo santa” and petitioned to once again use the cemetery to bury their dead.

Tumacacori - Cemetery III

Tended Graves at Tumacacori © 2011 Bo Mackison

The grave of one year-old Juanita T. Alegria (1915-1916)  was the last person to be buried in the cemetery of the Tumacácori mission. Her grave, marked by the above ground adobe tomb, is the only one to be identified in the back section. According to the Park Ranger, her family still comes to maintain the grave and decorate it with flowers.

Tumacacori - Mortuary

Tumacacori – Laid to Rest © 2011 Bo Mackison

The cemetery and Mortuary Chapel are located at the rear of the church. The Chapel is about 16 feet in diameter and has a flat roof, though there were indications that is was originally intended to have a white dome similar to the dome on the church. This is where funeral masses were celebrated and rosaries were prayed for the dead.

One of the main reasons fro the outside chapel was the concern for the spread of illness. Many died from contracting Old World illnesses, usually small pox or measles, and to gather people in an enclosed area such as the larger church would have run the rick of more contagion. At the height of the mission, there were often one or two deaths every day.

This is the last entry for Tumacacori, although the entire series of photographs of Tumacacori National Historic Park are available in a Flickr set.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs of Arizona landmarks, both historical and natural, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and living life “solo”. It is an experience well worth the effort.

On the Journey

Tumacacori - In Balance

Tumacacori – In Balance © 2011 Bo Mackison

I am rather fascinated by the granary and the clay pottery. So many opportunities for composition studies. Maybe too many, hmm? Even though I have moved on, and I am visiting new places, I will share these photos of pots in this post, and then I will share photos of the cemetery at Tumacacori National Historic Park tomorrow.

Tumacacori - Two Plus Three

Tumacacori – Two Plus Three © 2011 Bo Mackison

I was asked, after I wrote about sitting in the garden at Tumacacori, what I heard and felt as I rested in that sacred space.

I let my thoughts flow freely as I sat there, as I took in this ancient place, still filled with the “ancient.” And as my thoughts came, I thought about freedom. It was as if this place was filled with an energy that was all about seeking freedom.

Tumacacori - Three Pots

Tumacacori – Three Pots

I sat mostly in silence, and listened–to the birds singing, the wind rustling the dried grasses, the footsteps retreating from me, and I wrote only a few words in my journal. As the thoughts came, I wrote, no censoring, no editing.

Give us our freedom.
Give us our freedom,
but we were never freed.

Now you say, “Let me be free.”
And your request has been answered.

Do not look back at the past; live in this moment.

Take this gift, give thanks, move on.

As I spend my time exploring southern Arizona on my own, I have been thinking a great deal about freedom, but also about connectedness, about creating, about making meaning.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs of Arizona landmarks, both historical and natural, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and learning to live on her own. It is an experience well worth the effort.


Reflections from Tumacacori

Four Pots

Four Pots @ 2011 Bo Mackison

Another set of photographs from Tumacacori National Historical Park. These are taken in a side building near the mission church building. This was one of the more important buildings in the complex–it was the granary. The granary held all the surplus food grown during the growing season. It was an impressive place to the native peoples who seldom had huge stockpiles of food stored and ready to eat during the leaner months of the year.

In the Sun

In the Sun © 2011 Bo Mackison

I was at Tumacacori twice this week. One day it was bright and sunny, and even February’s morning sun in the desert provided intense sunlight. The second day it was mostly cloudy, with patches of blue sky peeking through stormy gray clouds. It is often easier to photograph buildings in cloudy weather to avoid the deep shadows and washed out colors, so I returned thinking I would retake some of the photographs of the church building. However I quite like the sun’s highlights and the shadows on this clay pot. I took many photographs studying the interplay of light and shadow.

Granary at Tumacacori

Granary at Tumacacori @ 2011 Bo Mackison

This is another photograph of the granary. The stairway, at one time, led to the second story of the granary, but only the first floor remains. Efforts by the Park Service to maintain these ruins are ever ongoing. The adobe must be continually cared for or it would eventually be damaged by moisture during the times of the monsoons.

After I spent an hour with my camera, and a second hour taking a tour of the site with a Park Ranger, I spent another hour sitting in the shade, absorbing the mystical sensation of being surrounded by ancient memories held in these ancient walls. I thought about the idea of the granary, comparing it to my Southwestern “explore”, thinking that it is important to me to capture this time in my history, to keep hold of this time, make meaning from these solitary days, these days so different from what I normally experience.

I’ve been documenting my stay in the Southwest in several ways–through journaling, drawing maps, sketching and, of course with my photography. I am particularly drawn to the study of light and shadow in this sunny climate, to the natural areas–mountains surrounded by desert–so unlike the rolling farmland and lake country that I usually call home, and to the stories of the ancient people.

My words, drawings, photographs, and memories–all of these I am storing in my “experience” granary.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs of Arizona landmarks, both historical and natural, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and learning to live on her own. Her mantra is “Bo goes solo!”