Imagining the Past – Teatro Carmen

I love the desert Southwest, wandering through the saguaro forests and the hidden canyons west of Tucson, but occasionally I feel the need for solid pavement under my feet, and that is when I go searching for the region’s historical buildings. Though Tucson is not considered an old city compared to most other cities, it is a city proud of its history.

Teatro Carmen - Street View

Teatro Carmen - Street View © 2012 Bo Mackison

In researching historical buildings in downtown Tucson, I found two resources of interest. First, there is a well established historical walk through the heart of downtown known as the Presidio Trail – also called the Turquoise Trail because one follows a turquoise painted line on the sidewalk to easily go from site to site. The brochure has information about each of the 23 sites and an easily followed map for when the turquoise line on the pavement goes in several directions, leaving trail followers too many choices.

Teatro Carmen - Decorative Painted Window

Teatro Carmen - Decorative Painted Window © 2012 Bo Mackison

One of the sites that is on both the Presidio and the Arizona Women’s walking tours is the Teatro Carmen. This was one of the first theaters in Tucson built to showcase Spanish language dramatic arts. It is named for its founder, Carmen Soto de Vasquez, a businesswomen and cultural leader in Tucson in the early 1900s.

She commissioned a prominent architect/builder, Manuel Flores, to build the theater. The building was designed in the Sonoran Mission style and in the heart of what is now Tucson’s historic district and had its first opening performance in 1915. Carmen Vasquez had the theater built to provide a place for Spanish literary productions as well as operas, musicals and melodramas.

Teatro Carmen - Historic Sign

Teatro Carmen - Historic Sign © 2012 Bo Mackison

Many of the sites along the Presidio Trail are marked with historical signs that provide additional information.

The second reference I used is a fairly new brochure, compiled by a coalition of women’s organizations and historical groups, called the Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail. It was designated a legacy program by the Arizona State Centennial Commission and has twelve sites that highlight a few of the women in early Tucson and their history.

Seven of the sites are on both walking tours, but each map has its own perspective, and so both are useful. There are also many restaurants, outdoor plazas with benches and drinking fountains, and many places you can duck inside for a respite from the Arizona sun if, like me, you choose a 90˚day to re-visit the past with a walk through history.

Teatro Carmen - Window and Reflection

Teatro Carmen - Window and Reflection © 2012 Bo Mackison

Although the building is in a state of partial disrepair, there are still hints of its fine construction and quiet beauty in the remaining details. I love the arches over the pressed window blocks and the brightly painted floral decoration. The painting is not only above the window, but remnants of painted flowers still can be seen on the window glass.

It is amazing to think that through this woman’s efforts a desert town became a cultural center for the arts and brought internationally acclaimed theater to Tucson. She was one of the original arts-instigators in Tucson.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona.

Color in the Desert

Hedgehog Cactus Blossom

Hedgehog Cactus Blossom © 2012 Bo Mackison

Our difficult and very urgent task is to accept that nature is not primarily a property to be possessed, but a gift to be received with admiration and gratitude. ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen

I have taken many photographs of many cactus blossoms. But this bright offering of the desert, this magenta blossom perched on the very tip of one of the many stems of this cactus, is my first cactus blossom taken in the natural desert.

Last year the desert was dry, very dry, and the flowers I did see were in botanical gardens where sufficient care was provided to keep the plants satisfied and blooming. But in the desert, along the trails wandering miles from the nearest building, the cactus were late bloomers and I had returned to Wisconsin before there was any blossoms of color in the desert.

But this year? This year I feel as if it is my birthday ever time I hike in the desert, and the desert is intent on giving me daily surprises, gifts of nature that I can only accept with my awakened senses, and then document with my camera and notebook.

It is impossible for me to explain how thrilling it is to be walking along a trail, weaving in and out, and up and down along mountain trails, studying the saguaro cacti forests one mountain over, the saguaros on the southern face of a mountain, as common as pine trees in a Northern forest. And I spot the first blooming cactus I’ve ever seen in the desert – a hedgehog cactus. And it sports one perfectly formed magenta blossom from one stem.

And suddenly, as I walk along, everywhere I look there are magenta flowers popping off the tips of the hedgehog stems. The Sonoran Desert is blooming in bright color as I watch. Occasionally I see a few yellow buds on other hedgehogs, and as I survey the mighty saguaro, I notice a few that have flower buds at their highest tip.

Saguaros typically bloom in mid-May through mid-June in the Tucson region of the Sonoran, but it has been an early blooming season, and the cacti are proving no exception. This year I purposely stayed in Arizona through April, hoping to see the cactus bloom, and I am  quite ecstatic that the desert is showing me her colors.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona until the end of April. She is thrilled that the cactus in the Sonoran desert are beginning to blossom.

Rays of Sunlight

Rays of Sunlight © 2012 Bo Mackison

Rays of Sunlight © 2012 Bo Mackison

Spiritual and creative journeys are not so much about growing in certainty — in many ways it is about growing less certain — it is about about learning how to move deeply into the heart of mystery, into the great unknown.

During the first few days of each new month, I look for a photograph for Photo-Heart Connection from last month’s photos. I look for one that speaks to me in a special way, perhaps one with a message I overlooked the first time I worked with the photograph. Here is my choice from the many photos I took in March.

I took this photograph of three simply carved chairs in the stunningly decorated church at the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, just south of Tucson, Arizona.  Construction of the church began in 1783 and was completed fourteen years later. It is the oldest intact European structure in Arizona and is a National Historic Landmark.

The church is filled with original, hand carved statuary and murals on many of the walls – many of the murals depict items that could not be obtained in 18th century Arizona. There are paintings delicately rendered as substitutes for wall coverings, draperies, wood, and marbled surfaces.  Dozens of statues were also hand carved, painted, and then finished with materials brought from Spanish missionaries from Mexico into Arizona.

Whenever I take photographs of the Mission at Xavier del Bac or other holy places, I am often filled with a depth of connection and  spirituality that I seldom encounter in other buildings.

When I took this photograph of the sacristy, I was aware of the rays of sunshine illuminating the armrests of two of the chairs. I loved the contrast, the symbolic meaning of light opening a dark space. When I checked the photos on my computer, again the contrast struck me — this time between the ornate — the heavily ornamented walls and niches — and the simple — the carved chairs illuminated by a shaft of light coming through one of the few windows.

It was a photograph that made a heart (and soul) connection.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She has been living in southern Arizona for the last two and a half months, and has taken many photographs of holy and sacred places. She joins other photographers at Kat Eye Studio and posts a photo taken the prior month that “connects with her heart’ during the first few days of the new month.

 


Lemonade and Izze – Living in the Moment

Lemonade and Izze

Lemonade and Izze © 2012 Bo Mackison

A glass of lemonade and a cold bottle of Pomegranate Izze. Living in the moment — ahhh!

So this photograph of two beverages is the perfect reminder to live in the moment. It’s not every day I get to spend a couple of hours with my younger daughter – the youngest of my three kids – sitting in an outdoor cafe in Bisbee, Arizona, sipping freshly squeezed lemonade – the puckery kind – and a Pomegranate Izze. Munching on chorizo and cabbage burritos. Laughing and telling snippets of life stories – some recent, some a decade old, some two decades old. Walking along the up and down sidewalks of Bisbee Arizona, peering at the window displays of the shops and galleries, occasionally wandering through a gallery, oohing and aahing over a painting or a sculpture. So much talent! Admiring the many buildings – schools, homes, businesses – many perched in precarious positions against the mountains.

At one point our conversation drifted to Manda’s propensity for conversation when she was a toddler and preschooler. She loved nothing more than to carry on a  lengthy conversation about any topic. She was, and still is, one of the most inquisitive people I know. We played a game for several years, one I devised so that I could get some work done while still entertaining my young conversationalist. When we were talking about it the other day, we both wondered how much this game influenced Manda’s education and the way she thinks and comes up with answers.

We played our game throughout the day. It would start simply enough.

I would make an observation. “Look, the first robin of the season. The robins are back.”

My then three-year-old would say, “Where do they come back from?”

I would offer a simple explanation. “They don’t like the cold weather and snow, so they go to a warmer place during winter.”

Manda would look at me as if I had just told her the biggest whopper ever heard by a three-year old.

So I would counter offer. “Well, what do you think happens to the robins?”

And this is where the fun would begin. Looking back, I wish I had written more of her answers in my journal. Only a few were documented.  Some of her conclusions were hysterical, some were thoughtful, some were fanciful, but they all displayed a certain ability to think and be creative. What an amazing thing, yes?

Here are a few lines I once wrote about the return of the robins. After I gave her the straight answer, I would ask Manda is she could think of any other answers. She would give me one and then another, and another. The game continued until she ran out of answers or lost interest.All answers were acceptable.

“The robins go down in the holes with the rabbits.”

‘The robins fly to Grandma’s ( 300 miles south and considerably warmer) and live in her attic.”

“The robins sleep under my bed and they are very, very quiet. I only hear them when they fight.”

“The robins play hide and seek and you don’t see them. I know where they hide.”

And on and on.

Then she would go off and play. That is, until we began the next question and answer game.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC, living and photographing in southern Arizona. Visits from her family are always appreciated. 🙂

Lessons from Desert Flowers

Rock Gilia

Rock Gilia © 2012 Bo Mackison

       The desert’s beauty suggests patience and struggle and endurance. Even in the brightest colors of its brief spring flowers, there is something austere. ~ from The Desert Year by Joseph Wood Krutch

Most of the desert flowers are mere specks on the ground. If there are dozens of them, the color is fairly noticeable, but if there are only two or three quarter-inch blossoms sprawling against a bit of green leaf and a lot of gravelly desert floor, it takes some careful observations to see those pretty little things. Of course, in the desert, the smaller, the better chance at survival. A flower, or leaf on a shrub for that matter, that is minute requires considerably less moisture for survival than a flower or leaf a hundred times that size. Adaptation of the species, as we know it.

Blooming Aloe

Blooming Aloe © 2012 Bo Mackison

Notice how present a flower is, how it has surrendered to life. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Of course, the cacti and the succulents found in the desert have a totally different way to guarantee a flowering season, necessary for the continuation of the species. (No flowers, no seeds. No seed, no new flower).

This aloe is a succulent and has adaptive measures for desert survival. Succulents (and cacti, too) have the ability to suck up water when it does rain and then store it in large quantities. These plants send shallow roots in a wide circumference around the plant, and so the root absorbs the water before it evaporates. And when a succulent, like this bright-orange, flowering aloe, traps water in its system, its waxy surface helps keep the water in the plant and reduces water lost to evaporation.

We humans could learn much by consulting with nature and her ways:

  • Assess our weaknesses and strengths – bolster our weaknesses and play to our strengths.
  • Be resourceful and use our resources wisely. Do not use more natural resources than we need. Consider needs vs. wants.
  • Share your beauty, whether it be small and hidden, delicate and ethereal, or bright and showy.