When artist Tom Kiefer first started working as a part-time janitor at the Border Patrol station in Ajo back in 2003, he was shocked by the agency s practice of throwing out perfectly good canned foods they took away from captured migrants. The boss, he says, told the agents they were not to waste time worrying about food. They were told that their job was to arrest people and bring them in. Period. I thought it showed a callous disregard for people. I was disgusted. Kiefer had moved to Ajo after 9/11 from L.A., where he had been working as a graphic designer and antiques dealer. He wanted to concentrate on his photography, and with Ajo s low cost of living, he was able to buy a house. And the job with Border Patrol was one of the best-paying gigs in town.
After 177 years of performing, the Zoppé Family Circus knows it will take more than a pandemic to keep them out of the spotlight. The Italian circus annually performs in Tucson at the Mercado District, and will continue that tradition this month, albeit with new precautions. Their new “drive-in” circus, in town from Friday, Jan. 15, through the end of the month, includes a variety of acts that can be enjoyed from your car.
According to Giovanni Zoppé, the frontman for the circus, the idea of their drive-in show has existed for roughly five years. However, it took COVID for those plans to come to fruition.
When I first heard about the Desert Museum exhibit hosted by the International Society of Scratchboard Artists, I thought immediately of the artboards I used to play with when I was a kid: Use a sharp point to scratch the ink off of a black board and reveal a rainbow of color underneath. I think I remember doing scratchboard when I was a kid, I tell Paul Hopman, a Tucson artist who is exhibiting work at the event. We all did, he says. The lucky ones, anyway. It s literally the oldest art in the world. You know what a petroglyph is?
When the cloud of COVID-19 lifts and the long-shuttered Fox Tucson Theatre reopens to audiences and artists, Executive Director Bonnie Schock imagines there will be an outflowing of emotion from her staff and audiences filling the nearly 1,200-seat historic theater.
âThe push to get back there, it feels Herculean some days,â said Schock, who has led the Fox through the pandemic. âGetting to that point is going to be an extraordinary emotional release, and I think that will be true for audiences, too.â
But that day wonât come for months. Schock, who took over the Fox just days before city and state officials ordered businesses to close, said she anticipates it will be late summer or early fall before the Fox will return to live concerts.
The holiday season is usually a festive, busy time at Fox Tucson Theatre, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, the historic downtown venue has scaled back its holly-jolly.
On Sunday, Dec. 13, the Fox kicked off its 12 Days of Christmas series of minuteslong “gifts,” little bright spots in what has been a long and dark year, especially for the Fox and other Tucson live music venues that have been shuttered since March. The series of performances will run through Christmas Day on foxtucson.com.
The Fox teamed up with Khris Dodge Entertainment, Greg + Mere from 94.9 MIX FM In the Morning and Musically Fed to create a series of videos filmed from the Fox of classic Christmas songs. The series serves a twin purpose: To help us find our Christmas happy place and to help feed gig workers â artists, producers and the behind-the-scenes folks who are the engine behind Tucsonâs vibrant live entertainment industry.