So speak kindly of our new favorite Valley 'burb — we don't want to disturb anyone's otherworldly peace.To hear a haunted tale from Evermore Nevermore employees, visit www. phoenixnewtimes.com/bestof2011.
So speak kindly of our new favorite Valley 'burb — we don't want to disturb anyone's otherworldly peace.To hear a haunted tale from Evermore Nevermore employees, visit www. phoenixnewtimes.com/bestof2011.
Winchell, the famous American newspaper and radio commentator who died in 1972, is taking a dirt nap at Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery (719 N. 27th Ave.), right here in Phoenix. Winchell is credited with inventing the modern-day gossip column, co-founded the Cancer Research Fund, and retired here after his syndicated column was canceled in the 1960s. Although Winchell moved away from Phoenix to Los Angeles in the 1970s, in an attempt to revive his column and his career, his remains were shipped back to Phoenix after his death in 1974, and he was buried in the family plot.
Other celebs both notorious and noteworthy who have met their final rest here include former film star and Jack Ross Lincoln Mercury spokeswoman Acquanetta, who played exotics (and, in one memorable movie, Tarzan's girlfriend) in a string of 1930s Hollywood potboilers. She's resting forever somewhere in Ahwatukee, although almost certainly not on the sacred Indian burial ground she sold back to Maricopa County a number of years ago. Local hero Barry Goldwater, a five-term U.S. senator and Republican presidential nominee, is six feet under at Episcopal Christ Church of the Ascension in Paradise Valley (4015 E. Lincoln Dr.) — no surprise there. But who knew that Hadji Ali (known to friends and fans alike as Hi Jolly) is also buried here? Ali became a living legend when, in 1856, he led the camel driver experiment here, one of several men brought over by the government to transport cargo on the backs of camels across the arid Southwestern desert. In 1935, a monument to Hadji Ali and the Camel Corps was erected in the Quartzsite Cemetery in La Paz County (465 N. Plymouth Ave.). The monument is in the shape of a pyramid topped with a copper camel and is built from local stones. Top that, Ladmo.
To see an illustrated guide to where the bodies are buried, visit www.phoenixnewtimes.com/bestof2011.
They founded the 7,000-square-foot space on photography education and built a number of classrooms for creative workshops and public lab space for alternative and digital processes. And then they put artwork on the walls. Since its January opening, Panaro-Smith has curated shows that include daguerreotypes, platinum/palladium prints, photogravures, and gelatin silver prints from local emerging and established photographers. Shes also secured loans of heavy-hitting historic photography collections from around the state.
The space provides accessible explanations of the art forms history and process, though youd be hardpressed to not bump into an employee, artist, or photography nerd (or pherd, as Panaro-Smith says) who wouldnt mind giving you a tour.
Editor's note: The content of this Best of Phoenix award has changed since its original version.
Phoenix? This place is hardly the fashion capital of anybody's world — here we glue crap to T-shirts and call it haute couture. Ah, but we've got Dennita Sewell, who has curated the Phoenix Art Museum's fashion collection since 2000.
And that's how scruffy Phoenix came to have one of the year's sleekest fashion-based art exhibits, lauded everywhere from Elle to the New York Times.
Born and raised on a farm in Missouri, Sewell developed a passion for clothing early on. Both her mother and grandmother were expert seamstresses, and she majored in textile management at the University of Missouri. After that, she headed to Yale University for an MFA in costume and set design and eventually became the Collections Manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
And then she came to Phoenix, whose namesake art museum has a 5,000-item fashion collection — one of the best in the country, thanks to donations over the years from rich and famous vacationers.
Talk your way into a tour of the museum's underground, and you'll see a original 1966 Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking suit, a handmade footman's livery (circa 1830s), and flashy platform boots formerly belonging to the band Steppenwolf.
Items are chosen for "how they're important for telling the fashion story of the era," Sewell says.
The vault is temperature- and humidity-controlled — and under tight security. No mothballs or chemicals are used to preserve the materials. Twentieth-century items are arranged alphabetically by designer, and everything before that is stored in chronological order. Accessories are grouped by type.
"Storage is a big undertaking and a huge endeavor, and it's very time-consuming and expensive," Sewell says, picking her way amongst tall columns of shelves stacked with long, flat boxes, each labeled with a picture of the garment within.
Inside the boxes, clothes are wrapped and stuffed with tissue paper to protect their form and thwart dust. Shoes are carefully arranged on shelves. Clothing made of heavy textiles rests on hangers in closets. Repairs and cleaning are kept to a minimum and only happen after a consultation with a local conservator in order to keep the items as true as possible to their original forms.
Turns out modern textiles are the hardest to keep. While their 18th- and 19th-century predecessors were made of pure, natural fibers that tend to be highly durable, the plastics and chemicals introduced in the 20th century have proved to be a challenge to preserve. Some items, like vinyl shoes, are essentially self-destructing — becoming brittle and losing their color over time.
"There's nothing you can put on them to preserve them; consistent temperature and humidity is the only thing that helps them survive," says Sewell, who refuses to name a favorite piece — even when pressed.
Times are tough for the fashion industry; the mass production of clothing has made couture less and less accessible to regular people and has put a strain on designers competing for an ever-limited clientele. Nevertheless, Sewell remains optimistic about the perseverance of the industry. "The wealthy will always seek ways to define themselves from other people," she says. "Couture is never going to die."
To see more photos of the Phoenix Art Museum's fashion collection, visit www.phoenixnewtimes.com/bestof2011.