Art of More

If the ball game and promise of endless parading, beer, chips, and dip isn’t enough to get you riled up for the annual Fiesta Bowl, be sure to check out the creative energy buzzing about during the Fiesta Bowl Art Walk. On Thursday, December 29, downtown Scottsdale will host a…

Native Seeds/SEARCH Offers Grain School in Tucson

Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S), the Tucson-based seed bank, have been busy planning a curriculum and gathering guest speakers for the state’s first Grain School. The six-day program scheduled for January 8 through 13, includes activities surrounding the history, philosophy, and science of local heritage grains and features lectures from ancient grain experts…

The “Forget Me Nots” Project: Remembering Razed Architecture

Much of Budapest’s traditional architecture was destroyed during a long history of occupation — including houses, libraries, and schools — and was replaced with what the group calls “new ugly buildings made of cheap and bad materials.” This month, they started the Nefelejcs (Hungarian for Forget-Me-Nots) Project, in which large-scale reproductions of the…

Twilight-Inspired Baby Names Top the Arizona Charts … Again

Too bad J.K. Rowling couldn’t come up with cuter names for her magical literary characters — or at least names we could pronounce on this side of the pond (say it slowly … “her-my-ah-knee”). In 2011, “Isabella” and “Jacob” (also the names of the two main characters in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight,…

Ornamental Explosions? by Alan Sailer

Alan Sailer’s been called a grinch. The California-based photographer recently took a few of his leftover ornaments, his camera, and his high-speed pellet rifle to his garage for an experiment. The result is The War Against Christmas, a series of high-speed photos of his exploding ornaments he says are a “a…

Phoestivus, A Year in Photos, and a Mary X-Mas Rave Over the Weekend

Downtown’s Phoestivus Market You might have expected the 2011 Phoestivus Market to have gone down at Tom’s Restaurant, the world of Seinfeld and all-things-festive-Phoenix collided at Downtown’s Phoenix Public Market on Wednesday night. Living up to its name, the Phoestivus Market featured Feats of Strength, the Airing of Grievances, and The…

See it on a Skateboard

One new idea for every day in 2011. We’re talking big, small, local, international, in action, and on the drawing board. Here’s today’s — what’s yours? Brett Novak and Kilian Martin met during a freestyle skate competition and have jumped at the chance to be around each other ever since. The…

What Are You Doing Here?

Happy holidays! We’re not sure why you’re here, but we’re glad you made it — you being here’s a great excuse to share another drool-wrothy, stop-motion find (starring, yes, colored pencils). See you Monday …..

A Wonderful World

One new idea for every day in 2011. We’re talking big, small, local, international, in action, and on the drawing board. Here’s today’s — what’s yours? Just a quick cheers between eggnog drinking, present opening, candle lighting, caroling, greivance airing, festivusing, and (hopefully relaxing). Here’s to a wonderful world, narrated by…

Voyage Trekkers Web Series to Screen at FilmBar in January

Grab your plastic, intergalactic ray gun and your handmade space suit — the worst space crew in the galaxy is coming to FilmBar. Voyage Trekkers, the local sci-fi comedy web series directed by Nathan Blackwell and produced by Squishy Studios and Inside Creative Minds Media, will screen all 10 episodes on Saturday, January 7. …

2011: A Year in Legos

This year’s been big for our favorite plastic brick. The Lego empire kicked the year off with a viral marketing campaign of Lego-themed movie posters and national monuments, and this month, artist and nicknamed Lego Man, Nathan Sawaya, brought his creations to Mesa Contemporary Arts. The exhibition, writes New Times’ contributor…

NYE Fashion Dos and Don’ts with Designer Tiffe Fermaint

Tiffe Fermaint breathes fashion. The local designer, fashion blogger, and staple in the Phoenix style scene is currently working on her line (scheduled to go to market this spring), but she took a much-needed break to dish out a few fashion tips for one of the biggest fashion nights of…

Resolve to Design 2012

​ One new idea for every day in 2011. We’re talking big, small, local, international, in action, and on the drawing board. Here’s today’s — what’s yours? ​Motherland Design is the blogging bin New York-based designer Chris Streger uses to store inspirational design he finds, well, everywhere. While counting down to the…

Watered Down

To celebrate the 100-year mark of President Theodore Roosevelt traveling west to lend his name to the Roosevelt Dam, the Phoenix Public Library is showcasing more than 25 archived photographs of the dam donated by Arizona historian James McClintock. Roosevelt said the Arizona landmark and keeper of nearly 950 billion…

First Personal

Oh, to be absorbed in an artist’s narrative. From political paranoia and impossible missions to tales of trash cans and shoe-decorated telephone wires, SMoCA’s “Artists Tell Stories (Mostly About Themselves)” is an exhibition that welcomes the audience into the works and stories of five artists. Through video, installation, and large-scale…

The Gift of Fab

Nothing beats a holiday gift of local art. For one, since it’s locally made you probably won’t have to punch someone at Wal-Mart to get the last one. Second, it’s a hell of a lot more creative than that gift card you snapped up on that last beer run. Now…

What to Expect from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (TRAILER)

Nerd Alert: The first trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been released. The highly anticipated film, directed by Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson and based on the the 1937 novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, stars Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) who sets out on an epic adventure with…