DESIGN Jewelry Chadwick Uptain sits at a table on the patio of Jobot Coffee Shop in downtown Phoenix, working on his Mac laptop. It’s 5:30 on a Tuesday evening, and he’s got a rare break from watching his 4-month-old baby daughter. He’s working, poring over images of his jewelry designs…
DESIGN Fashion Growing up, fashion designer Rebecca Turley was fascinated with the vintage items in her grandmother’s bedroom. “I was the first granddaughter on my mom’s side of the family, so her mother really spoiled me,” Turley says. “In her room, she had a jewelry box with heirlooms, and I…
DESIGN Tattoo Chris Rupp sits behind the counter of Living Ghost Tattoo Parlor in Tempe, where he’s worked since September, and plucks two strings on a guitar he made out of a cigar box. The cigar box guitars are one of his favorite things to make, and he also does…
VISUAL ARTS Painting, installation, and sculpture When a friend of artist Sarah Hurwitz told her that everything in her bathroom was covered with microscopic flakes of poop, she could not get the thought out of her head. She was compelled to create a piece of installation art titled “Fecal Free,”…
LITERARY Playwriting When Phoenix playwright and actor Kim Porter lived in San Francisco, she and her husband took a road trip to Las Vegas. The moment they crossed the California border and saw the shining lights of a city, they got excited. “There it is! Las Vegas!” they exclaimed, driving…
LITERARY ‘Zine Robbie Pfeffer sits on the couch at The Fixx Coffee Bar in Tempe on a recent Saturday night, talking about Tempe Starving Artist, the ‘zine he launched in December 2009. TSA showcases the works of local creatives, from poetry and short stories to interviews with bands and black-and-white…
LITERARY Books In the imaginary world of children’s book author and illustrator Kofi O. Okyere, piccolos are parables, chance encounters become epic twists, and a monkey teaches life’s big lessons. His book To Catch a Monkey, the first in a series called “The Coconut Years,” tells the tale of a…
Correction: This profile should have said that Perez was the first in his family to graduate from high school. In addition, the piece should have reported that he is the director of the Rise Project. His friends Shadoe and Shining Soul teach breakdancing and teach beat-making, respectively. PERFORMING ARTS Painting,…
Most people who drive from Phoenix to California and back would look through their windshields and just see desert. Mayme Kratz saw art. Her installation, “Tumbleweed Bower,” consists of tons of tumbleweeds from the west side of Phoenix that she built into an interactive structure. The 15-foot-high cube is currently…
Howl, director Rob Epstein’s biopic about Allen Ginsberg and the obscenity trial surrounding his titular poem, starts with a statement that every word in the film was actually spoken by the people portrayed, but that it’s unlike a documentary in any other way. It was an an apt opener for…
FILM/VIDEO Independent theater On a Thursday night in mid-March, downtown art cinema FilmBar buzzes with life. There’s a showing of the offbeat documentary Automorphosis, and several art car enthusiasts have shown up with their custom vehicles. FilmBar owner Kelly Aubey seems to be everywhere at once — outside posing for…
At the Himalayas Salt Lamps & More store on Main Street in Mesa, the cliché phrase “worth its weight in salt” has a literal meaning.Himalayas proprietor Lily Neff, like many other people, believes that salt crystal rocks have healing properties, and if you have a Himalayan salt lamp in your…
There aren’t too many non-fiction books about buildings that can be described as “awesome” and “haunting,” but Allan Wright Green’s Building the Pauson House: The Letters of Frank Lloyd Wright and Rose Pauson is both.The Rose Pauson House was located at 5859 N. 31st Street in Phoenix. It was designed…
After being closed for most of March, Spy Headquarters has reopened on Northern Avenue. The store sold a variety of surveillance, security, and self-defense items for more than two decades and was recently remodeled.Unfortunately, the new Spy Headquarters store layout and inventory is disappointing, especially for people who visited SH…
We’ve tried dozens and dozens of energy drinks, and the regular Monster (green label) is still our favorite. But we can’t always handle the mass amounts of sugar and carbonation in the regular Monster, so when we saw a newer, non-carbonated drink called Monster Rehab, we figured we’d give it…
Most people who drive from Phoenix to California and back would look through their windshields and just see desert …Mayme Kratz saw art. Her installation, “Tumbleweed Bower,” consists of tons of tumbleweeds from the west side of Phoenix that she built into an interactive structure. The 15-foot-high cube is currently…
One Voice Community Center, which has been serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community in Phoenix for just less than two years, is in danger of closing soon.According to the center’s newsletter and Facebook page, One Voice was sustained by a single Magellan grant. Community center board member…
After 25 years of entertaining and influencing housewives all over America, Oprah Winfrey announced on Friday that the last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show will air May 25.No doubt a lot of Oprah’s estimated 15 to 20 million viewers will be moved to tears (you know Oprah’s going to…
The bad news is Phoenicians who feel the need for speed lost a locally-owned business in the Speedway Raceway this year. The good news is another go-kart track business has moved into the building – K1 Speed.Off-road racer “Pistol” Pete Sohren had rented the large building on south 21st Street since…
Phoenix realtor Jill Segrove’s on a mission to find 365 things to do in Phoenix. She’s a hardcore valley advocate — she’s lived here more than 35 years and thinks we should take advantage of our 300-plus days of sunshine every year. Good thing she has a few suggestions.Segrove logs…
As we reported last week, downtown coffee shop turned smoothie shop and constant artist hangout Conspire planned to transform itself into a vegan restaurant.Conspire’s death and resurrection is now complete. The graffiti mural-covered brick walls have been lathered with several solid coats of blue paint; the shed in the back that…
First, there was spice (a.k.a. “synthetic marijuana”). Then came “bath salts” that reportedly had the same effects as crystal meth when snorted. Now, another designer drug has hit the market — and reportedly resulted in a fatality last week.It’s a synthetic hallucinogen called 2C-E, also known as “Europa,” and it…
