Arts & Culture

From the sky, Phoenix is brown and cracked, lifeless, a desert wasteland. But the bird’s-eye view does not do justice to this metropolis. Hit the streets, the trails, and the summits and this place reveals itself, slowly, as an oasis. Against odds and for decades, modern pioneers have painted, planted,…

Ethan Misiewicz is throwing things into the canal. He came across his old Easter basket at the back of the coat closet this morning, and the only good use for stale jelly beans, he’s decided, is pitching them into the lake. “But we don’t got a lake,” the 8-year-old explains…

Jason Rose is not a runner. There’s no indication that he’s particularly fond of the heat. But the notorious, big-haired public relations executive knows a sweat-drenched stunt when he sees one, and that’s how Scottsdale got saddled in 2013 with Beat the Heat, a running event marketed as “The Hottest…

To spot the latest cool-kid trend, swing by a bodega in Brooklyn. The small, brightly lit convenience stores are on almost every corner in the U.S. capital of hipsterdom, and the owners keep tabs on their neighborhoods before stocking up on organic condiments, fair trade snack bars, and jars of…

The wood in the small shack felt like ice as he held his brother close to stay warm. William Hernández’s hands were numb, his fingers stiff, his bones trembling underneath his brown T-shirt. He had never imagined the desert could be this cold. The smugglers wouldn’t let them light a…

It’s just about dark. The sun is fading behind the thick brush along the Arizona Canal west of 40th Street in the East Phoenix neighborhood of Arcadia. Shouts from soccer players at a nearby park carry, but as the sun sinks deeper, they’re drowned out by the buzz of cicadas…

Paper artist Elling is a former manager of ASU’s creative writing program. Seventy years ago, my family left Hanford, Washington, where my dad was recreation director for a group of scientists working on a secret project, one they thought would end the war. I was 2 years old when we…

Spalding Best is a painter best-known for landscapes featuring utility poles and traffic signage. I’ve lived here 16 years, and I’m still overwhelmed by the desert sky and its sunsets. I love celebrating a rainstorm and the smells that come with it, and I find the people here to be…

Renowned dancer and choreographer Anderson is the artistic director of Ballet Arizona. His recent Topia was a site-specific performance piece at the Desert Botanical Garden. If you like sameness, this is a good place, because things don’t change that much. If you like intense things, this is also good, because…

 A landscape architect at ASU, Fish Ewan teaches seminars on walking in the desert. I have forgiven my husband, Joe Ewan, for lying about the summer heat when he talked me into moving out here from the lovely, foggy Bay Area. He said people get used to the heat after…

Multimedia artist Yazzie’s newest work is a series of films about indigenous people. I’ve been in the Valley full time since about 1996. I grew up in northern Arizona in Black Mesa, LeChee, and Page. I spent some time in the Marine Corps and lived in some other cities: Portland,…

One of our best-known artists, Mell depicts the desert in his paintings, prints, and sculpture. It’s an old story, but when I was still working as an art director in New York, a friend of mine was teaching on the Hopi reservation out here. He said, “Come out and do…

Appleby grew up in Buckeye, and she and her siblings used to surf the canals. I was born in the desert, in Buckeye, 83 years ago in May. I’m the sixth of 10 children. We were born right at our house in Buckeye, and this was back when it was…

Landscape designer Martino emphasizes unfamiliar plants, calling his creations “garden architecture.” I’m that rare thing: a Phoenix native. I was born here in 1946 to immigrant parents. My mother was from Canada and my father from Italy. I was raised in Phoenix and left home in the eighth grade to…

Weber is a visual artist who casts succulents in metal, then paints them with enamel. It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been here for 18 years. My family and I moved to Arizona from Damascus, a small rural town in Maryland, when I was 12. When I heard we…

Arizona’s first poet laureate, Ríos has published 10 acclaimed books of poetry. I’ve lived in the desert in its different incarnations, from high to low desert, all my life. And though my addresses have been cities, I have often lived a good distance outside of them. In Nogales, I was…

Downtown Phoenix is waking from a long snooze. Chain restaurants and name-brand boutiques and that most irrefutable proof that a neighborhood has arrived, the cell phone store, have taken over what planners like to call our “urban core.” Arizona State University, once Tempe’s concern, has cast a long shadow on…