Tag Archives: Arizona

May27

Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Blaize Sun

The Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center is located at 1611 North Second Street (Highway 85) in Ajo, Arizona. The refuge’s website says,

It is open Monday through Friday from 8am to 4pm. Here, refuge staff and volunteers are available to provide you with maps, brochures and checklists and let you know what’s happening on the refuge.

I visited the Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center in early May, when it was already hot outside. I spent most of my time looking at the inside exhibits, but I looked around outside a bit too.

First of all,

Cabeza Prieta, Spanish for “dark (or dirty) head,” refers to a lava-topped, granite peak in a remote mountain range in the western corner of the refuge.

Secondly, the Visitors Center is just a tiny piece of what Cabeza Prieta is for and about. The aforementioned website says,

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge encompasses 860,000 acres, a portion of which are open to the public for wildlife related activities including wildlife watching and photography, primitive camping, limited hunting, and environmental education and interpretation.

Almost all of the refuge is designated wilderness and it is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, a national network of lands and waters set aside for the benefit of wildlife and you.

…Today, the refuge’s management priorities are primarily focused on the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, bighorn sheep and lesser long-nosed bat.

There are two main indoor exhibits at the visitor center, both in a room to the right of the entrance. When I visited, the room was dark, and I had to turn on the lights so I could have a look around.

The first attraction is a video about the refuge. When I stepped into the tiny theater, the video was not playing. A remote control sat on the bench next to me, but despite pushing the power and play buttons, I could not get the video to come on. I went through an open door to the front of the office area. No one was sitting at the main desk, but there was a bell there, so I rang it. A young woman came from the back, and I told her I wanted to watch the video but could not get it to play. She helped me, but acted mildly irritated, as if I were keeping her from her real work.

The video was informative, but I felt as if maybe it had picked up in the middle of the action. The weirdest part of the video was when some government employee guy talked about how the crust on the desert floor is a living organism while he plunged his knife into it and pulled up a piece of the crust to display to the camera. Ouch! I’m a living organism too, and I hope no one ever does that to me.

(Well, ok, Wikipedia says

[b]iological soil crusts are communities of living organisms on the soil surface in arid– and semi-arid ecosystems

so maybe what the guy did was not quite as bad as plunging a knife into me.)

This big cat was once alive, but now it’s dead. The sign says, “A Haven for Wildlife.” Well, this room is the opposite of a haven for wildlife. This room is more like a wildlife graveyard.

The other indoor exhibit is a display of desert creatures. The problem is that these desert creatures were once alive and now they are dead. I presume someone killed those animals so they could be displayed, then handed them over to a taxidermist to preserve them. I didn’t much like looking at animals that were once alive but now weren’t. It kind of gave me the creeps, especially the big, dark eyes of the dead pronghorn. I would rather look at photographs of desert creatures instead of their preserved remains.

I walked around a bit outside the Visitor Center. There are several trails to walk on, a few informational signs, and lots of cacti. There’s also a pond where Quitobaquito pupfish live, but that’s a story for another day.

I believe this cactus is a senita.

There is also a bird hide in the back of the visitor center. Wikipedia says

[a] bird hide (or hide, also known as a blind or bird blind in North America) is a shelter, often camouflaged, that is used to observe wildlife, especially birds, at close quarters. Although hides or hunting blinds were once built chiefly as hunting aids, they are now commonly found in parks and wetlands for the use of bird watchers, ornithologists and other observers who do not want to disturb wildlife as it is being observed.

A typical bird hide resembles a garden shed, with small openings, shutters, or windows built into at least one side to enable observation.

This is the scene viewed from the bird hide a the visitor center.

The hide at the visitor center does look like a shed, and it has sliding panels over the windows. It overlooks a small pond. I went into the bird hide and opened one of the windows and looked out, but didn’t stay long. I was hot and hungry by that time, and I’m not all that excited about birds. The bird hide overlooks a small pond, so I’m sure it is a great place to watch birds taking a drink or having a bath.

The Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center was a fine place to spend some time. I was probably there a little more than an hour. Of course, I appreciated the lack of admission fee. I don’t know if I will ever visit the actual wilderness area, but the visitor center offers much information about the Sonoran Desert.

I took all of the photos in this post.

May23

Night of the Lepus

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this mural is painted on the side of the building housing Roadrunner Java in Ajo, Arizona. (Roadrunner Java is located at 932 North 2nd Avenue. North 2nd Avenue is the same thing as Highway 85, so this cafe is on the main drag, on the east side of the street.) I was told the mural was painted by Ajo muralist Mike “DaWolf” Baker.

According to the mural Night of the Lepus was filmed in Ajo.

What in the world is Night of the Lepus? you may ask. You may also wonder, Why do those rabbits look so mean?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus,

Night of the Lepus (also known as Rabbits) is a 1972 American science fiction horror film based on the 1964 science fiction novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit.

Released theatrically on July 26, 1972, it focuses on members of a small Arizona town who battle thousands of mutated, carnivorous killer rabbits. The film was the first science fiction work for producer A. C. Lyles and for director William F. Claxton, both of whom came from Western film backgrounds. Character actors from Westerns the pair had worked on were brought in to star in the Night of the Lepus, including Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, and DeForest Kelley.

Shot in Arizona, Night of the Lepus used domestic rabbits filmed against miniature models and actors dressed in rabbit costumes for the attack scenes.

Ok, wait. Could we read the last part of that last sentence again?

…Night of the Lepus used domestic rabbits filmed against miniature models and actors dressed in rabbit costumes for the attack scenes.

The aforementioned Wikipedia page explains in a bit more detail:

To depict the rabbit attacks, a combination of techniques were used. For some scenes, the rabbits were filmed in close-up stomping on miniature structures in slow motion.^[6] For attack scenes, they had ketchup smeared on their faces.^[1] For other scenes, human actors were shown wearing rabbit costumes.^[1]^[2]^[6]

So this movie tried to scare people with regular pet bunnies moving among (and probably knocking over) miniature models? And to make them scarier, the bunnies were filmed with ketchup smeared on their faces! (Oh, that’s scary!) And then when they needed the bunnies to be really, really scary, they put human people in rabbit costumes? I haven’t seen one minute of this movie, but I’m already laughing.

Here’s more from the Wikipedia page:

Originally titled Rabbits, production company MGM renamed the film, using the Latin name for “rabbit” in hopes of keeping the audience from presuming the animals would be non-menacing. To further prevent the audience from thinking of cuddly bunnies in relation to the film, the theatrical posters featured no rabbits, instead displaying only eyes and referencing unnamed “creatures”. The trailers showed no critters, and the press releases only mentioned that the film had “mutants.” The only clue given to the audience was the required acknowledgment on the poster to Braddon’s novel. However, some Night of the Lepus promoters gave away the secret by sending out souvenirs decorated with rabbit’s foot designs.^[2]

I was not surprised to learn that this film received a lot of criticism. It seems like John Kenneth Muir summed it up pretty well in Horror Films of the 1970s. He

felt Night of the Lepus was one of the “most ridiculous horror film[s] ever conceived”, with a poor blend of horror and environmentalism that resulted in it being more of a comedy. He criticized the “primitive special effects”, badly done editing and laughable dialogue, and noted that while the rabbits and actors are rarely seen on screen together, the filmmakers used obviously fake rabbit paws and people in rabbit suits for the few scenes calling for human/rabbit interactions. Like most critics, he pointed out that the rabbits were “cute bunnies” rather than “fanged, disease-ridden mutated creatures”, but he felt the actors did the best they could with the material, and praised them for “[keeping] straight faces as they heroically stand against the onslaught of the bunnies”.^[16]

Sounds like the mural in Ajo is more artistic and more entertaining than the movie that inspired it.

I do wish someone would remove the bush blocking the view of the mural. The bush is distracting and makes the building seem abandoned.

I took all of the photos in this post.

May22

More Ajo Murals

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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I’ve written about the murals in Ajo, Arizona before, but even in two posts, I wasn’t able to cover them all. (Read my other posts about the murals of Ajo here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/15/ajo-murals and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/24/ajo-copper-news-mural/.) In this post I’ll include photos and information about more murals in the small desert town.

The first mural here is one that didn’t make it in my post about the Art Alley. The day I walked through the Art Alley (the alley immediately to the south of the Plaza) taking photos of the murals, a truck parked right in front of this piece, and I wasn’t able to get a picture of it.

I believe the next three pieces were all painted by Ajo muralists Mike “DaWolf” Baker. (If I’m wrong about that, someone please correct me.)

I was told the homeowner commissioned Baker to paint this scene on his house. I was also told this scene is from a movie, but my informant (I’ve always wanted to say my informant) didn’t remember the name of the movie. The crosses symbolize the homeowner’s loved ones who have passed away. This house is at the corner of Solana (Highway 85) and and Cunada streets. The mural is very easy to see when driving south through Ajo, not far after the main drags curves to the left.

The next mural in on a store, the aVita Boutique in the Raven’s Nest, which is located at 801 North 2nd Avenue.

Did you notice that the spheres on the front of the building are painted in the colors of the rainbow? Yep, there’s good ol’ Roy G. Biv: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

This sign for the store is closer to the road. It might be what a driver sees first, as the store is set back.

North 2nd Avenue is another name for Highway 85, the main drag through town. Since the store is set back quite a ways from the street, you do have to be on the lookout for it when driving through town.

I can just about hear the howling coming from that wolf!

This photo shows the complete image on the south side of the building.

Something I really like about this mural is how the image on the left side wraps around the building. I think the wrapping makes the image quite dynamic. I also really like the bright, vibrant colors the artist used in this piece.

Of course, the Raven’s Nest needs a raven and the artist painted a nice one.

I love the rays of energy radiating from this bird.

The last mural is a sneak peak of tomorrow’s post. This mural has enough of a story for its own post, so that’s what it will get.

Yep, that’s the mural depicting The Night of the Lepus, and it’s painted on Roadrunner Java (932 North 2nd Avenue).

I took all of the photos in this post.

May21

Why

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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It’s not a question. Why is actually the name of a place in southern Arizona.

According to Wikipedia,

Why (O’odham: Ban Hi:nk) is a tiny unincorporated rural community in Pima County, Arizona, United States. It lies near the western border of the Tohono O’Odham Indian Reservation and due north of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona. It is approximately thirty miles north of the Mexican border where Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoita, Sonora, Mexico, border each other, and ten miles south of Ajo, Arizona.

The population in Why at the 2000 census was approximately 116.^[1]

There’s not much in Why. In addition to a few homes, there’s a restaurant called Grannymacs Kitchen that boasts chicken decor, decent food, and a totally uninterested staff. There’s also a gas station/convenience store combo called The Why Not Travel Store.

Coyote Howls Campground and RV Park is also in Why.

According to the campground’s website,

Coyote Howls…is located in the heart of Arizona’s Great Sonoran Desert…surrounded by low mountains and plentiful in desert vegetation and wildlife…

Coyote Howls is a combination of two campgrounds to provide your ideal desert camping experience. The two campgrounds that make up Coyote Howls are simply Coyote Howls East and Coyote Howls [W]est.

Coyote Howls East Campground consists of nearly 208 acres with 600 campsites. The sites are large, random in shape and placement. These are our “primitive camps”. There are no hookups, so your trailer or RV needs to be self-contained. There are, however, restrooms, showers, dump stations, and water faucets scattered throughout the park…

So why is Why called Why? In a January 2014 post, Arizona Oddities says,

Many years ago [in 1949, according to Coyote Howls history], Peggy and Jim Kater homesteaded at the base of the Little Ajo Mountains near the junction of State Routes 85 and 86. Because the junction formed a Y-intersection, they simply called their place “the Y.” Eventually, the Y attracted so many other residents that the community needed a post office. When postal authorities asked for a town name, the Katers said it should be “Y,” like it always had been.

But Arizona law required all town and city names have at least three letters, so the name was changed to Why because (a) people were always asking why anybody would live in such a remote place and (b) because “Why” rhymes with “Y”.

The Arizona Department of Transportation later removed the old Y-intersection for safety reasons and replaced it with a conventional T-intersection. But Why is still Why, and most everybody who goes there still asks why.

Why no longer has a post office. Folks who need a post office box rent one in Ajo. But Why is still a community, if not quite a town. It’s a good place for folks traveling south on Highway 85 to get gasoline, and it’s a good place to get away from any sort of hustle and bustle and watch the sunset.

The Arizona Oddities article says Why was established at the junction of highways 65 and 86. I took the liberty of correcting that, since I know highway 85 is the main route through the community.

I took all of the photos in this post.

May18

Louis Conde Grave Site

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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As I walked through the Ajo Cemetery in Ajo, Arizona I saw a large cross which looked as if it were constructed from concrete and stone. I first saw it from the back, so it was initially the size of the cross that caught my attention. The cross was taller than all the other markers around it, and I decided to go over and get a better look.

When I walked around to the front of the cross, I found that it was covered with words. I also found an article (laminated for protection and adhered to the concrete over the grave site) about the cross.

The article was from the August 13, 2014 edition of the Ajo Copper News. (A scan of the page from the newspaper can be found at http://ajo.stparchive.com/Archive/AJO/AJO08132014P10.php.)

By reading the article, I learned that the words on the cross are formed from copper letters. According to http://arizonaoddities.com/2012/11/unusual-grave-marker-for-an-ajo-teacher/,

the inscription on the marker contains about 400 words. Even more unusual than that, each letter and number was manually formed with copper wire. After being bent into the desired shape, the letters and numbers were soldered to nails and embedded into the face of the cross.

The letters form words, and the words form the teachings of Louis Conde, the Lahissa. According to the article in the Ajo Copper News, Conde was born in the 1800s and told people he was from Tibet. He

taught that the human mind had control over everything. “The human mind has all power,” he is quoted as saying. “There is nothing that man cannot accomplish. He can go to the planets.”

…[Conde] had great success as a mystical teacher in Chicago. Listeners flocked to his lectures and hung on every word. He offered his followers health, peace and spiritual grace. They offered him money to fund his Temple of Wisdom.

No one seems to know how he ended up in Ajo.

The aforementioned newspaper article quotes a eulogy written shortly after his death by one of his followers. The eulogy said Conde

plead to be taken to Ajo, where he lived only one week.

The Copper News says it was Conde’s widow–Ethel Decker Conde–who had this monument built. She hired Frank Randall and Charles Dunn to build it. The men

bought copper wire and fashioned the letters with pliers…

The cross was built in the Phoenix area

of peacock copper rock from the Bloody Basin and Copper Basin.

If you’re wondering what all those copper letters say,

Here’s the full text of the epitaph

thanks to http://joeorman.shutterace.com/Bizarre/Bizarre_Cross.html:

The Master Lahissa

LOUIS CONDE — 18__ to 1931Teacher & helper of humanityFor all races — for all peoples, for all beliefs, — he came and they knew him not.

Actuated by the same spirit that has guided all the teachers, he came to lead human beings into a new era. A new step in evolution and progress the era of man’s full consciousness of the power within him. “Man’s power is unlimited” he said, 50 & 10 years ago. “Mind, intelligence, is God; & Man can reach out and get what he wants from that universal mind. He is in contact with it thru his brain. As it has taken him an eternity of the past — of reincarnative evolution — to develop 1/6 of his brain, just think what he can do when he has unfolded 2/6 and more! He will overcome the so-called laws of nature. He will go around the earth in the flash of a moment, & to the planets.”

“Life is activity; it is eternal” he said “A continuous cycle, never ending, never beginning. — All things are vibrations. There is no wall separating the material & the spiritual; one blends into the other.”

“All beliefs are right” Lahissa taught. “Each one is a spoke in the wheel — leading to the same center.” & “Your God — no matter what you call it — is just but cold — without sentiment or feelings. It is not concerned about you the individual, but works by certain definite laws — and you must obey those laws or pay the price. &” “As you give life and your fellowman, so shall you receive from life and your fellowman: that is the inevitable law of compensation. — Give at all times now, the best there is in you thus will you find happiness and when you are happy, then your God will smile upon you.”

Indeed, Lahissa showed the way. He lived all phases of life and mastered its conditions, — was persecuted and prosecuted, until his earthly career was ended. And his spirit is still guiding into the ‘new’, when the teachings of all great teachers will be the accepted law of life: “Love, tolerance, forgiveness & the seeking of truth and understanding.”

The foundation has been laid. It is left to others to bring into being: The Brotherhood of Man.

–1934 THE LAHISSA TEMPLE-

The monument is near the west edge of the Ajo Cemetery.

I took all of the photos in this post.

May17

Cemetry Gates

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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I hadn’t been walking through the Ajo Cemetery (in Ajo, AZ) very long before the lyrics to the song “Cemetry Gates” by The Smiths were running through my head.

While I walked through the Ajo Cemetery I did what Morrissey and Johnny Marr must have done before they wrote the song: I read the headstones and I wondered about those people. Who were they? What were they like? What were their loves and hates and passions? Headstones really tell so little about those who have passed away.

Did anyone living remember the people buried in the ground under me, and if not, were the deceased in any position to care?

I took photos of some of the headstones I thought were particularly interesting, the ones that made me wish I knew the stories of the people buried beneath them. They were born. They lived. And now they’re dead, but we can remember them, even if we never knew them.

Dude! In 1869, a family named their little daughter Cindarella. How cool is that? I wonder if and how this woman's name shaped her.

Dude! In 1869, a family named their little baby daughter Cindarella. How cool is that? I wonder if and how this woman’s name shaped her life.

Why was Virginia Adeline Stevens called The Angel Lady? What did she do? Her headstone is featured on Findagrave.com, but I couldn’t find any information about her.

I think Wriston liked guitars. I would guess s/he played. But that’s just a guess.

Someone left a beverage for Canuto De La Torre. The Ajo Cemetery was the first place I say offerings of soft drinks left on graves.

Someone left a beverage for Canuto De La Torre. The Ajo Cemetery was the first place I saw offerings of soft drinks left on graves. Canuto is remembered.

Marjorie L. Allen is on the road again. I wonder if she was a fan of the song by Willie Nelson or the one sung by Canned Heat. Maybe this memorial reflects her personal philosophy. I think I would have enjoyed knowing her.

This marker looks handmade. I like that. I wonder what Tykie was like and what happened to him.

I like the "nature loving desert rat." That's that, folks, that's that.

I like “nature loving desert rat.” That’s that, folks. That’s that.

Listen to The Smiths sing “Cemetry Gates.”

I took all the photos in this post, except the album cover. That’s an Amazon associates link. If you click on the image, it will take you to Amazon where anything you put in your cart and purchase will earn me a small advertising fee.

[amazon template=image&asin=B002C39TU0]

May16

Ajo Cemetery

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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I was looking for a garage sale, but I found the cemetery instead.

I didn’t need more stuff, so I decided to walk through the cemetery instead of browsing through the discards of someone’s life. I ended up spending almost two hour there.

One thing I noticed about the cemetery is that based on last names, it seemed to be quite integrated. People with what seemed to me to be Anglo names were buried in close proximity to people with what seemed to me to be Latino/a names.

In addition to many professionally carved headstones, more than a few of the graves were marked by amateur endeavors. I liked the handmade crosses and handwritten signs. They seem more personal and loving than cold stone. Seeing people’s handwriting (sometimes messy, sometimes with letters ever-so-carefully written) made me recognize a real connection between the living and the dead. It’s easy for me to look at graves in a cemetery and think of the people buried there as in the abstract, but seeing the handwriting on grave markers as a connection between the living and their dead, made the dead seem more like real people.

I saw several things in the Ajo Cemetery that I’d never seen at other graveyards.

The first thing I saw was saguaros! In the cemetery! Saguaros in the cemetery! It wasn’t a huge shock, as the cemetery is in the Sonoran Desert and saguaros grow in the Sonoran Desert, but I was surprised to see the huge cacti. These were some seriously big saguaros, which means seriously old, saguaros. I’m glad they didn’t get pulled up or cut down to make room for the graveyard.

I love this photo with the two saguaros presiding over Ajo Cemetery with A mountain in the background. I wasn't even trying to get the mountain in the background, and I didn't realize the Ajo "A" would show up so clearly. This is one of those photos I look at and think, how did I do that?

I love this photo showing the two saguaros presiding over Ajo Cemetery while A Mountain stands in the background. I wasn’t even trying to get the mountain in the background, and I didn’t realize the Ajo “A” would show up so clearly. This is one of those photos I look at and think, How did I do that?

I’d never seen graves covered with painted gravel before, but I saw them at the Ajo Cemetery. I saw a couple of those, each with the gravel painted different, bright colors. I wonder why. Why gravel, I mean. I sort of understand people who think painted gravel looks prettier than plain gravel wanting to paint it, but why put gravel on a grave site in the first place? Maybe to try to keep the dust down?

When I visited the Old Kernville Cemetery (read about that experience here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/05/29/old-kernville-cemetery/), I encountered a couple of graves upon which an unopened Bud Light had been placed. In the Ajo Cemetery, I encountered grave sites upon which other beverages had been left. I saw bottles of water, Coca-Cola, and Jarritos. I wonder if this offering for the dead is particular to the dessert.

I saw several creepy things at the Ajo Cemetery.

The first creepy thing I saw was a rather disturbing inscription on the headstone marking a baby’s grave.

I’m not trying to be snarky or offensive about someone else’s grief or how that grief is expressed. I know that people mourn in different ways. Also, I give this family props for staying optimistic in the face of losing their baby. But I feel freaked out by this sentiment of “my baby’s dead, but God will send me a new baby, and I won’t even miss the old baby.” Let’s just say I don’t think this is the way I would grieve my lost child.

The second creepy thing I saw was a collapsing grave. Yes, I got as close as possible so I could look into the hole. Yes, I stepped gingerly, gauging my weight so I wouldn’t fall in. Yes, I experienced a mild fear of an arm reaching out and grabbing my ankle. No, I didn’t see a coffin or bones. No, nothing grabbed my ankle.

I hope someone comes along soon and repairs Donald P. Harrison’s grave.

The third creepy thing I saw harkens back to the DIY grave markers. It may be a bit difficult to believe that I actually encountered in a cemetery the grave represented in the next photo, but I promise you, the photo shows exactly what I saw.

I saw so many graves of children in this cemetery. It seemed like there were more children’s graves than I normally see in graveyards. Maybe Ajo was not only a town with families (as opposed to settlements populated with predominantly hard-living men), but a place where life was rough and survival was difficult. All of those graves of kids got to me, and I felt rather melancholy when I left.

I think cemeteries are making me sadder as I get older.

Ajo cemetery is located at 1181 Cedar Street in Ajo, Arizona.

I took all of the photos in this post.

May13

Arcosanti (Part 2)

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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The first thing my friend and I realized as we started the tour at Arcosanti was that visitors who were not on the tour were not allowed to walk freely through the community. I understand the reasoning; I’ve worked in the French Quarter and know that dingdong tourists running around the neighborhood can be a giant pain in the ass. I understand that people live at Arcosanti and the people living there don’t want visitors wandering into private areas. What I don’t understand is why the guy on the phone made it sound like we could see whatever we wanted for free if we didn’t want to take the tour. My friend and I later agreed we were glad she’d gotten the Culture Pass and glad we’d gone on the tour. I would have been sad had we gone all the way out there and only seen the Visitor Center Complex.

This photo shows one of the housing structures at Arcosanti.

The next thing my friend and I realized was that the senior citizens on the tour knew very little about intentional communities and cooperative living.

I’ve never lived in co-op housing, but through the years, I’ve had several friends who did. I understand the basic concepts.

The Fellowship of Intentional Community website says,

An “intentional community” is a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values.

This definition spans a wide variety of groups, including (but not limited to) communes, student cooperatives, land co-ops, cohousing groups, monasteries and ashrams, and farming collectives. Although quite diverse in philosophy and lifestyle, each of these groups places a high priority on fostering a sense of community–a feeling of belonging and mutual support that is increasingly hard to find in mainstream Western society.

Among secular communities, the inspiration [for launching a new community] is typically based on bold visions of creating a new social and economic order–establishing replicable models that will lead to the peaceful and ecological salvation of the planet.

This is what Arcosanti says about itself:

As an educational organization dedicated to learning-by-doing, developing the community is an important component of creating this urban prototype. We are not a planned community, but as Arcology city design suggests, as our diverse group of residents live, work and play in this integrated setting, culture and interaction are encouraged vs. dissipated.

Several of the senior citizens referred to Arcosanti as a commune during the tour. The use of the word commune to describe Arcosanti showed the preconceived notions of the visitors, because our tour guide never once used the term. The definition I found for commune (a group of people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities) is only 2/3 correct for Arcosanti, because while the folks there live together and share responsibilities, I don’t think they share possessions. (Well, maybe they share the means of production, but I don’t think they share personal property.) And the way those senior citizens said commune, it was obvious they were thinking free sex and reefers.

The first community area we visited was the foundry. The Arcosanti website calls the foundry,

a beautiful open air studio overlooking the Agua Fria River valley, shaded by a Siltcast Apse.

This photo shows the foundry/studio which is partially covered by a siltcast aspe.

We did not see a bronze pour on the day we visited, but because of my recent visit to Cosanti, I had a pretty good understanding of how the pour worked. If I hadn’t already been to a pour at Cosanti, I would

These are molds in the sand into which the molten metal is poured to form bells.

have felt a bit confused by the information given and disappointed to not get to see the molten metal which forms the bells.

The next place we went on the tour was an area consisting of an amphitheater ringed by living quarters. This is where the senior citizens asked a lot of questions and I lost what was left of my patience.

At some point in the tour, someone asked about car ownership at Arcosanti. Our tour guide said not everyone in the community owned a car, so folks carpooled when they went into town. This seemed to concern many of the folks on the tour. I didn’t own a car until I was well into my 30s, so carpooling doesn’t seem so strange to me, but some of these folks acted as if sharing a car were on par with several people sharing one pair of shoes.

Later, while the group was standing near the amphitheater, someone asked if there were any children in the community. Our guide said there were. In fact, she told us, three generations of a family live at Arcosanti. People in the group wanted to know if there were a school in the community. The guide said the children go to the nearest public school. But how do they get to school, someone asked with just the slightest edge of panic in the voice, if there aren’t enough cars? Our guide looked genuinely perplexed for a moment, as she had never said there weren’t enough cars. She’d only said folks shared cars and carpooled, but somehow that had been translated into a dearth of cars. Does the school bus come down that terrible road? someone wanted to know. (Much grumbling about the awful dirt road followed. I thought the road wasn’t so bad. Folks who thought that road was terrible better stay out of New Mexico.)

Notice the windows at the top of the living quarters in this photo. Those windows are made from sliding glass doors.

One woman had been looking at the living quarters which form a sort of open half circle around the seating area and stage. She voiced her concern about the sliding glass doors at the tops of the living quarters. What was to keep someone from simply walking out of those doors and falling two stories, she wanted to know. Our guide explained the sliding glass doors were not level with the floor, there was a barrier of a couple of feet between the bottom of the doors and the floor. Well, in California, there are codes! she said. That’s where my patience ended and I muttered not quite under my breath, That’s why we don’t live in California! My friend looked at me and said, This is the Wild West, baby! Then she pointed the thumb and forefingers of both hands like six shooters and used them to shoot imaginary bullets into the air while saying Pew! Pew! Pew! (That’s her sound for bullets being shot.) She and I started laughing, and I didn’t care what the senior citizens thought.

This is what I don’t understand: if a person thinks the way s/he lives is the only correct and proper way to live, why would that person bother to leave his or her neighborhood and look at anything else? (But I digress.)

After the tour, my friend and I thought about eating in the Arcosanti cafe. The food smells coming from in there were so good! I was ready to plunk $10 for the lunch buffet. My friend went and checked it out and didn’t see anything on the line that fit into her dietary restrictions, so we headed out

I did enjoy my visit to Arcosanti and applaud the work being done there

to embody a “Lean Alternative” to hyper consumption and wastefulness through more frugal, efficient, smart, yet elegant city designs.

May12

Arcosanti (Part 1)

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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My friend had never been to Arcosanti, and asked me if I wanted to go there with her after we visited Cosanti. I said yes to Arcosanti too, especially when I found out we could use a Phoenix Library Culture Pass to take the tour for free.

(According to the Phoenix Public Library website,

A Culture Pass gives a library customer FREE admission for two people at participating arts and cultural institutions. Passes are available on a first-come, first-served basis. They cannot be renewed; they cannot be placed on hold.

Customers are limited to one pass per family at any one time, up to two passes per month.)

The Arcosanti website says,

Arcosanti is an urban laboratory focused on innovative design, community, and environmental accountability.
Our goal is to actively pursue lean alternatives to urban sprawl based on Paolo Soleri’s theory of compact city design, Arcology (architecture + ecology).

This photo shows some of the buildings of Arcosanti.

Built by over 7,000 volunteers since the commencement of the project in 1970, Arcosanti provides various mixed-use buildings and public spaces where people live, work, visit, and participate in educational and cultural programs.

Every year Arcosanti welcomes 50,000 visitors who come and experience firsthand the vision and architecture of this vibrant educational community in the beautiful high desert of central Arizona. If you have a few hours you can enjoy a site tour, a meal in our café and a visit to the gallery selling our world renowned Soleri Windbells.

Before my friend picked up the Culture Pass, we discussed if we really wanted to go on the tour or if we wanted to go to Arcosanti and just look around on our own. My friend even called Arcosanti to find out what we could see if we didn’t take the tour. The guy on the phone made it sound like we could could walk around the place at our own pace if we decided against the tour. But we decided if we could take the tour for free with the Culture Pass, it would be silly not to. (For folks with no access to a Culture Pass, tours are a $10 suggested donation.)

We arrived early for the eleven o’clock tour.

Looking down from the top floor of the Visitor Center Complex to a room below.

From I-17, we took the Arcosanti Road exit (exit 263) and then drove the mile and a half down a dirt road to get to community.

We climbed the stairs to the top of the Visitor Center Complex, where my friend showed our Culture Pass to the guy at the counter. The Visitor Center Complex houses the cafe (from which the smells of delicious food were emanating), some exhibits pertaining to Arcosanti (such as a cardboard model of the community and a retired crucible from the foundry), and lots and lots of brass Soleri Windbells for sale.

The crucible was quite interesting. According to the handwritten sign posted next to it,

[a] crucible is used inside a furnace to heat ingots of metal into a molten state in order to be poured into molds.

We could have used that kind of information during our visit to Cosanti!

The sign further stated,

[t]his crucible has participated in over 250 pours in Arcosanti’s bronze foundry, producing many of the bells here in the gallery.

The Visitor Center Complex is open in the center. One can stand on the too floor and look down into the cafe below.

This is the view of the cafe seating down below.

As my friend and I looked at the bells (bells! bells! bells!), an Arcosanti representative (a volunteer? an employee? a community member?) approached us and said the tour would start soon, when a group taking the tour arrived. She said the tour would begin with a video, so my friend and I went to the video viewing area and took seats.

Another view in the Visitor Center Complex, this one looking down and outside.

It wasn’t long before a large group of well-dressed senior citizens (probably 40 to 50 people) filled the video viewing area. There was some old-man banter between the man sitting next to my friend and one of his buddies; my friend and I rolled our eyes at each other.

The video was quite informative and told a lot about Arcosanti and its founder, Paolo Soleri.

According to the Arcosanti website,

Through his work as an architect, urban designer, artist, craftsman, and philosopher, Paolo Soleri explored the countless possibilities of human aspiration. One outstanding endeavor is Arcosanti, an urban laboratory, constructed in the Arizona high desert. It attempts to test and demonstrate an alternative human habitat which is greatly needed in this increasingly perplexing world. This project also exemplifies his steadfast devotion to creating an experiential space to “prototype” an environment in harmony with man.

When the video was over, the large group was split into two groups, each with a tour guide to show the visitors around the grounds. Our group first looked at the cardboard model of Arcosanti, then we moved outside.

Because the story of Arcosanti looks to be a long one, I will continue it in a second part.

If you want to visit Arcosanti, it

is located one and a half miles (unpaved road) Northeast of Arcosanti Road (exit 263) on I-17, near Cordes Junction, North of Phoenix.

I took all of the photos in this post..

May10

Cosanti

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Blaize Sun

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My friend asked me if I wanted to visit Cosanti. I wasn’t even sure what Cosanti was, but when she said free, I was in.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosanti,

Cosanti is the gallery and studio of Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri and was his residence until his death in 2013. Located in Paradise Valley, Arizona, USA, it is open to the public. Cosanti is marked by terraced landscaping, experimental earth-formed concrete structures, and its sculptural wind-bells.

Paolo Soleri invented the word Cosanti…[by] fus[ing] two Italian words, cosa (meaning “things”, “property”, “matter”, “business”) and anti (“against”).

The structures at Cosanti include the original “Earth House” (which is partially underground), student dormitories, outdoor studios, performance space, swimming pool, gift shop, and Soleri’s residence. All are set amidst courtyards, terraces, and garden paths.

Location and orientation of the buildings is significant. Many structures have been placed under ground level and are surrounded by mounds of earth so as to be insulated naturally, year round, for moderation of their interior temperatures. Soleri also designed south-facing apses (partial domes) situated as passive energy collectors, accepting light and heat in the lower winter sun, deflecting it and creating shade in the higher summer sun.

Cosanti (and the related Arcosanti project) are famous for bells which help fund them. (The Arcosanti website [https://arcosanti.org/cosanti] describes them as bronze Windbells.) My friend had been to Cosanti before, but had never seen the pouring of the bells. We went on a bell-pouring day. (Some days bells are poured at Cosanti, and some days no bells are poured. If you want to see the bells being poured, call ahead [(480) 948-6145] and get the schedule.)

We knew bells would be poured during certain hours (9am to noon, I think), but no particular time was promised for a pouring event. We arrived at approximately 10am and walked around the grounds.

There were no informational signs on the grounds of Cosanti. When we arrived, we knew we were in the right place thanks to the welcome sign near the driveway (pictured at the top of this post). After that we were on our own. There were no signs explaining the function of any of the buildings or how those buildings were constructed. There were no docents milling about answering questions.

This is the foundry where the bells are poured. While we watched, a half dozen men scurried around making preparations. The boxes on the ground hold the molds.

We stopped at the foundry to see what was happening there. The foundry is where the metal is melted and the bells are poured.

This is the red-hot hole in the floor of the foundry.

In the floor of the foundry, there is a red-hot hole. Solid chunks of metal were being fed into the red-hot hole to melt.

While the metal was melting, half a dozen men were moving around the foundry, preparing the molds. The molds are made from sand contained in boxes before, during, and after the pour (until the molten metal hardens).

My friend and I had some questions, so we went into the gift shop, looking for free information. There was no free brochures or pamphlets telling the history of Cosanti or discussing its current function. There was a Cosanti guidebook in the gift shop, but the price on it was $10.

No way was I going to spend $10 on something I was probably only going to look at once. I understand selling a book with lots of information about the project and its founder, but it seems like the more casual visitor might just need one page explaining the basics. (My friend flipped through the display copy of the $10 guide until she found the answers to her questions.)

The gift shop was filled with bells for sale. We looked around, but neither of us bought anything. (My friend’s family has two Arcosanti bells, both of which were gifts. I don’t have anywhere to hang a bell, even if the $32+ price tag were in my budget.)

My friend and I walked around the grounds some more and looked at buildings for which we had no context. When we made it back to the foundry, we found life there was getting exciting. Two men had donned protective jackets and protective chaps with covered the fronts of their pants. They’d also put on helmets with protective plastic shields. They looked serious.

Working together, the two men removed the crucible filled with molten metal from the red-hot hole. They carried the crucible between them, each holding a long pole on either side of the extremely hot pot. They brought the crucible over to the line of sand molds and carefully poured molten metal into each mold.

After the pouring ended, one of the workers answered questions from the onlookers. Then it was all over until the next pour.

I did enjoy my visit to Cosanti, although I wish there had been more educating happening. It was neat to see the bells being poured. (Who’s not impressed by a red-hot hole, a glowing crucible, and molten metal?) I would go back, but only because it’s free.

Cosanti is located at 6433 E Doubletree Ranch Road, Paradise Valley, Arizona.

I took all of the photos in this post.

Rubber Tramp Artist

One woman's stories, rants, and observations

Tag Archives: Arizona

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Arcosanti (Part 2)

Arcosanti (Part 1)

Cosanti