JAVA Sept 2019

282 •SEPT 2019 

DAVID TYDA • ERIC KASPER • LOUIS FARBER • RAVEN CHACON

Lucibela 

Sat., September 21 | 7:30 p.m. 

$38.50–$48.50 

“The charm of Cape Verdean music is 

this alluring alchemy of joy and wistfulness. 

Lucibela knows this all too well.” 

—NPR 

Upcoming Concerts 

Kawehi 

September 7 

Greg Laswell 


Southern Avenue 


Stephen Kellogg 

and Will Hoge 


Gerald Clayton Quartet 

October 1 

Bettye LaVette 

October 8 

SFJAZZ Collective 

October 24 

And many more! 

2019 Concert Series sponsored by 

MIM.org | 480.478.6000 | 4725 E. Mayo Blvd., Phoenix, AZ

CONTENTS 

8 

12 

22 

30 

34 

FEATURES 

Cover: Casandra Hernández Faham 

Photo by: Rembrandt Quiballo 

8 12 22 

34 

CASANDRA HERNÁNDEZ FAHAM 

Cultural Changemaker 

By Rembrandt Quiballo 

DAVID TYDA 

Culinary Fests & Community Building 

By Jeff Kronenfeld 

HOT HOT SUMMER 

Photography : 

Miguel Angel Valenzuela 

LOUIS FARBER 

Theatrical Collaborations 

By John Perovich 

BELIEF: THE ART OF ERIC KASPER 

By Jenna Duncan 

COLUMNS 

7 

16 

20 

38 

40 

BUZZ 

Changemakers 

By Robert Sentinery 

ARTS 

Emotions at Royse Contemporary 

By Justen Siyuan Waterhouse 

Raven Chacon 

Still Life No. 3 

By Mikey Foster Estes 

FOOD FETISH 

Los Arbolitos de Cajeme 

Mexican Seafood 

By Sloane Burwell 

GIRL ON FARMER 

Adventures in Debt 

By Celia Beresford 

NIGHT GALLERY 

Photos by Robert Sentinery 

JAVA MAGAZINE 

EDITOR & PUBLISHER 

Robert Sentinery 

ART DIRECTOR 

Victor Vasquez 

ARTS EDITOR 

Rembrandt Quiballo 

FOOD EDITOR 

Sloane Burwell 

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 

Jenna Duncan 

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS 

Celia Beresford 

Mikey Foster Estes 

Kevin Hanlon 

Jeff Kronenfeld 

Ashley Naftule 

Matthew Villar Miranda 

Morgan Moore 

John Perovich 

Tom Reardon 

Justen Siyuan Waterhouse 

PROOFREADER 

Patricia Sanders 

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS 

Enrique Garcia 

Johnny Jaffe 

Miguel Angel Valenzuela 

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Java Magazine 

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Reproduction in whole or in part of any text, photograph 

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permission of the publisher. The publisher does not 

assume responsibility for unsolicited submissions. 

Publisher assumes no liability for the information 

contained herein; all statements are the sole opinions 

of the contributors and/or advertisers. 

JAVA MAGAZINE 

PO Box 45448 Phoenix, AZ 85064 

email: javamag@cox.net 

tel: (480) 966-6352 

www.javamagaz.com 

4 JAVA 

MAGAZINE

CONTINUITY OF ART 

Come experience painting 

demonstrations with Jeff Slim 

(Diné), and Deon Mitchell (Diné). 

Join DJ REFLEKSHIN for a 

night of cool beats, and a fun 

evening full of art! 

OPEN FOR FIRST FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, FROM 6-10 P.M. | FREE GENERAL ADMISSION 

Heard Museum | 2301 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004 | heard.org

BUZZ 

CHANGEMAKERS 

By Robert Sentinery 

Welcome to a new season of arts and culture from the heart of Phoenix. This 

month, we present several leaders from different disciplines – arts, culinary, 

theatre and more – who are promoting forward thinking and positive change 

throughout the Valley. 

Casandra Hernández Faham is the executive director of the CALA Alliance, an 

arts organization whose progressive programming is changing the way we think 

about Latin American and Latinx art. Their ongoing series Crossfade LAB brings 

local and international Latin leaders to the Crescent Ballroom for evening of 

provocative discussions and performance. 

Casandra’s story is poignant because of the challenges she has faced, and 

continues to face, as an immigrant from Hermosillo, Mexico. Despite the great 

cultural contributions she has made to this city in her 18 years here, she 

still struggles with residency and visa issues. In 2011, she was even denied 

access back to the US for an unimaginable period after attending her cousin’s 

wedding in Hermosillo. Yet she continues build cultural bridges with grace 

and fortitude and we are lucky to have her (see “Casandra Hernández Faham: 

Cultural Changemaker,” p. 8). 

David Tyda has a quick wit and an unstoppable sense of humor that lightens the 

magnitude of his undertakings. As an original cofounder of Arizona Taco Fest, 

Tyda managed to flip the paradigm of food fests, changing them from haughty, 

high-dollar affairs to laidback affordable events for the people. The results were 

astonishing, with more than 10,000 people showing up to eat tacos, imbibe 

tequila and soak up the atmosphere. 

Recently Tyda, sold off his share of the storied Scottsdale fest in order to focus 

on his three downtown offerings: Phoenix Pizza and Phoenix Donut festivals and 

Fried: French Fry and Music Festival all held at Hance park in the heart Phoenix. 

Rumor has it that Tyda is working on something a little more permanent, as in 

brick-and-mortar, but as of press time, details are unconfirmed (see “David Tyda: 

Culinary Fests & Community Building,” p. 12). 

Louis Farber is an actor and director in Phoenix’s budding theatre scene. He is 

perhaps best known for his uncanny ability to collaborate. A quick rundown of 

the shows he has coming up encompasses at least five different companies, 

including Stray Cat, Scorpius, and BLK BOX, all important players in the 

emergence of grass-roots theatre in Phoenix – an art form, which has traditional 

been dominated by a few major companies with limited agendas (see “Louis 

Farber: Theatrical Collaborations,” p. 30). 

Finally, Eric Kasper is a painter whose work is designed to shock viewers out 

of their complicity. One of his targets in particular is organized religion. 

This hot-button issue has resulted in Kasper’s work being censored and 

literally removed from the walls of one exhibition. His new show entitled 

“Belief” opens September 16 at Eric Fischl Gallery in Phoenix and promises to 

be controversial. The paintings are large, so large that some will have to be 

removed from their frames in order to be moved into the gallery (see “Belief: the 

Art of Eric Kasper,” p. 34). 

Cold Brew & Nitro Coffee 

Now available in cans 

at Valley locations 

Email hello@roc2.coffee for locations 

www.roc2.coffee

By Rembrandt Quiballo 

Photo: Rembrandt Quiballo 


MAGAZINE

Crossfade LAB with Calexico and Rita Indiana (October 2016) 

Photo: Lamp Left Media 

We Are Currents: A Conversation on Water with 

Natalie Diaz and Ana Maria Alvarez 


Casandra Hernández Faham strives to create 

community. She does this by producing 

inclusive and imaginative programming 

with some of the most vital organizations 

in the Valley. In doing so, she wants to cultivate 

constructive narratives that we can build on for a 

more hopeful future. 

Recently, Hernández Faham was recognized for her 

work and selected for the National Arts Strategies 

Chief Executive Program. She’s part of a prestigious 

group that will “explore leadership and strengthen 

their efforts to drive change in their organizations, 

communities and in the cultural field.” She will 

collaborate and connect with community leaders 

all over the world in order to address some of the 

toughest challenges here in our region. 

Hernández Faham was born and raised in Hermosillo, 

Mexico. Her mother owned a bakery specializing in 

healthy goods. She even had a television cooking 

show that Casandra would participate in from time 

to time. While her hometown was not considered 

a cultural hub, she was exposed to culture early 

on. “Growing up in Hermosillo, I was very much 

interested in history, the social sciences, and art 

– even though, at that time, there weren’t a lot of 

opportunities to see art,” she said. “There weren’t 

a lot of museums. But my mom always had us take 

classes, and we were immersed in it.” 

When Hernández Faham was about to graduate from 

high school, her mother was given the opportunity 

to teach English in Phoenix as part of a bilingual 

education program. Her mother had grown weary 

of the realities of the political system in Mexico 

and knew she could only do so much within their 

current situation. Casandra’s parents also saw this 

as a chance for their daughter and younger son to 

pursue a better education and, hopefully, open up to 

more opportunities. 

Adjusting to a new city and a new country was 

difficult for Hernández Faham at first. She started 

taking classes at Mesa Community College, but felt 

lost. All the things that had been interesting to her 

and that she excelled at, which were dependent 

on language, had been taken away due to her 

challenges with English at the time. “I spoke some 

English, but it was hard to navigate. I had taken it in 

school, but it was by no means a language that I felt 

comfortable with or one that would allow me to truly 

express myself. So I had this kind of double crisis of 

becoming an adult and choosing a career path while 

also feeling completely displaced.” 

After getting through this difficult period, Hernández 

Faham eventually graduated from Arizona 

State University with a degree in anthropology. 

She thought she would work at a traditional 

museum but instead found herself working at an 

archeological site run by ASU – the Deer Valley 

Petroglyph Preserve – in northwest Phoenix. She 

became a part-time teaching assistant at ASU and 

ended up staying for graduate school. 

Casandra worked at the preserve for nine years, 

starting at the front desk and eventually becoming the 

education and programs manager. “I’ve always had a 

passion for the arts,” she said. “But I trained as a social 

scientist, and I found myself in a very straightforward 

social science environment. Then I met a really good 

JAVA 9 

MAGAZINE



friend, Mary Stephens. She was coming out of theater 

(Performance in the Borderlands), which I found really 

fascinating, and we started talking about our common 

interests. Then we started producing work together.” 

One of the more memorable events Hernández Faham 

helped produce involved Nemcatacoa Teatro, an arts 

collective from Bogota, Colombia. The performances 

featured dramatic white costumes with elements of 

dance and skilled acrobatics with stilts. They touched 

on the loss of land and the erasure of identities in 

the desert. “I saw how different it was to open up 

conversations through an artistic space as opposed to 

an intellectual space,” she said. “I saw people being 

moved. I saw people open up and reflect in ways that 

I hadn’t seen at any lecture context – or academic 

context – and I think I was hooked at that point.” 

Hernández Faham flourished in school and was 

thriving in her field, but not without some uncertainty. 

She would face constant challenges concerning 


MAGAZINE 


her residency in the United States. The whole 

family was supposed to be able to live, work, 

and go to school in the United States through 

her mother’s job. But the combination of an error 

during the visa application process and Hernandez 

ceasing to be a dependent of her mother would 

leave her in immigration limbo. 

“I don’t think a lot of people know that I’ve been 

on every type of visa imaginable for eighteen 

years,” she said. “It’s been a real journey. 

Sometimes I don’t talk about it because compared 

to the experience of so many others, I have it easy. 

I am very privileged in many ways, but sometimes 

I feel like people don’t understand. A lot of us are 

walking around carrying stories, and these are 

kind of secrets we have. We are expected to fulfill 

our responsibilities in the same way as everybody 

else, but we don’t have the same means or the 

same opportunities.” 

Photo: Ash Ponders 

“In 2011, my cousin got married in Hermosillo,” she 

said. “I had already been working here with a work 

visa. I went to the wedding, and to come back, all I 

had to do was this very straightforward visa process 

at the consulate – like a next-day kind of process. 

Long story short, they denied my visa and told me 

that they didn’t believe that I should have been here 

in the first place, even though I had every document 

to prove that I had already been living and working 

here. So I was there for two months fighting for the 

right to come back to my life. Again, it feels very 

strange to share this story because I know so many 

other stories that are absolutely gut-wrenching. But 

this is the one I have – it is mine.” 

Hernández Faham would continue to help artists 

create and connect at the Arizona Commission on 

the Arts. She received a grant to craft a statewide 

pilot program for artists called AZ Artworker, which 

continues to this day. It went a long way in putting

Conversation with Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra (October 2017) 


the work of Arizona artists in conversation with 

work happening in other places through workshops, 

collaborations, and networking. It also allowed 

Casandra to work more closely with artists and 

understand their perspectives. “Sometimes we 

take for granted the resiliency of artists,” she said. 

“Historically, artists have made work in some of the 

most difficult and precarious conditions. It’s very 

humbling to understand their perspectives, to see 

how the work really happens, and realize just how 

haphazard the support has been and continues to be.” 

Hernández Faham’s current position is executive 

director for CALA Alliance (Celebración Artística 

de las Américas), a Latino arts organization that 

has been providing the Valley with meaningful and 

progressive programming. The most visible program 

is an event series called Crossfade LAB, which gives 

a platform to “internationally known Latinx and Latin 

American artists from Arizona, the United States, 

and the Americas.” These events are both thought 

provoking and entertaining, with conversations about 

politics, art, and the current issues we face as a 

society. They have featured Grammy award–winning 

musicians, experimental composers, and acclaimed 

performance artists. 

“At CALA we’re very interested in what is 

happening right now, so we work with contemporary 

artists,” Hernández Faham said. “We have a lot of 

respect for tradition and a lot of respect for these 

incredible lineages of artists that have shaped the 

conversations happening now, but we’re very much 

interested in the art that is being made in our times, 

that is thrusting our imagination forward.” 

Another CALA initiative is the GDL>>PHX Residencias 

Artísticas. Latinx artists from Phoenix are given the 

opportunity to travel to Guadalajara, and artists 

from Guadalajara come here, in a kind of cultural 

exchange. In doing so, they are able to advance their 

art practices and experiment with new techniques in 

the context of these two rich cultures entwined in the 

complexities of today’s politics. This kind of cultural 

engagement is now even more important as Arizona 

becomes a flashpoint for larger national debates. 

“I feel like there is a lot of anxiety here that comes 

from this imaginary landscape that a group of people 

have created for themselves that has nothing to do 

with the history of this place, with the environment, 

and the realities of geopolitical movements. I don’t 

know how long we can go on hanging on to these 

narratives that are not serving us as a society. This is 

not good for anybody, and I want to see that change. 

Nationally, we are having a conversation that I have 

never seen in my time in the U.S. Obviously, it is also 

happening within the very painful context of people 

literally losing their lives and kids being caged. We 

have an opportunity to really reflect upon what we 

value as a society and whether we actually want to 

build up and sustain that.” 

Crossfade LAB: La Santa Cecilia and Dolores Dorantes 

Monday, Oct. 7, 7 p.m. at Crescent Ballroom 

GDL>>PHX: Residencias Artísticas with Karian Amaya 

Sept. 3 – Oct. 12 

Sabor: A Culinary Celebration of Baja 

Thursday, Nov. 14, 6 p.m. at Heard Museum 

calaalliance.org


MAGAZINE 

Photo: Jeff Kronenfeld

Photos: Jacob Tyler Dunn 

For David Tyda, food festivals are about more 

than heavenly mashups like pizza fries or 

churro tacos. When discussing his downtown 

festivals, Fried: French Fry and Music 

Festival, Phoenix Donut Festival, or Phoenix Pizza 

Festival, Tyda closes his eyes and describes a 

heartbeat emerging from the sounds of the crowd, 

the music, and even the click of an inspector’s pen. 

Though he waxes poetic about food carts, love, 

and art theory, his hunger is guttural, too. Having 

recently sold his stake in the Arizona Taco Festival 

after nearly a decade, he confesses to eating 

tacos as often as three times a day to cope with his 

withdrawal. For the magazine editor turned Phoenix 

finger food impresario, the way to a community’s 

heart is through its stomach. 

Born and raised in Chicago, Tyda moved to the Valley 

to attend Arizona State University in 1994. Initially, 

he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, though in time 

he gravitated to a recently created interdisciplinary 

humanities program. He was fascinated by the 

progression of ideas through history, especially 

art theory. Predictably, friends of his parents were 

incredulous about such impractical pursuits, always 

quick to ask what kind of job he could land with such 

a degree. However, Tyda had the last laugh. “I was 

the first one of my friends with a job out of college,” 

Tyda recalled with obvious relish. 

Tyda had gotten that job by answering an ad in 

the State Press for an internship with Ritz-Carlton 

Magazine, which was custom-published in Phoenix at 

that time. He took quickly to the magazine business, 

finding his wide-ranging studies in college prepared 

him well to cover beats as diverse as real estate, 

politics, art, music, fashion, and, of course, food. 

By 23, he was directing fashion shoots, conducting 

interviews, writing articles, and designing layouts. 

Not afraid to learn on the job or put in long hours, he 

quickly rose through the ranks until opportunity – and 

Sin City – came knocking. 

In 2000, Tyda became the editor-in-chief for Las 

Vegas Magazine, a publication struggling to maintain 

readership and profitability. Tyda poured himself 

into rebuilding the publication in a dizzying whir 

of activity. Though constantly on deadline due to 

the small staff, there were also perks. At the time, 

nightclubs were expanding rapidly into Las Vegas, 

entering into casinos that had formerly been the 


MAGAZINE

Photo: Jacob Tyler Dunn 

province of gambling and shows almost exclusively. 

As editor, he got invites and comped tickets with 

ease, and hobnobbed with celebrities at exclusive 

parties. “I do remember it was always fascinating 

to me that Robin Leach would remember my 

name whenever I ran into him,” Tyda said of his 

encounters with the host of a popular show whose 

intimate portraits of the rich and famous anticipated 

the rise of social media influencers. “I felt like I had a 

key to the city.” 

A victim of his own success, the magazine ended 

up selling to Greenspun Media Group, a company 

that owned daily and weekly papers, plus a slew 

of magazines, in Las Vegas – leaving Tyda jobless. 

However, his former boss had been impressed by 

the young man’s four-year tenure and offered Tyda a 

position as editor of Desert Living Magazine, if he was 

willing to return to the Valley. Tyda accepted, coming 

back to Arizona in 2004. He instantly gelled with 

the magazine’s staff and enjoyed the publication’s 

focus on modern architecture and design. He helmed 

Desert Living for six years, as the economic downturn 

felled the magazine’s advertisers one by one. The 

publication finally gave up the ghost in 2009. 


MAGAZINE 

Photo: Flargus 

After that, Tyda used his near decade of experience 

in media to start EaterAZ, a food blog, with a friend. 

Though ultimately the blog didn’t generate enough 

profit for both partners to pay the bills, it did help 

lead Tyda toward his future as a food festival founder 

and organizer. While working on a story for the 

website, Tyda met and befriended a locally based 

competitive barbeque team. He learned how the 

group traveled to competitions across the country to 

compete and win real money. The team suggested 

Tyda set up such a competition in the Valley, given his 

connections with restaurateurs and his promotional 

experience. “Back then, most of the food festivals 

were a higher ticket price and very exclusive 

events. You had to get dressed up,” Tyda said. “We 

wanted something affordable, where you could 

wear sandals, throw on sunblock, and just go with 

a group of friends.” 

Tyda and a partner threw the first Arizona Barbecue 

Festival in 2010 near the banks of the Arizona Canal 

in Scottsdale. Though now the site, just across 

from Olive and Ivy Restaurant, has been developed, 

then, it was an empty dirt lot without facilities. As 

when starting in print, Tyda learned on the fly. He 

recruited food vendors, negotiated permits, obtained 


insurance, scheduled musicians, and saw to the 

other necessary details. When the day finally came, 

attendance far exceeded even the most optimistic 

projections. In less than 24 hours, a city of 10,000 

carnivores rose and fell. Given the success and thrill 

of the event, Tyda and his partner quickly went about 

planning the first Arizona Taco Festival (ATF). 

Fast-forwarding six months, ATF also proved a 

big success, again drawing in excess of 10,000 

attendees. Planning for the event brought Tyda into 

contact with a host of new food truck operators. 

Though now food carts are as ubiquitous as 

Starbucks – even becoming the subject for a Jon 

Favreau film – then, the phenomenon was more novel 

to the streets of Phoenix. For many vendors, the event 

was their first festival. Tyda had yet to develop the 

guidebook and set of equations that he uses today. 

Despite the challenges, he struck on a model for 

throwing affordable food festivals that benefited 

chefs, cities, communities, and attendees’ stomachs. 

Tyda also discovered he fed off the energy of the 

events. “I could just hear these throngs of people. 

There’s a DJ here and a band over there,” Tyda 

recalled as he paints the scene with sweeping arm


motions. “I had this moment where I swear I could 

hear the heartbeat of the festival.” 

Over the years, the festivals migrated from Old 

Town Scottsdale to Salt River Fields, which was 

better set up to serve the ever-growing number 

of attendees and vendors. Five years ago, Tyda 

threw the first Phoenix Pizza Festival, shifting his 

focus to events that activated the city’s resurgent 

urban core. He scheduled it for the Saturday before 

Thanksgiving, hoping the event would serve as a 

fitting commencement to a week of gorging. It rapidly 

hit capacity. “Once you put the words pizza and 

festival together, people are like, ‘Where do I sign?’” 

Tyda said with a laugh. 

Though the first pizza festival occurred in Heritage 

Square, Tyda shifted the venue to Margaret T. 

Hance Park for the second, where it has remained 

since. Given the park’s location at the nexus of 

urban bike trails, neighborhoods, and downtown, 

Tyda partnered with bicycle advocacy nonprofit 

Phoenix Spokespeople to encourage cycling by 

offering bike valet parking. He also partnered with 

Downtown Phoenix Inc., a community development 

group promoting downtown revitalization, which is 

the event’s charitable beneficiary. Though the taco 


festival continued to be successful, and Tyda even 

helped establish others in states across the US, after 

his first event in downtown Phoenix, he knew that 

was where he wanted to be. 

As an interesting side note, in 2018 Tyda partnered 

with Mario Lopez – famous for portraying “Saved 

by the Bell” character A.C. Slater – to host an event 

called Cinco de Mario that didn’t connect quite as 

well as others, partially due to Tyda’s ambivalence 

about the concept. “It was a well-executed event. 

Because not a lot of people were there, it made for a 

wonderful guest experience,” Tyda said with a shrug. 

“Cinco de Mario was kind of a dark period.” 

However, the event did have the positive outcome 

of cementing Tyda’s decision to focus on projects 

grounded within the local community. Lisa Duffield, 

the “logistics queen” of Taco Fest, continued to 

partner with Tyda on his downtown events. He 

recalled they developed the initial concept for Fried: 

French Fry and Music Festival upon realizing that 

April 20, 2019, was a Saturday. April 20 – aka 420 – 

has special significance in the cannabis community, 

so they discussed what was the ultimate munchy. 

After considerable debate, they decided on french 

fries. Tyda invited restaurants to participate that 

Photo: Zee Peralta 

weren’t necessarily known for fries. He encouraged 

them to experiment, with festival goers getting to try 

everything from several varieties of Canadian-staple 

poutine to more unique dishes such as pizza fries, clam 

chowder fries, and apple pie fries, to name a few. 

With future projects in the works, Tyda is excited 

to continue to bring people together in downtown 

Phoenix. For him, the connections forged at his 

events are the real reward. Perhaps his strongest 

example was the story of a couple whose first date 

took place at the first or second Taco Fest. When the 

man was preparing to propose, he reached out to 

Tyda for help. Tyda talked to Don Jose Mexican Grill, 

who arranged a heart-shaped taco platter with a ring 

in the middle. Tyda had the man’s partner called to 

the podium under the pretext of winning a contest. 

“How many of those synergistic moments lead to 

something like that proposal up on stage? I just 

dig that about festivals, these atoms colliding 

and then creating other things,” Tyda explained. 

“It’s ephemeral. I dig that part of it, that you can 

create something out of thin air – these memories for 

people – and then it’s gone.” 


MAGAZINE

ARTS 

EMOTIONS 

at Royse Contemporary 

Justen Siyuan Waterhouse 

Art is a profession that requires skills in every odd 

trade – patching walls, drafting press releases, 

sweeping floors, cultivating patron relations, and 

more – besides the more visible craft of making 

art. Artists have the benefit of being identified 

with their labor; if they show up with paint on 

their sleeves, all the more authentic! But curators 

and art administrators, whose job it is to create the 

infrastructure of public access, take pride in the myriad 

invisible labors done in the name of culture. Longtime 

Phoenix curator Nicole Royse practices this truism 

both at her gallery, Royse Contemporary, and as a 

writer and consultant for other galleries in the Valley. 

“I’m a one-woman show: I sand and paint the walls, 

I keep up the website, I write the press releases,” 

Nicole related over the phone from her gallery 

in Scottsdale. Emotions, her most recent show, 

falls around the gallery’s two-year anniversary. 

Her dedication to the gallery and the artists she 

represents comes from a personal place. “Art has 

always been a way for me to express my feelings. I 

had a rough childhood growing up, and art became 

an outlet for me to reconnect.” Besides her own 

art practice, Nicole is passionate about supporting 

local artists, often inviting artists outside of the 

gallery’s representation to exhibit alongside her 

stable of artists. 

Every group show is an opportunity to bring in a 

new artist Nicole has her eye on. Casey Wakefield 

is a painter whose hard work and dedication caught 

Nicole’s attention at an art marketing workshop 

Nicole held last year. “Casey has been working really 

hard to connect with the arts community and push 

her own practice. She is a perfect fit for this show 

because her work has many emotional connections 

behind the canvas.” 

Diane Sanborn is an academic artist whom Nicole 

was eager to work with because of Diane’s passion 

for the arts – both through her visual art practice and 

her commitment as an arts educator. “Diane pours 

all of her energy into her teaching, but she also has 

an incredible body of work. She spent many years 

teaching in the arts through her own arts organization 

in Scottsdale, so I was always careful to pay 

attention to her.” 

Nicole views her own role as an arts writer and 

consultant for other galleries as sharing the same 

purpose as her gallery. “I do work all over for a 

number of other spaces. I work to support the arts. I 

want to see artists in the media. And I want to see 

people coming out to enjoy the arts.” 

Nicole’s passion for promoting the arts began on 

Roosevelt Row in the late 2000s when she started 

curating at MonOrchid. She recalls the earlier days 

of the First Friday Art Walk bustle and the artists 

she met through working at the gallery. Over time, 

however, Nicole felt that the once-a-month program 

lost its initial energy to capitalize on the Art Walk 

audience. “First Friday isn’t what it used to be. 

There used to be double the number of galleries on 

Roosevelt Row, when the Art Walk used to really 


MAGAZINE

e about highlighting the galleries and their artists. 

The music and the street fairs, while wonderful, 

detracted from the original purpose. I would see 

three to five thousand people walk through the doors 

of MonOrchid from 6 to 10 p.m., but their primary 

interest wasn’t necessarily the art.” 

After working on Roosevelt Row for so many 

years, Nicole felt the need to plant her practice in 

Scottsdale, where an established arts district and the 

influx of young patrons are providing fertile ground 

for her business. “There are new high-rise condos, 

lots of businesses, and more young professionals 

supporting the arts here,” Nicole said. The Scottsdale 

ArtWalk, which runs weekly (Thursday evenings) 

instead of on a monthly schedule, provides more 

opportunities to promote and engage with artists 

and patrons. With increasing support from the City of 

Scottsdale for the ArtWalk, Nicole feels her location 

better provides the opportunities she wants to pass 

along to her artists. 

Looking to the future, Nicole is eager to continue her 

work as a promoter for artists. The September show, 

Emotions, showcases five local artists exploring the 

theme through idiosyncratic styles and free-form 

textures on canvas. “This exhibition offers an eclectic 

selection of work, with artists working in painting, 

collage, and mixed media, highlighting art that is 

visceral, authentic, and engaging,” writes Nicole. 

Emotions opens to the public with an artist reception 

on Thursday, September 5, at 6–9 p.m., coinciding 

with the Scottsdale ArtWalk. The evening will 

include light refreshments as well as the opportunity 

to meet featured artists and the curator. Emotions 

will be on display at Royse Contemporary through 

September 28. 

Emotions 

With Charmagne Coe, Dan Pederson, Diane Sanborn, 

Daniel Shepherd, Casey Wakefield 

September 5–28 

Royse Contemporary 

7077 E. Main St., Suite 6, Scottsdale 

roysecontemporary.com 

Nicole Royse in her Scottsdale gallery, Royse Contemporary 

Diane Sanborn. In Your Face, 2019, Oil & Cold Wood Panel 

Casey Wakefield, Untitled 

Charmagne Coe. In a Manner of Evaporating and Coalescing, 2019 

Mixed media 


MAGAZINE

RAVEN CHACON 

Still Life No. 3 

by Mikey Foster Estes 

Raven Chacon’s Still Life No. 3, on view at Heard Museum through 

November 3, retells the Navajo creation story, Diné Bahane’, in the form 

of a sound, light, and text installation. The story tells of colors rising in 

the sky, signifying not only the shifting of time but also the emergence 

into another world. Over the course of museum hours, timed lighting throughout 

the space shifts across a spectrum of red, blue, yellow, and white. Spoken 

excerpts of the narrative, recited by Melvatha Chee (Diné), reverberate across 

sixteen floating speakers arranged in a line, as if propelled into motion. 

The bursts of Chee’s voice begin at one end of the space through a speaker situated 

vertically just above the floor. As she continues to recite the story, the sound 

moves directionally from one speaker to the next, ultimately leading up and 

across to the other end of the gallery. The individual layers of her voice pile atop 

one another, creating a series of starts-and-stops that generate the effect of an 

echo or feedback loop. 

The original text and its English translation, reproduced as a double-stacked 

sequence of transparent panels, is displayed along both sides of the gallery’s 

upper level, overlooking the sound installation. The words themselves are doubled 

by their shadows, producing the kind of repetition Chacon crafts with audio 

and delay in the gallery below. The wall panels, which usually serve a didactic 

purpose and provide a sense of orientation, here become ungrounding. 

Chacon’s approach to written and spoken language emphasizes its fraught relationship 

to time. Reading and listening are activities that are inextricably of the 

present moment, whereas what is written and spoken is anchored in the past act 


MAGAZINE

of doing so. Any given text and its interpretation are contingent on a presence 

that never stops renewing itself. 

The tradition of still life painting to which this exhibition makes reference in its 

title often sought to capture the frailty of life. These compositions depicted allegorical 

objects that were subject to decay. As a picture, however, these everyday 

items – flowers, fruit, vessels, and more – effectively become frozen in time. The 

still life occupies a space that is simultaneously marked by the past, visible in the 

present, and projected toward the future. 

The perceptual experience that this installation stages complicates our relationship 

to time on micro and macro scales. As light and sound change over time at 

different intervals, seeing and listening fumble to keep up. Although all components 

refer to the same source material, Chacon’s treatment of each as its own 

compositional element creates a situation in which there is no sum: no beginning, 

no middle, no end. 

Chacon’s parsing apart of his subject matter generates meaning on linguistic and 

symbolic levels. Here Diné Bahane’, an origin story packed with mythological and 

cultural significance, is rewired and resituated within the context of modernity. 

Placed in this constantly refreshing environment, in which time never ceases to 

move forward, the viewer’s phenomenological footing is in flux. 

The narrative forms and reforms over a series of soundbites and excerpts. Any 

attempt to follow along may result in getting lost. It seems that Chacon shares 

the fragmented version of this story as a potential metaphor for our way of being 

in the world. We emerge into it every day and attempt to ascribe meaning to its 

constituent parts, but these parts move in perpetuity. Within this mesmerizing 

void, the viewer is left to consider the totality of time, language, and space. 

As a whole, the installation engages with the overlapping of past, present, and 

future. Chee’s echoing voice above travels like an apparition through space. Listening 

and reading become cyclical, meditative acts that make us aware not only 

of our presence but of time. This awareness is especially evident in relation to 

light. Timed on an eight-hour cycle each day, the lighting provides a structure that 

reveals to us that there was a before and that there will be an after. 

Still Life No. 3 stages a situation for viewers in which they are guided by the sensory. 

Through retelling the story of Diné Bahane’ in metaphysical terms, Chacon 

transforms it into a nonlinear narrative that is conveyed through individual and 

collective presence. Pairing storytelling and formal gestures, the installation captures 

a sense of spirituality that spans across cultures and time. 

Raven Chacon, Still Life No. 3 

Through November 3 

Heard Museum 

heard.org 


MAGAZINE


Mexican Seafood | By Sloane Burwell 

Seafood in the desert – I know what you’re thinking. If you’re lucky, the very 

best gets flown here post haste, and you’ll pay quite dearly for the privilege 

of consuming sweet shrimp, magnificent marlin, and lovely lobster. And if you 

aren’t lucky, or you find yourself with a Groupon for the functional equivalent of 

gas station sushi, you’ll spend the next day or three homebound and on a super 

shivery involuntary weight-loss plan. The rest of the options for delicious seafood 

cuisine appear to fall somewhere in the middle, and not many of the choices are 

reasonably affordable, charming, or worth repeat visits. 

That’s what I thought until I stumbled across Los Arbolitos de Cajeme – a 

delightfully bright and altogether endearing spot on the Westside. Thankfully, 

this is not their first seafood restaurant. You’ll find other locations throughout 

Mexico, including Guadalajara and Mexico City. You’ll also find that if you don’t 

speak Spanish, you might want to engage a translation app on your phone – or, 

like me, simply smile a lot and point to the pictures on the menu. The sweet and 

kind staff at Los Arbolitos de Cajeme will be delighted to help, and they’ll pick up 

on your nonverbal cues. Case in point: I loved the packaged saltines on the table 

in the chip basket. Our server noticed I was eating the one pack provided, and he 

promptly brought me another basket filled entirely with the wrapped crackers. 

Quite attentive, we thought! 

You’ll pass the bar to seat yourself at any table inside. The full bar has drink 

specials every night, and you’ll find a large selection of regional Mexican 

beers. The bartender will also probably be the last person you’ll talk to who 

speaks English fluently. In all of our visits, this was never a problem and, in 

fact, made for a fun and exciting dining adventure. It’s like being on vacation, 

only on the Westside. 

For me, it’s not a Mexican food fiesta without Queso Fundido, and theirs is stellar 

($12). Served on a riotously hot skillet, a load of cheesy goodness comes topped 

with mounds of spicy chorizo and chiles. I mention the heat of the skillet because 

it was warm enough to cook the queso into a crunchy chunk, browned at the 

bottom. The end result is a perfect cheese chip, crunchy and crisped enough 

to provide texture. We adored it! 

The Toritos de Camaron ($10) is fabulous. This dish contains a flat bowl, loaded 

with roasted banana chiles, opened and stuffed with grilled shrimp: tasty, 

snackable, and served in a large enough portion to be an entrée. I’m interested 

in returning to try the version stuffed with marlin. And, now that I think about it, I 

can’t remember another time I’ve seen marlin on a menu. I’m hopeful this version 

is as effortlessly fabulous as the shrimp version. 

Their tostadas feel like an absolute bargain. I adored the Ceviche de Camaron ($6). 

The crunchy single tortilla arrives with mounds of tender, sweet shrimp ceviche 

and chunks of avocado. The rich lime-y flavor hits all of the right notes – savory, 

salty, acidic from the lime, and sweet from the shrimp. This dish was shared 

easily between three people. Next time, I might not share, and keep the 

whole thing for myself. 

Sharing is required for the Molcajetes. Served in a large stone mortar – the kind of 

container often used today for making guacamole – here, the bowl holds enough 

food for a feast. The VIP ($22) is my favorite – loaded with shrimp, octopus, 

whitefish, scallops, and loads of avocado, it is truly a meal fit for a king, and a low 

carb one at that. Feel free to use the wrapped saltines, as I did, to scoop the goods 

for consumption, or dig in with knife and fork. It would be difficult for one person 

to finish this, and two of us struggled. Flavorful, well prepared, and containing 

excellent quality seafood, at this price point it’s a shock and surprise (let alone its 

presence in the desert). If you must pick one dish on your visit, you would be hard 

pressed to find a more interesting and tasty choice than the Molcajetes. 

Fans of lobster will not be disappointed in their Langosta ($25). Served simply, 

two rather large and perfectly grilled lobster tails appear on a plate alongside a 

charming dollop of rice. I’ll admit being skeptical when I saw the price, thinking 

the lobster tails would be the same size as the ones always on sale at Sprouts for 

$9.99. Luckily, they were much larger, substantially higher quality, and grilled to 

perfection, preserving the sweet taste of the meat. I’m very interested in learning 

more about Los Arbolitos de Cajeme’s suppliers – other places in town, take note. 

While the quality might not be Ocean 44, it’s also not nearly as expensive – or 

formal. I felt quite at home here noshing while wearing flipflops and a t-shirt. 

Not a fan of seafood? Not to worry. Here, you’ll find Grilled Whole Beef Tenderloin 

by the pound ($46). There’s an entire section of the menu for steaks, but I had to 

have the Chicharron Rib Eye ($32.50). Served in a molcajete on an enormous mound 

of freshly made guacamole, a giant steak’s worth of rib eye nuggets are deep fried 

to crispy perfection. The artfully presented grilled tortillas served alongside are both 

pretty and perfect for scooping mouthfuls of guac and deep-fried steak. Deep-fried 

steak. I want to keep saying that. And I want to keep eating that. It was succulent, 

crunchy, and, being rib eye, infused with enough juicy fat to keep things interesting. 

The desserts were interesting as well. We loved the Pie de Guayaba ($7). Guayaba 

is a fruit that tastes like a mix of strawberries and bananas. While this is definitely 

a fruit pie, you won’t find anything close to it around town. The crust was soft, not 

a full pastry crust and not crunchy like a nut crust. The guayaba was sweet, but not 

cloying, and a layer of creamy dulce de leche was piped on top with such skill and in 

such a pretty pattern, it almost felt sad to eat it. Almost. 

Los Arbolitos de Cajeme is a fun, tasty culinary adventure, brought here by a 

family who has been serving seafood in Mexico for years. The staff is adorable 

and attentive, and the food is tasty, well portioned, and high quality. So seafood 

in the desert, why not? As long as it’s this good and engaging, I’ll keep coming back 

for more. 


3508 W. Peoria, Phoenix 

Daily 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. 

JAVA 

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Photographer: Miguel Angel Valenzuela 

Model, Stylist and Co-Creator: Luna Fae 

Model, Hair and Makeup: Sarah Tomaszycki 


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Reg Madison Photography

As we sit under the hazy light of his 

favorite Tempe haunt, Louis Farber 

recalls the first moment he knew he 

needed to pursue theatre: He was the 

owl in his elementary school play. “I 

remember very viscerally, even though it was third 

grade. Everyone’s parents were there, and you could 

have taken a crap on stage and they still would 

have loved it. I remember what it felt like to be 

appreciated by an audience, their laughter – that was 

the end of it.” 

Louis is known throughout Phoenix as an actor, 

director, and collaborator, working on various Valley 

stages. What makes him such a great collaborator? 

“The best idea in the room wins,” he says intensely. 

“It just does. Because I don’t know that you can kick 

ass unless the group feels like they have agency 

and they have a voice.” It’s clear that Farber creates 

theatre that is inclusive, energetic, and – arguably 

– fun. “It should never feel like you can’t say what 

you’re thinking. Even if you don’t have the best idea, 

your thoughts might help get us to the best idea.” 

Farber was born in Philadelphia and moved an hour 

outside of the city to Reading when he was young. 

“My family turned me on to theatre.” He shares 

stories of going to Philly’s Walnut Street Theatre 

and Forrest Theatre as a kid. “Reading wasn’t 

like Philadelphia – we didn’t have big city access. 

Sometimes we went to New York – my dad’s family 

was there, in New Jersey – but it was still quite a 

trip for my folks, with us two kids.” 

“I remember seeing one of the weirdest plays,” 

Farber says, recalling a production at Walnut Street 

Theatre. “It was this strange, futuristic kind of play 

with a video screen and a bald lady with a spiderweb 

on her head. It was definitely bizarre.” We threw out 

titles to try to identify the play, but we were at a loss. 

“That’s when I was pretty sure that I would watch 

anything.” 

It wasn’t just exposure to theatre that Louis received 

from his parents. “My dad is a very artistic person,” 

he says. Farber rushes into stories of his father’s 

guitar skills and his singing, and says that his dad’s 

humor inspired his own humor to grow. “Who knows 

why anyone does anything?” he asks rhetorically, 

thinking about why his dad didn’t go into the arts. 

“He went to medical school because his father was a 

doctor, but if he had thought that being an artist was 

a viable option for him, maybe he would have done 

that.” Farber’s dad became an ophthalmologist. 

“You know what’s never going out of style? People 

needing their f*cking eyes fixed.” Louis jokes that 

maybe his dad is living vicariously through him: “I 

don’t know, but that’s my guess.” 

Farber’s mother encouraged him to take a year off 

before going to college, but instead he immediately 

enrolled at Hofstra University in Long Island. “Looking 

back on life, my folks always knew things that – I 

don’t know – like, shut up, Mom and Dad! But they 

were so right.” He left Hofstra after a year, moved 

home, and then headed to Israel for a short time. He 

eventually found himself at Dean College, a small 

school in Massachusetts that would change his life. 

“That’s where I found my first real mentor.”

“Jim was the technical director of the theatre,” 

Farber remembers. He grows excited as he describes 

his teacher: “But he was also a working theatre 

practitioner. His whole family was involved in 

theatre. He lived in Cumberland, R.I., and wrote these 

swashbuckling, stage combat–heavy things – a lot of 

pirates and knights and that kind of stuff, lots of flips 

and throws. It had a Renaissance Faire quality to it.” 

Jim Beauregard was a renaissance man of the 

theatre – directing, acting, set building, lighting 

design – everything. “This guy could do it all. He 

wasn’t just a triple threat, he was a total threat!” 

Farber’s tone is energetic with fondness and respect. 

“That’s where I learned how to use a drill, build a 

platform, hang a light. I remember Jim and that class 

really being seminal for me.” 

In Boston, Farber began to perform at the Medieval 

Manor Theatre. Known as an off-kilter draw for 

birthdays and various celebrations, this comedic 

dinner theatre introduced Farber to a second mentor: 

playwright and performer Craig William Handle. 

“I learned the acting, stage combat, and tech 

stuff from Jim, and I learned playwriting from 

Craig.” Farber even worked on a play that 

Craig wrote and Jim directed while at Dean. 


MAGAZINE 

“I remember being like, ‘These are the two 

components. With all this action Jim does, first 

someone has to write the play.’” 

After Farber received his associate’s degree and 

had been working at Medieval Manor for nine 

months, his parents wanted to have an important 

talk. “We had dinner and they asked me if this 

was what I really wanted to do – because I used 

to talk about going to New York, Chicago, L.A., 

and becoming a working actor.” With his parents’ 

approval and encouragement, Farber loaded up a 

truck and moved out West. 

“When I first got to L.A., I called Jim on Father’s 

Day – it was hard, I was lonely. He had helped me 

so much during past my two years at Dean.” Farber 

would go on to face the grind of Los Angeles, 

doing auditions where there were 30 different 

versions of himself. “You get that feeling that you 

are expendable.” 

After seven years of living paycheck to paycheck, 

despite making many lifelong friends along the way, 

he started having serious thoughts about his next 

chapter. “I was an actor but still working a bunch of 

other jobs – catering companies, restaurants – you 

name it, I probably did it.” 

Farber left L.A. to join his family in Yuma, where they 

had recently moved, and began taking classes at 

Arizona Western College. A year later, he enrolled in 

Arizona State University’s theatre program and moved 

to the Valley: “I found my people when I got here.” 

Farber went on to earn his bachelor’s, perform with 

Childsplay, and meet several key theatre makers in 

the community. With this newfound tribe of artists, 

Farber found performing and directing opportunities 

with Stray Cat Theatre, which ultimately became 

his artistic home as its associate artistic director (or 

associate head kitty, as he is affectionately known). 

When asked if he prefers acting or directing, Farber 

simply states, “I don’t favor one over the other.” He 

believes that there is something satisfying about 

being an actor – that there is a freedom in playing. 

“Not that directing isn’t fun,” he counters. “Directing 

requires more decision making. You have to have a 

vision, a concept, a way of communicating with lots 

of different people who do lots of different things. 

You have to talk to lighting and costume designers 

without sounding like a ding-dong.” 

As our time comes to an end and the once lively 

place we were occupying grows thin and quiet, Louis 

struggles to articulate his feelings about receiving

critical praise. One might assume that he desires praise – or at least 

recognition. “I’m not big on compliments. I don’t take them very well. I 

don’t think of myself as any more or less important than anybody else. I don’t 

think of myself as some f*cking hotshot, fancy pants guy that everyone wants 

to work with.” 

Before parting from our conversation, I ask Louis if there’s a quote that he lives 

by – words that motivate his art. He immediately grabs his phone: “I’ve got 

to get this right.” After a quick search, he carefully spoke the words of Kurt 

Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or 

murmur or think at some point, if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” When I 

ask Louis what that means to him, he leans forward and works toward his most 

concentrated definition: “Look for the joy.” 

Don’t miss Farber’s upcoming projects (and notice how he’s collaborating with 

many different companies): He’ll be performing in Lisa Starry’s “A Vampire 

Tale” with Scorpius Dance Theatre, Oct. 3–12, and directing “Breakfast with 

Mugabe” by Fraser Grace at Black Theatre Troupe, Oct. 25 to Nov. 10; “Lottery 

House” by Angelica Howland at Now & Then Creative Company, Nov. 15 and 

16; “The Truth About Santa Claus (An Apocalyptic Holiday Tale)” at BLK BOX 

PHX, Dec. 20–23; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare, 

Southwest Shakespeare Company, Feb. 21 to March 7; and “Reservoir Dogs” by 

Shaun McNamara, All Puppet Players, April 3–25. 

What gets you excited when you look out your 

window? This, our apartment community, it is the 

heart of the Arts District: in Downtown Phoenix, rich 

in character and culture. You are next door to the 

Phoenix Art Museum, walking distance to Roosevelt 

Row, steps from the light rail, and surrounded by 

incredible local restaurants, boutiques and more. 

222 E McDowell Road Phoenix, AZ 85004 

(833) 266-4072 

greenleafartsdistrict.com


MAGAZINE 

Photos: Annalisa Macaluso

Religiosity has shaped people and cultures of 

the world in uncountable ways, both subtle 

and profound. But for centuries – perhaps 

even for millennia – criticism of organized 

religion was a crime warranting extreme punishment. 

George Bernard Shaw is credited as once stating, 

“The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes 

cannot distinguish the heretic from the saint.” 

Thankfully, in much of the free world during our own 

era, artists are free to produce work that is provocative 

and critical of organized religion, without having to 

worry (too much) about facing retribution like public 

humiliation, stoning, castration, or other brutal forms 

of punishment popular in the time of the crusades. 

Painter Eric Kasper has, in the past, had to face the 

mob for works he produced that some critics deemed 

offensive. Several years ago, his art was removed from 

a show – blatantly censored. Yet Kasper persists in 

producing and compiling images that draw out dramatic 

responses from some viewers. “This is probably the 

scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Kasper says of his 

upcoming show, Belief, opening September 16 at the 

Eric Fischl Gallery at Phoenix College. 

Kasper explains that while he likes to leave his 

paintings very open to interpretation, because there is a 

religious theme to the work in this show, he has a slight 

concern that he may be personally attacked. Kasper 

says he isn’t anti-religion. His images are meant 

to induce deeper thinking on religious and cultural 

subjects and perhaps inspire some conversations 

about why we do “what we have always done.” 

“In my old job, this lady who billed herself as very 

Christian – she must have thought I was struggling or 

something – lent me this movie called The Secret,” 

he says. “I watched the thing just because she gave 

it to me, and it’s all about financial prosperity and 

material gains. It is the most backward-thinking thing 

I have ever seen,” he says. 

The message of The Secret is basically that through 

prayer and positive thinking one can will almost 

anything one desires to come into being. But the 

examples provided in the book and the movie 

are mostly material things: a fabulous house, a 

Lamborghini, posh clothes, extreme wealth. The 

emphasis on materiality seems to clash with other 

Christian values, such as selflessness, service, 

thankfulness (for what you have), and compassion. 

What may be initially most striking about the work 

in this upcoming show is the scale. Most of the 

paintings are quite large – so big, in fact, that Kasper 

plans to remove several of them from their stretcher 

bars while still in the studio and then reassemble the 

canvases in the gallery. This is the only way he can 

transport works this large. 

For example, one of the newest pieces, “Abundant 

Living,” measures about ten feet tall. “I was on a ladder 

for about three months, which was not easy!” he says. 

The image is of an opulent bedroom, and it took 

Kasper about three months just to paint the ceiling. 


MAGAZINE

He spent five months working on the painting, total, 

and says he still doesn’t feel like it’s completely done. 

The room was inspired by a bedroom inside the 

Hearst Castle in California, Kasper explains. A 

scan of the space in the painting detects spiritual 

and religious objects and images. Kasper first 

encountered the image of the room in a book about 

the castle – he spends a lot of time researching 

images at public libraries. 

On a recent road trip up the West Coast with his 

partner, Kasper happened to pass the area of San 

Simeon where the Hearst Castle is located. Out 

of Kasper’s interest and research, they decided to 

take a peek for themselves. Kasper describes being 

highly impressed with the collection – and with 

Hearst’s eccentricity. He had entire ceilings of ancient 

European buildings taken apart, flown to California, 

and reassembled just to make them part of his 

opulent home. 

Kasper was able to visit the bedroom that inspired 

his painting and see its intricate ceiling. As a 

painter, the ceiling had been challenging for him. The 

backgrounds in his paintings tend to be dark and flat, 

but this was very detailed and complicated. 

Within “Abundant Living” are three small paintingswithin-the-painting. 

The bedroom is also decorated 

with a number of curious and oddly placed objects. 

One of them is an ancient Sumerian sculpture, “Ram 

in the Thicket,” named after a Biblical passage 

by the British archeologist who discovered it in 

the early 1900s. Placing some of these objects 

in the room calls into question the foundations 

of human knowledge, and suggests the subtle 

ways that religious influences tend to alter our 

interpretations of the past and of ancient objects, 

even nonsensically. 

Other remnants from days gone by are also on display. 

There’s a goldfish bowl full of red wine, the fish resting 

in a clear plastic bag, yet to be transferred to their 

bowl (a home or a prison?). The three paintings in the 

room don’t seem to go together at all – each nodding 

to a different era in art. However, Kasper has shifted 

the tone and content in minor ways that allow the 

images to pay homage to the originals, while also 

somehow speaking/resonating in tandem or in 

conversation with the others. 

In the foreground of “Abundant Living” is a nude man 

lying on a bed of nails, his erect penis in hand. Kasper 

always liked the idea that a bed of nails represents 

something dangerous, thrilling, and impossible in a 

child’s mind. But at some point, through experience, 


MAGAZINE

the adult mind figures out that the danger of the nails 

is only an illusion. 

Kasper says his process of combining or juxtaposing 

imagery within his paintings is fluid and that he 

enjoys allowing it to be open. “The whole thing is 

meant to be dissected,” he says. “Nothing is by 

accident, but I can’t say, from the beginning, this 

painting is going to be about this.” 

Whether unintentionally or overtly, the artist is inviting 

people to comment, react, and respond in a climate 

and culture that often shushes artists when it comes 

to any form of expression that might seem critical of 

organized religion. Kasper says that he “lived through 

the 1990s” and experienced a moment in the U.S. when 

the Christian majority seemed very vocal, defensive, and 

even territorial. The paintings are an exploration of this 

mentality and provide a response and another way to 

approach conversations related to religion. 

In the painting “Milkbelly,” six men are seated around 

a coffee table, each with a glass of milk. The men are 

doubled over, covering the backs of their heads with 

their hands as if awaiting some kind of punishment. 

A cross with a crucified Jesus hangs on the wall 

behind them. The room is drab, looking like some kind 

of church lobby or holding cell. It’s actually an image 

from the 1960s taken from Life magazine, Kasper 

says. As mundane as the background looks, the men 

were reenacting a serious situation – possible fallout 

from a cold war–era missile. But in their mutual act 

of sheltering, there is something spiritual – a kind of 

penance – that seems to be taking place. 

An untitled work shows a child at a table who appears 

to be praying to a fish, standing up on its tail. This image 

is tied to one of the paintings on the wall in “Abundant 

Living.” Kasper says he’s still working on this one. “I 

can’t stay interested in something for that long,” he 

admits. 

Another newer painting shows two figures, one male 

and one female, who seem to be reclining on a picnic 

blanket. Kasper says he likes the way there seems to 

be a religious law between the man and woman. The 

background is full of abstraction, which meanders – a 

stark contrast to the very controlled painting of the 

squares on the picnic blanket. Kasper says he just had 

to start this painting and give himself some freedom to 

play with abstraction, after the controlled hours that he 

spent on the cathedral-like ceiling in “Abundant Living.” 

This painting seems to light up; it contains a lot more 

golden tones than most of the other darker works – 

which are more grays, blacks, and army greens. 

Kasper has been working out of the same studio 

space for more than four years. He opened his doors 

to the public for Art Detour, but he doesn’t make it a 

habit. He prefers to remain low key and a little off the 

grid. He comes from a family of men who did sheet 

metal work – his grandfather, father, and brother – and 

that’s what he used to do before he decided to commit 

full-time to art. Sheet metal was good physical work, 

he says. But on the other hand, it would wipe him 

out, and he’d have no energy left for art. 

In the sparsity of some of Kasper’s images, a certain 

hunger manifests. One can’t help but wonder about 

the missing pieces of the story that could help explain 

what appear to be odd or disturbing behaviors. The 

artist has decided not to spoon-feed the viewer – this 

leads one to fill in the missing elements through 

imagination. Sometimes the explanation can be dark, 

disenchanting – even terrible. 

And that is the challenge that Eric Kasper presents 

to any of his viewers. None of the paintings make an 

all-out attack on religion. But if the viewer’s eyes and 

brain choose to interpret them that way, then they 

can certainly be suggestive of the hidden dangers, 

lies, and manipulation that go along with groupthink. 

Belief, the paintings of Eric Kasper, opens at 5:30 p.m. 

on September 16 at the Eric Fischl Gallery at Phoenix 

College. The show runs through October 3. 


MAGAZINE

GIRL ON FARMER 

BY CELIA BERESFORD 

The kids are back at ASU. My memories from college 

are fun and increasingly fuzzy as they move farther 

away. Only my student debt is crystal clear. Like many 

people, I am in my 40s (early, just saying) and still 

paying off my student loans. How can this be? I ask 

myself. How can it be that I’ve worked since the day 

I graduated, paid my loans all this time (mostly), yet, 

like a bad STD or crappy tattoo, they’re still here? 

I’m good with money. And creative. While I was in 

school, I kept my loans to a minimum, only enough to 

pay tuition. A meal plan was considered a splurge. 

For a solid year, I ate the egg-salad sandwiches my 

boyfriend smuggled out of the deli he worked in. By 

the time he walked home, the egg salad was warm, 

but I was in no position to complain. I also got very 

creative with mayonnaise, potatoes, and garlic salt. 

You can make that into a salad, fry it into a mayonnaise-y 

pancake, or, if you can rustle up a few extra 

dollars, smear it on some bread. When the potatoes 

ran out, mayonnaise sandwiches were a delicious 

alternative. The rotting produce that the stores wrap 

up and sell for cheap also makes for a filling and 

watery soup. 

After a time of living on this potpourri, the egg salad 

boyfriend decided that he was justified in stealing 

us some groceries. I did not agree with this method, 

but it worked. Once cheese, beans, and peanut butter 

became part of the meal rotation, I felt spoiled. 

Things went sour, though, one morning when he 

stole-splurged on more indulgent items. These were 

the days when cameras weren’t everywhere, and so 

he took a basket full of groceries into the bathroom 

and stuffed them all into his backpack. Included in 

this stash were Bloody Mary fixings and lots of breakfast 

goodies. 

My theory is that he got away with stealing as long 

as he did because he focused on “necessity” items. 

Once the Bloody Mary fixings got involved, it threw 

the karma off. Although there weren’t cameras, store 

employees did have eyes, and his bulging backpack 

caught their attention. On his way out of the store, 

a security guard grabbed him. Luckily, it was by the 

backpack, so he dropped the whole pack and ran 

off. It was a close call and the end of the bread-and- 


MAGAZINE

How can it be that I’ve worked since the day I 

graduated, paid my student loans all this time 

(mostly), and yet, like a bad STD or crappy 

tattoo, they’re still here? 

cheese feasts. We were back on potatoes and warm egg salad. I don’t think I 

need to describe the smell that accompanied this diet. 

It wasn’t long after the bust that I discovered plasma donation. Unlike donating 

blood, which seems like a noble endeavor, donating plasma seems kind of desperate. 

I guess it’s because when you donate blood, you don’t get paid. It’s just 

your good heart that inspires the donation. Plasma donation attracts people who 

need money. Specifically, fifty dollars. It takes an hour or two to donate plasma, 

and you’re in the company of a lot of people whom you might typically avoid 

sharing close quarters with. Then, when it’s all over, you have to wear the little 

arm wrap thing to prevent the bleeding. This bandage makes people curious. It’s 

certainly not a shining moment of pride, telling people you just got back from 

donating your bodily fluid for cash. 

Then I somehow discovered a company that recruits for focus groups. What this 

company does is create a gigantic database, and then a different company, that 

wants to market a new product or develop a new outreach strategy, contacts 

them. Next, they call you and see if you meet the demographic the company is 

looking for to test their idea or product. If you do, you’re in luck. Most of these 

focus groups last about an hour or two and pay pretty well. All you have to do is 

show up and, in front of a two-way mirror, talk about whatever they’re asking so 

they can get feedback. It was great in college, and somehow they still call me. 

I did one this week for cocktail mixers. You show up to the office. There are 

sandwiches, snacks, and sodas in the waiting area – already worth it. Then you 

go into a room with about fifteen other people and sit around a big table and 

“discuss” the topics the moderator brings up. Not surprisingly, at this one the 

lady who sat next to me reeked of alcohol. Her nametag said “Bess,” but as we 

went around the table to introduce ourselves, she explained that Bess was her 

name, but not really her name. It’s a really long story, she said, and please don’t 

ask about it, please, just don’t. She’d prefer we call her what her family calls 

her, Nirvana, and just PLEASE don’t ask her about the story. In case you forgot to 

not ask about the story, which no one did, she reminded you over the next few 

minutes NOT to ask. 

I earned $125 for an hour and a half. I see it as free money, money I normally 

wouldn’t have earned, so I can blow it on drinks, dinner, or something frivolous. 

But I usually end up applying it to something more practical. And it has hardly 

made a dent in my student loans.

NIGHT 

GALLERY 

Photos By 

Robert Sentinery 

1 

2 

3 4 

5 

6 

7 

8 9 

10 11 

1. Rachel and Billy check out Stardust Pinbar 

2. Irene and her Weezy’s Playhouse posse 

3. Sips and pics with Winona 

4. Coming together for the Carmody Foundation 

5. Front and center at the Bellwether Syndicate 

6. Destyn and Mandel show up to support Tondra 

7. Darlina gets a hug from auntie Abbey 

8. Goth gals Tondra and Effie at Rips 

9. Andres and Karla, Stardust soft opening 

10. Scuba’s bachelor party at the Dirty Drummer 

11. Kelsey Dake’s “Good Boys” opening at Shortcut Gallery

12 13 14 15 16 

17 18 19 20 21 

22 23 24 25 26 

27 28 29 

12. Nader, the photographer, gets photographed 

13. Joshua has the goods at Phoenix General 

14. Stardust Pinbar soft opening fun 

15. Shopping for shades at Framed Ewe 

16. InCastro Fest with this lovely trio 

17. Dance movement at InCastro Fest 

18. Enrique on the ones-and-twos at Phx Gen 

19. Had fun hanging with these guys in Sicily 

20. Loved visiting this printmaker in her Palermo studio 

21. Snapped these guys at Snood City 

22. Rockin’ the piazza in Sicilia 

23. Lovely guide at Art Hotel Atelier Sul Mare 

24. Meesh and friends at Snood City 

25. Farewell friends and good luck in Chicago 

26. Stepped into the kitchen at Braceria Dei Goti 

27. Tania is my charming tour guide in Messina 

28. Renée and Giorgia at InCastro Fest 

29. Giant animatronic bird over Palermo

10 Colleges Valleywide 

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Find your field of interest 

maricopa.edu/academics/foi 

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consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or national origin. A lack of English language skills will not be a barrier to admission and 

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number to reach the appointed coordinator: (480) 731-8499. For additional information, as well as a listing of all coordinators within the Maricopa College system, visit www.maricopa.edu/non-discrimination.

30 31 

32 33 34 

35 36 

37 38 

39 

40 41 

42 43 44 

45 46 

47 

30. JJ plays the silver ball at Stardust 

31. Ada and friends in Castroreale 

32. Summer fun at Framed Ewe 

33. Sicilian friends Andrea and Enrico 

34. Elvira has the homemade pasta 

35. Third Friday art trio at the Icehouse 

36. Carmody Foundation event with this duo 

37. ASU Art Museum with Malena and pal 

38. Grand ArtHaus with Lisa and friend 

39. Stefania screens her film at InCastro Fest 

40. Snapped this colorful couple at Snood City 

41. Dancing on the edge, InCastro Fest 

42. Ann and friend support the Carmody foundation 

43. Jordan behind the counter at Framed Ewe 

44. Heartbreaks and Coral 

45. Large scale street art in Palermo 

46. Wes and friend, Stardust soft opening 

47. Photo op at the Icehouse

48 49 

50 51 52 

53 54 

55 56 

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58 59 

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61 

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64 65 

48. Jesse and pal at Rips 

49. Dance movements at InCastro Fest 

50. Scuba’s bachelor party at Dirty Drummer 

51. {9} Gallery headpiece by Irene from Weezy’s Playhouse 

52. Good to see you Hillary, it’s been a while 

53. Pier closes down the first annual InCastro Fest 

54. Lara love at the Dirty Drummer 

55. Poetic dance at InCastro Fest 

56. Studio tour with Andrea Calabro 

57. Celebration time with Christy and Scuba at Dirty Drummer 

58. Antonio Presti the man, the legend 

59. Ape with traditional Sicilian decoration 

60. Colorful house cocktail at Stardust 

61. Lunch with Turkay and Sahar 

62. Victor and Trankie at Stardust 

63. Shake it but don’t tilt it 

64. Tondra and friends at the Bellwether Syndicate show 

65. Joe’s holding it down at the Icehouse Gallery

66 67 68 

69 

70 

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72 73 

74 75 

76 77 78 

79 80 

81 82 

83 

66. “Impulso” screening at Crescent Ballroom 

67. Poetry and beauty 

68. Cute couple at Framed Ewe 

69. Ari, the man behind Stardust and Cobra 

70. ASU Art Museum with artist Iván Argote and Julio 

71. Beer o’ clock at Dirty Drummer 

72. Jorden, the jumpsuit girl, at Phx Gen 

73. Jason and pretty goth gal at Rips 

74. Kenny and Joshua at Scuba’s bachelor party 

75. Cristiana and pals at Rips 

76. Italian painter Umberto Maglione 

77. Friday night at the Dirty Drummer 

78. Tony from Snoh and friend at Stardust Pinbar 

79. More fun at Scuba’s bachelor party 

80. Bonding and pretty pal at Rips 

81. Ryan Tempest’s opening at Sisao Gallery 

82. Effie and Mello at Rips 

83. Danielle and guy pal at Dirty Drummer

*FREE 

Admission! 

NAOTO HATTORI, Lucid 

Dreamer 137 (detail), 2019. 

Acrylic on board, 2¾ x 2¾ 

inches. Courtesy of the artist 

and Haven Gallery. 

FREE OPENING RECEPTION: 

Friday, Sept 13 (6-10pm) 

1 East Main Street • Mesa, AZ 85201 • 480-644-6560 • MesaArtsCenter.com

Featuring 

SAUVAGE Bottle Shop 

founder Chris Lingua 

in Jacques Marie Mage 

Molino Sunglasses, 

Styled and Shot by 

Priscilla Urrutia, 

PALABRA Collective, 

See More Portraits 

#YOUINEWE

last chance @smoca 

Don’t miss your chance to see this season’s immersive lineup of exhibitions: Divergent Materiality: Contemporary 

Glass Art, southwestNET I Shizu Saldamando, Mutual Reality: Art on the Edge of Technology, and Back Round by 

Aakash Nihalani. 

Divergent Materiality: Contemporary Glass Art is organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art Lauren R. 

O'Connell. Generous support provided by The Arizona Glass Alliance, Judy and Stuart Heller, Linda and Sherman Saperstein, Sharon and Fred Schomer, Penelope and 

Richard Post, Gail and Dan Tenn, and Lori and Michael Carmel. Installation design by Jay Atherton, Clay Studio. 

southwestNET I Shizu Saldamando is organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Director and Chief Curator Jennifer McCabe. Sponsored by 

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. 

Mutual Reality: Art on the Edge of Technology is organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Curator of Programming Julie Ganas. 

Back Round by Aakash Nihalani is organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Image: David Blakeman 

SMoCA.org I 7374 East Second Street, Scottsdale, Arizona 85251 I 480-874-4666

JAVA Sept 2019

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