Tuesday, December 15th Today Eric attended a work conference while Christi went sightseeing. Since she had heard there wasn’t much to do in Phoenix, she was pleased to find that there were plenty of things to keep her occupied, all within walking distance of the hotel.

She left the hotel at the same time as Eric, at 0845. The streets were completely deserted, with few pedestrians or cars. Two things were evident: this isn’t a business district and school must be out of session for the winter break. Arizona State University is located here in Tempe, and Tempe is considered to be primarily a college town.

It was a beautiful day””clear, sunny and warmer than it has been in San Diego, so she was happy to be out walking around. She took Mill Street, the main drag, north a few blocks to the Tempe Town Lake and Beach Park. Near the lake there is an old abandoned mill, which she is assuming the street’s name came from.

At the park entrance was a sign she found surprising. She knew the local river had been dammed about ten years ago to make the lake, so she expected the park to be ten years old. It actually was formed in 1931. It is 25 acres, and is long and skinny. It once had grass, but currently all the grass is dead. Christi was most amused to see a small water park for children. It is closed for the winter, but there are water slides and a waterfall that they can run underneath. She wondered if swimming was allowed in the lake. The was also a ballpark and an event pavilion.

The lake is not what she expected. For some reason she expected it to be large and round. It is actually two miles long and only 800 1200 feet wide. The “marina” consists of a half dozen floating slips, and it was empty. She read a sign that explained that rather than one traditional dam, it has eight 40 ton inflatable dam bladders. If the river starts to flood, the bladders can all be deflated within 45 minutes, leaving the river to run naturally. In this picture you can see the north side of the lake (remember that the park is only on the south side), a bridge on each side of the lake, and in the foreground is one of the docks in the “marina”.

She followed the footpath paralleling the river west to the Tempe Center for the Arts, which is just beyond the west edge of the park. The building is very modern and mostly glass, and the views of the river from inside the building are lovely. Most of the space is used as a theater, but there are a couple small galleries, as well. Both galleries were featuring an exhibit on faces. The art forms included photographs, paintings and sculpture, and the styles varied dramatically, ranging from traditional Native American to post modern. But every one was a face full of expression. One room featured pieces done by local high school students, the other by professional artists.

She was impressed with the work in the professional artist room. Most of the pieces were absolutely beautiful, and some were quite creative and imaginative. While she could happily write about every one, she’ll just mention a few pieces stood out to her in particular. She was amused by this series of skull paintings by Henry Stinson, painted as if they were portraits of your average American from assorted parts of the country, but with a twist.

Another one she liked was a sculpture by John Tuomisto-Bell with dozens of small metal plates that were arranged in an interesting design. Each plate has a face.

The photo of her favorite one didn’t come out, but it was a painting depicting a man looking in the mirror as he tried to paint a self-portrait. You could see the man was struggling””trying to stay perfectly still in his pose, but needing to move around in order to paint properly. She thought the clear frustration he was facing was absolutely brilliantly illustrated.

In the next picture, all the work was done by Zarco Guerrero, but as you can see, the styles vary. The series of small wooden masks with the animated expressions reminded her of the ancient Carthagian art we saw while in Tunisia. The orange demon-looking characters with long horns reminded her of the art we saw in Bali, Indonesia. Oddly, we never posted any clear photos of the demon art from Bali on our blog, so we don’t have a link to send you to for compare/contrast. So, we have included a photo taken in Bali underneath so you can see the similarities in the styles.

From there, she took Ash Street (one block west of Mill St.) back south into downtown, and passed an old style train station and a handful of old style cinder block and brick houses along the way. All had been renovated and are used as offices and restaurants. She is guessing this is the “historic” district.

She headed east a half block and came to the Hackett House, which was built in the late 1800’s and is the oldest fired brick building in the town. Christi was surprised to see it was actually two houses on one lot. Originally, it was built as a bakery, with one building acting as the kitchen and the one the store. In 1905, the property was turned into a private residence. In 1974, the city acquired the property and restored it to how it looked in 1912. Today, its primary function is a gift shop, though it is rented out for special events. Here is an interior shot:

She went back over to Mill Street and continued south a few more blocks to the Arizona State University Art Museum. The architectural style is kind of a modern/southwestern.

The museum is three stories. The theme for the middle floor was devoted to “Art of the Americas” and she was under the impression that all the work was done by ASU students. The art was incredibly varied, both in terms of style, mediums, themes, etc, and were grouped together by theme. She was surprised to see that in one of the exhibition areas there was a display on faces. Déjà vu!

The top floor seemed to feature only art work done by students, and the theme seemed to be climate change/destroying nature topics. While the styles varied, the majority of the work was modern. Several pieces were made out of un-recyclable materials that would normally wind up in a dump. One creation that got her attention was a completely functional looking patio table and chairs covered by a sun umbrella. It looked like something you’d see on the balcony in an upscale apartment, not like it belonged in a museum.

On the bottom floor, one of the exhibition rooms had a student-made vampire movie playing, which she didn’t watch. The rest of the art work on the floor seemed to be done by professional artists, and the pieces were grouped together by artist. All the art was modern and all seemed to touch on climate change and/or destroying nature. Christi found most of the artwork to be just flat out weird.

After the museum, she met Eric for dinner and we had a quiet night at the hotel, with Eric working late.