Teaching is hard!

This blog's favorite news parody reporter Jonathan Pie who's brutally honest . . . he's got an audio earplug with some guy named Tim.
In this episode he talks about schools who want to change their name to "academies" [like most charter schools here in Mesa [Heritage Academy and Sequoia Pathmark Academy @ Eastmark, for example] and the chains of schools who are corporations like EdKey where, of course, like their tagline reads Every student is known.

The Value of Water > Mesa Has An Aquatic Complex

Five years ago the City of Mesa Parks & Recreation Department opened the Skyline Aquatic Center at 845 S Crismon Road on April 5, 2011.

For nearly one hundred years - located in downtown or "the original one-square mile" - swimming pools were popular attractions for kids and families and "bathing beauties" in Rendezvous Park and The Crystal Pool on MacDonald Street just south of Main whose site is marked today by one of those small bronze plaques just below eye-level noting it used to be under what is now the Bank of America parking lot.

 

Times do change. Recreation - re-read that word as Re-Creation. If you take advantage of all the implications and opportunities in that that one word it can be both an active state of mind and physical well-being, and a healthy lifestyle as well as a mind-set for forward-thinking to develop resources for everyone in the public and private sectors combined.

It's what works Mesa very well year-round and for using the same facilities as springboards for generating revenues from special events in the wide world of sports with major sponsors, sports celebrities, massive media coverage and hundreds booking overnight accommodations MLB Cactus League Spring Training set another record attendance record . . . Now it is time to dive into another revenue-generating + media pool!

Back From The Edge: Smart Growth, Creative Place Making > Re/Generation

Phoenix on the Verge: More Stories
04.05.2016 - LISC Stories

[ Photos by Annie O'Neill ]

In the wake of decades of unbridled sprawl, the Great Recession and the foreclosure crisis, there's new light in the Valley of the Sun. With the right support and resources, and the commitment of steadfast community partners, transit-oriented development along the burgeoning Phoenix light rail could be the region's ticket to a sustainable and affordable future.
If you’re new to Phoenix, a city blessed with dusky mountain backdrops and terracotta sunsets, it doesn’t take long to see why it’s also known as the capital of sprawl. Or to understand that the empty lots and swaths of scrubby Sonoran desert between endless tracts of sand-colored homes and chain-store strip malls are the byproduct of leapfrog development. That’s the process whereby builders erect subdivisions further and further away from the city center, leaving empty space in their wake, in order to profit from cheap land and laws that require taxpayers to foot the bill for new roads and utility lines.
This sort of growth has shaped the region for a long time, and has created a metro area that covers some 9,000 square miles (Phoenix alone is 500), all loosely connected by bands of highway and near-total dependence on the automobile. It also nurtured a heavy reliance on the building industry: before the Great Recession, 30 percent of Phoenix residents worked in construction-related jobs, and real estate development accounted for an outsized portion of the city’s economy.

"Leapfrog development" has left Phoenix, and the neighboring cities of Tempe and Mesa, scored with tracts of empty and under-utilized land. But private developers are snapping up lots along the light rail, threatening to displace low-income residents from neighborhoods where cheaper housing, however shoddy, was historically available.

When the recession hit, and with it, the foreclosure crisis, tens of thousands of Phoenix-area residents were stranded without homes or jobs. The city’s infamous sprawl had leeched energy, diversity and commerce out of the urban core and relegated the poorest residents to the very outer periphery, or left them to inner city pockets with virtually no services.
Today, one in five of the valley’s residents live in poverty (the national average is one in seven) and the center of the nation’s sixth-largest city is a federally designated food desert. To close the yawning housing gap, a recent LISC survey found, the Phoenix area needs 100,000 more units of affordable housing than currently exist.
There are exciting signs of progress, though, and true to its name, the city is rising from the ashes of the housing disaster. “If there was a silver lining to the foreclosure crisis, it’s that it was wake-up call,” says Terry Benelli, director of LISC’s Phoenix office. For one, a new light rail and bus rapid transit system are reorienting Phoenix and the adjoining cities of Tempe and Mesa away from their decades-long love affair with the freeway. Political leaders and developers are embracing transit-oriented development, known as TOD, a term for sustainable, higher density walkable communities, organized around affordable mass transit.
Leading the TOD charge is a handful of elected leaders determined to create mixed-use and mixed income “transit villages” around the rail line. There’s been a surge of public support for mass transit, enough to push through a sales tax that will help build 36 miles of light rail, some of it extending into low-income neighborhoods where the cost of owning and maintaining a car is prohibitive for many residents. The tax passed in spite of a legislature that opposes “inclusionary zoning” (regulations that would require new housing developments to include a percentage of affordable units).

The Valley Metro light rail has exceeded the expectations of city leaders and planners: ridership has already surpassed projections for 2020, and residents overwhelmingly approved a city sales tax that will fund an additional 36 miles of track and other mass transit improvements.

Even before construction on the light rail began, LISC and its longtime partner Raza Development Corp., the largest Hispanic development intermediary in the country, committed to ensuring that low-income and other vulnerable people would not be pushed away from the rail lines, and that they would reap its benefits, too. Together, they have invested $20 million to leverage equitable growth around transit stops, and this year pledged another $30 million.
“At the outset, there were zero units of affordable housing along the light rail,” says Benelli. Now there are 2,100. “LISC was able to get in there and help our partners build using tax credits, when nobody else could.”
Compared to the 100,000 needed, of course, 2,100 is a drop in the bucket. But the fact that development is happening in the urban center at all is a move in the right direction, housing advocates say. “You can’t have a sustainable community if you keep building out and you put poor people on the periphery where they can’t get to work, and they’re spending two hours to get where they need to go on the bus,” says Dede Yazzie Devine, CEO of Native American Connections, a LISC partner and one of the only Phoenix organizations building affordable housing in the city center. “Doing this in the urban core puts people near schools, culture, and all the other amenities that everybody deserves, regardless of whether they’re at 30 percent of the median area income.”

Ruben León, a staff member and former client of Native American Connections, with his family in the courtyard of Devine Legacy. The LEED-certified, affordable housing community sits adjacent to a light rail station in central Phoenix.

It’s hard to find a more enthusiastic proponent of TOD than Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton. Stanton is a born-and-bred local whose passion for mass transit grew from personal experience: his father, a shoe salesman for JC Penney, took the bus every day to and from work, and counted among his closest friends other workers he met on his commute. “This is not utopian,” says Stanton. “It’s about being a great city. That means everyone, whether they work as a waiter or as a lawyer, should be able to walk or bike or have an easy commute on public transportation.”
Not surprisingly, private developers and companies have jumped on the TOD bandwagon, too, eager to capitalize on the energy and income of millennials by building stylish market-rate housing, restaurants and office buildings. The benefit of this growth is jobs and vitality: State Farm recently opened a regional hub a short walk from the Tempe Transit Center and Arizona State University.  ASU, which is based in Tempe, has built an ambitious campus, 30 minutes away by rail, transforming a large chunk of downtown Phoenix.

But it’s the committed non-profit leaders and activists of this region, embedded in the community, who are relentless in pursuing investment for impoverished parts of the city, and trying to keep the valley from repeating old mistakes.
Native American Connections (NAC) is a perfect example of that kind of heart-and-soul dedication. Founded in 1979 as a substance abuse treatment program with supportive housing, NAC has grown into an extraordinary builder of handsome, LEED-certified affordable housing and treatment facilities that incorporate tribal healing practices. Nearly all of NAC’s 18 projects are clustered in central Phoenix along the rail line—a veritable Native American Connections transit village. A LISC loan helped NAC renovate its headquarters, which is also home to a range of Native and other minority organizations. Next door is Devine Legacy, a LEED Platinum affordable housing community.
The view from these buildings takes in the sweep of mostly empty land on the east side of Central Avenue where the vast Phoenix Indian School once stood, and where another of NAC’s projects is underway: the conversion of the former band building into a native cultural center and museum. The school, which opened in 1891 and functioned for 99 years, was part of the U.S. government’s forced acculturation strategy, molding native children according to a military model and turning out laborers and domestic servants who could serve Anglo society. Astoundingly, most non-native residents of Phoenix barely know it existed—in fact, says Devine, “most people don’t even know why one of the longest streets in Phoenix is called Indian School Road!”

Patty Talahongva, an alumna of the Phoenix Indian School, stands in front of the band building that Native American Connections and LISC are helping restore and repurpose as a tribal cultural center and historical gallery. When the school closed in 1990, most of its buildings on the 160-acre campus were razed, effectively erasing a painful but profoundly important record of Native Arizonan history.

Patty Talahongva, an NAC staffer helping oversee the renovation, has a true insider’s take on the project; she was a student at the Indian school in the 1980s, when attendance was no longer compulsory. “There was a saying: kill the Indian, save the man,” says Talahongva, who is Hopi. “Children were removed from their homes, their hair was cut, and they were stripped of their clothes, their language, their traditions. Some of them never went home again.”
The band building, which LISC is helping restore, is part of a larger effort to bring tribal history and culture to the fore in Phoenix, where a majority of the Valley’s 100,000 Native Americans live below the poverty line. “This is a very natural place for people to come learn about Native Americans, to meet Native Americans,” Talahongva says. “They want to know what our city is, where it comes from. Well, an important part of the answer is right here.”
In some ways, the Indian School band building—a school facility-turned-cultural center—is a prime example of what developers and planners call “adaptive reuse,” a strategy that preserves the history and flavor of a place, while repurposing old buildings and reducing sprawl. Adaptive reuse is now a hallmark of many equitable TOD efforts around Phoenix.

Once an iconic steakhouse, the Newton is a perfect example of how "adaptive reuse" can preserve the historic feel of a place while making way for new businesses and community activity.

There’s the Newton, for example, a rambling former steak house retooled to hold a well-stocked and well-patronized bookstore, a restaurant, a garden shop, a design firm and several community meeting spaces. Further south down Central Avenue on the light rail, Co+Hoots, a bustling co-working space, took up residence in a former automotive shop and will soon expand into a neglected office building downtown.
Jenny Poon conceived of CO+HOOTS while running a graphic design business from home, "siloed, and incredibly lonely. I wondered if we could build a community where people felt more connected, in an environment that would be financially low-risk for a new entrepreneur." The worktables that roll on skateboard wheels and the mid-week “mindtweaks,” where co-workers strategize and share skills, bring together people who might otherwise have no professional connection. “There’s nothing else in Phoenix that supports scaling small businesses,” says Poon.

CO+HOOTS, the only co-working space in downtown Phoenix, is the brain child of Jenny Poon. Peer-to-peer mentoring and networking has helped dozens of small businesses—web developers, designers, lawyers, start-ups—flourish, and many have "graduated" and moved on to their own spaces.

Twenty miles to the south-east of central Phoenix, you can step off the light rail at Center and Main Streets in Mesa, across from the dazzling façade of the Mesa Arts Center and neat rows of shops and restaurants—and feel you have arrived in a village that’s home to families from across the income spectrum. A directional sign on Main Street lists local shops and restaurants and notes the time it takes to walk to them. A block to the north is the IDEA children’s museum; a block to the south, volunteers water vegetables in raised beds against a backdrop of murals by local artists at the Mesa Urban Garden.
“This is an area that has not always been welcoming,” says Ryan Winkle, a community developer and co-founder of the garden who is running for a seat on Mesa’s city council. “The perception of Mesa as parochial is hard to change because it’s been like that for so long. But when the people who actually live in Mesa start feeling welcome downtown, that’s when it gets interesting.”
Today, that downtown is percolating with small, independent businesses, and many local merchants have taken part in a LISC-sponsored “creative placemaking” training, learning to use arts and culture to create inviting pedestrian spaces around their shops. The Mesa Arts Center, for its part, is working to draw its neighbors from low- and middle-income neighborhoods. A free Day of the Dead celebration drew 18,000 people last year. The Center also sponsors arts education in Mesa’s lowest-performing public schools where as many as 93 percent of students qualify for free lunch.

The Mesa Urban Garden, a block's walk from Main Street and the light rail, was collaboration between the city and community activists—a first for Mesa.Today, it's a hub for gardeners, artists and activists who are boosters for Mesa's diversity and home-grown creativity, like Laurie Blitz, the garden's volunteer coordinator.

Tim Mello, a transplanted New Yorker who came to the valley after 9/11 to be near family, is emblematic of the Mesa residents who want to see their city become an inclusive transit village. Mello lives at the Encore, an affordable senior housing complex built with LISC investment, appointed with solar panels, a reflecting pool and native plantings. A few months ago, he got rid of his car—an act that would have been unthinkable just last year, before the light rail opened.
“There are still a lot of conveniences that need to be built into the downtown, and there aren’t enough amenities for people without discretionary income,” he says, citing the themes he expounds at city council meetings and in daily blog posts. “But I can walk to the farmer’s market, the Food City is 15 minutes away on the express bus, and there’s the 99 cent store for bargains. Mesa is on its way.”
In spite of the progress around TOD in the Phoenix area, there’s much more to be done, especially on the affordable housing front, to get anywhere near those 100,000 needed units. Inclusionary zoning laws have stalled in the legislature, which means that multi-use neighborhoods and well-built, multi-family housing for people living below the poverty line are the exception, rather than the rule. Along the downtown Phoenix Central Avenue corridor, in the vicinity of NAC, there are 70 new affordable units vs. 4,000 market rate ones. And while infill development—using the city’s countless empty tracts for higher density buildings and mixed commercial space—seems like a no-brainer, it has run up against stubborn opposition.
But listening to Patty Talahongva or Dede Devine or Ryan Winkle, it’s hard not to feel hopeful about the future in the Valley of the Sun. As Devine puts it, “this is an exciting place. And if we stay on top of it, it can be a place that works for everyone.”
To read more on LISC's work in Phoenix, see 
Communities of Connection in the Valley of the Sun
The (Re)Making of Mesa

In half a century, twice as many people will live in cities as do now. The city will then truly be the motor of the global economy. What does this urban Next Economy have in store for us?
No one can predict what the future will hold, but one thing is certain: more of the same is no longer a viable option. Climate change, global urbanization, emerging new technologies, increasing migration, and growing inequality urgently demand real solutions. We have to rethink the way in which we live, work, and learn, and where and how we consume and produce. We will have to redesign the balance between system and individual, between rich and poor, between young and old, between sustainability and growth.
How should we design and govern our cities? Although we are not prophets, we can investigate and imagine tomorrow’s city, research it by design. IABR–2016–THE NEXT ECONOMY takes the main challenges of the twenty-first century as its starting point. We explore the Next Economy and imagine the city of the future: the healthy and socially inclusive city, the productive city, and the sustainable green city. The city in which public space once again takes center stage.

Source >> http://iabr.nl/en

What Works Mesa Now: Creative People ReGenerating This Place We Call Home

No, dear readers -  and thank you all very much for over 28,000 views! - this is not a press release from mesanow.org the City of Mesa newsroom that calls itself that and puts out what City Hall wants and calls "news".
There's news and there are stories and there are always more stories behind stories.
Some of the stories your MesaZona blogger likes most are about Creative Place Making, the matrix of its dynamics, the interactions of ideas and the people who are making NOW now . . . They are simply not waiting for whatever might be next here in The Urban DTMesa .
Here are some stories written by other people for news now.

Outstanding among many of the organizations delivering results in real time is a national group with a local headquarters in Phoenix, Local Initiatives Support Corporation http://programs.lisc.org/phoenix/index.php
There are some very recent stories in just the last few days about Mesa and Greater Phoenix that may be of interest to viewers of this blog.
To encourage you to read them, excerpts or whole parts are reproduced here for your interest.

The (Re)Making of Mesa
4.05.2016
Community leaders and activists have revived Mesa's downtown using arts and culture and made it a place that's welcoming and relevant to all residents, regardless of income. Now, with the arrival of the light rail, they hope to add the affordable housing and jobs that could turn Arizona's third largest city into a truly equitable transit village.

International Monetary Fund >> World Economic Outlook April 2016 Slower Growth Revised Down

Speeches given by SF Fed Reserve Bank president John Williams and U.S. Fed Reserve Bank Chief Janet Yelled have both been featured here in posts on this blog. One seemed to play down global influences while the other was cautions in these "certainly uncertain" times.
Today this is published
World Economic Outlook (WEO)
Analytical Chapters

April 2016

Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/01/index.htm

 

Here in black-and-white from the Fed meeting minutes 03.31.2016 [above] 
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-31/fed-minutes-u-s-services-masters-golf-week-ahead-april-2-9

Yours truly cannot get hung up by trying to decipher and understand what all this academic language is all about, except for some words like slowdown, decline, and debt crises.

What I need are infographics and visuals to cut through twisted narratives that simply state what is going on, like this image to the right from the IMF with real projected figures for advanced and emerging economies.

[You can click on it to enlarge]

 

 

 

 

... or this that shows slower growth everywhere.

The U.S. is the second grouping from the left

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mostly enthusiastic and upbeat mainstream media reporting on reports released by the government that turn out, as the infographic clearly shows that growth forecasts are revised down.

 

 

 

 

Contents

Chapter 2. Understanding the Slowdown in Capital Flows to Emerging Markets
Net capital flows to emerging market economies have slowed since 2010, affecting all regions. This chapter shows that both weaker inflows and stronger outflows have contributed to the slowdown and that much of the decline in inflows can be explained by the narrowing differential in growth prospects between emerging market and advanced economies. The chapter also highlights that the incidence of external debt crises in the ongoing episode has so far been much lower, although the slowdown in net capital inflows has been comparable in breadth and size to the major slowdowns of the 1980s and 1990s. Improved policy frameworks have contributed greatly to this difference. Crucially, more flexible exchange rate regimes have facilitated orderly currency depreciations that have mitigated the effects of the global capital flow cycle on many emerging market economies. Higher levels of foreign asset holdings by emerging market economies, in particular higher levels of foreign reserves, as well as lower shares of external liabilities denominated in foreign currency (that is, less of the so-called original sin) have also been instrumental.

• Full Text | Press Points

• Anatomy of the Slowdown in Net Capital Inflows
• Historical Comparisons: What Is Different This Time?
• What Is Driving the Recent Slowdown in Capital Flows to Emerging Market Economies?
• Conclusions
• References

Annexes
2.1	Sample of Emerging Market Economies
2.2	Data
2.3	Methodology
Boxes
2.1	Capital Flows to Low-Income Developing Countries
2.2	U.S. Monetary Policy and Capital Flows to Emerging Markets
Figures
Chart	Data	2.1	Net Capital Inflows to Emerging Market Economies and Number of Debt Crises, 1980–2015:Q3
Chart	Data	2.2	Net Capital Inflows to Emerging Market Economies, 2000–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.3	Capital Inflows and Outflows for Emerging Market Economies 2000–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.4	Capital Inflows and Outflows for Emerging Market Economies by Asset Type: 2000–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.5	Net Capital Inflows by Region, 2000–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.6	Net Reserve Assets of Emerging Market Economies, 2000–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.7	Exchange Rates of Emerging Market Economies, 2010–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.8	Net Capital Inflow Slowdown and Exchange Rate Changes, 2010–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.9	Cost of Financing, Sovereign Spreads, and Capital Flows in Emerging Market Economies
Chart	Data	2.10	Three Major Net Capital Inflow Slowdown Episodes
Chart	Data	2.11	External Balance Sheets of Emerging Market Economies, 1980–2014
Chart	Data	2.12	Gross Capital Inflows and Outflows of Emerging Market Economies, 1980–2014
Chart	Data	2.13	Net External Debt Liabilities of Emerging Market Economies, 1980–2014
Chart	Data	2.14	Outstanding Debt of Emerging Market Economies Denominated in Domestic Currency, 1995–2015
Chart	Data	2.15	Net Capital Outflows and the Current Account during the 2010–15 Slowdown
Chart	Data	2.16	Nominal Effective Exchange Rate Adjustment in 1995–2000 and 2010–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.17	Role of Global Factors in the Recent Slowdown
Chart	Data	2.18	Estimated Time Fixed Effects and Average Gross Capital Inflows to Emerging Market Economies
Chart	Data	2.19	Share of Variation in Gross Capital Inflows Explained by Global Factors
Chart	Data	2.20	2010–15 Gross Capital Inflow Slowdown and Country-Specific Characteristics
Chart	Data	2.21	Differences in the Contribution of Global Factors between More and Less Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes
Chart	Data	2.1.1	Net Capital Inflows to Low-Income Developing Countries, 2000–14
Chart	Data	2.1.2	Capital Inflows and Outflows of Low-Income Developing Countries, 2000–14
Chart	Data	2.1.3	Capital Inflows to Low-Income Developing Countries by Asset Type and Net Capital Inflows by Region, 2000–14
Chart	Data	2.1.4	Net Reserve Assets and Current Account Balance, 2000–14
Chart	Data	2.1.5	Net Capital Inflows to Low-Income Developing Countries, 2012–15, Restricted Sample
Chart	Data	2.1.6	Exchange Rates of Low-Income Developing Countries, 2009–15:Q3
Chart	Data	2.2.1	Correlation between Emerging Market Fund Flows and Emerging Market Total Portfolio Inflows
Tables
2.1	Foreign Reserves and the Current Account in Balance of Payments Adjustments
2.2	Large Depreciations, Banking Sector Stress, and External Crises during Slowdown Episodes
2.2.1	Short-Term Determinants of Emerging Market Fund Flows
Annex 2.1.1	Countries in the Chapter’s Emerging Market Economies Sample
Annex 2.1.2	External Crisis Episodes, 1980–2015
Annex 2.1.3	Large Depreciation Episodes, 1995–2000
Annex 2.1.4	Large Depreciation Episodes, 2010–15
Annex 2.3.1	Role of Global Factors in Explaining Gross Capital Inflows
Annex 2.3.2	Role of Global Factors in Explaining Gross Capital Outflows
Annex 2.3.3	Role of Country Characteristics in Explaining Gross Capital Inflows
Annex 2.3.4	Role of Country Characteristics in Explaining Gross Capital Outflows
Annex 2.3.5	Role of Interaction Terms in Explaining Gross Capital Inflows
Annex 2.3.6	Role of Country Characteristics and Global Factors in Explaining Gross Capital Inflows

Chapter 3. Time for a Supply-Side Boost? Macroeconomic Effects of Labor and Product Market Reforms in Advanced Economies
This chapter finds that product and labor market reforms raise output and employment in the medium term, but complementary macroeconomic policies are needed to maximize their short-term payoff given the current economic slack in most advanced economies. Product market reforms deliver gains in the short term, while the impact of labor market reforms varies across types of reforms and depends on overall economic conditions. Reductions in labor tax wedges and increases in public spending on active labor market policies have larger effects during periods of slack, in part because they usually entail some degree of fiscal stimulus. In contrast, reforms to employment protection arrangements and unemployment benefit systems have positive effects in good times, but can become contractionary in periods of slack. These results suggest the need for carefully prioritizing and sequencing reforms.

Press Briefing: World Economic Outlook, Analytical Chapters, April 2016                        
April 6, 2016
Watch the 25;17 video >> http://www.imf.org/external/mmedia/view.aspx?vid=4834175211001

5 New Exhibitions @ Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum + Free Reception Friday 13 May

Hat Tip: A Tribute to
Arts Philanthropy,
Threads: Gathering My Thoughts, Archive of Rag and Bone,
El Mac: Aerosol Exalted
Journey and Memory: Past the Rock, The Sun's Gates & The Land of Dreams
Press release from

Casey Blake

Director of Public Relations

Mesa Arts Center

Office: 480.644.6620

Cell: 480.390.1258

MesaArtsCenter.com

(Mesa, AZ) April 6, 2016 – Summer exhibitions at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum continue the museum’s tradition of showcasing curated and proposed exhibitions of contemporary art by emerging and internationally recognized artists. Five exhibitions will be celebrated at a free reception, Friday, May 13, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. in the museum courtyard.

 

Exhibitions opening soon in the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum include Hat Tip: A Tribute to Arts Philanthropy, Threads: Gathering My Thoughts, Archive of Rag and Bone, El Mac: Aerosol Exalted, and Journey and Memory: past the rock, the sun’s gates and the land of dreams. The reception features musical entertainment by The Walt Richardson Trio and an opportunity to meet artists showing work in the exhibitions.

 

Hat Tip: A Tribute to Arts Philanthropy
April 8 – July 31, 2016

South Gallery

Coinciding with Mesa Arts Center’s 10th year celebration at this location, this exhibition honors the generous contributions that have added to the growing and diverse collection housed in the museum’s vault. As the museum continues to look to the future and build on its mission, we take a look back by featuring a few selected gifts from the last 10 years that were received from artists, collectors and through limited purchase awards. Thank you to all our fans, supporters and art enthusiasts these many years.

 

Threads: Gathering My Thoughts
An Installation by Susan Lenz
April 15 – August 7, 2016

SRP Gallery

Inspired by grassroots yarn bombings, South Carolina artist Susan Lenz turned her attention to the most basic fiber art material: yarn. Threads: Gathering My Thoughts is a site-specific installation that invites visitors to explore a labyrinth of colorful threads and baskets that hang from the ceiling and envelop the space. The connections and entanglements created by the installation visually represent the complexity of the human mind. *Susan Lenz is a 2015 proposal winner.

 

Archive of Rag and Bone

Kristin Beeler
April 29 – August 7, 2016

Project Room

California artist Kristin Beeler’s latest series, Archive of Rag and Bone, presents portraits and related objects that document very specific moments in time through memory. The exhibition includes hand embroidered Tyvek garments that reference protection and topography and serve as maps of the physical landscape. Other objects, rendered in silver, mother of pearl and charcoal, explore contrasting aesthetics of beauty that balance perfection and imperfection. *Kristin Beeler is a 2014 Project Room proposal winner.

 

El Mac: Aerosol Exalted
From the street to the gallery – the humble and the sublime

May 13 – August 7, 2016

Main Gallery

Aerosol Exalted features the latest body of work by famed Los Angeles artist El Mac. El Mac, who grew up in central Phoenix, is renowned for his large-scale murals that have become iconic landmarks in the cities across the globe. With his signature rippled line style, El Mac creates photorealistic portraits of ordinary people, often using family, friends and individuals underrepresented in society as models. He skillfully blends contemporary influences, like graffiti as well as the Chicano and Mexican culture he grew up around, with classical European art. In conjunction with this exhibition and Mesa Arts Center’s 10th year celebration at its present location in Downtown Mesa, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum is proud to showcase a 35-foot tall mural by El Mac in the museum’s courtyard, titled Desert Rose (Nuevas Generaciones).

 

Journey and Memory: past the rock, the sun’s gates and the land of dreams
Christopher Jagmin and Patricia Sannit
May 13 – August 7, 2016

North Gallery

In this exhibition, painter Christopher Jagmin and sculptor Patricia Sannit have joined disciplines to create a dialog between materials, historical vocabularies and societal content. Both Arizona artists, who are known for their vivid line quality, incorporate historically inspired marks and patterns that are representative of human culture. Their collaborative installation serves as a metaphor for the arduous journey mankind has taken to get to this present point in time. *Christopher Jagmin and Patricia Sannit are 2015 North Gallery proposal winners.

 

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum is located on the Mesa Arts Center campus at One E. Main Street in downtown Mesa. Admission is free, and hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with extended hours on Thursday until 8 p.m., and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum front desk: 480-644-6567.

 

[END]

About Mesa Arts Center
Mesa Arts Center, owned and operated by the City of Mesa, is a unique, architecturally stunning facility located in the heart of downtown Mesa. Arizona's largest multidisciplinary arts center is home to four theaters, five art galleries in the MCA Museum, and 14 art studios. Guests, patrons, and students come to Mesa Arts Center to enjoy the finest live entertainment, performances and festivals, world-class visual art exhibitions, and outstanding arts education classes. The Mesa Arts Center mission is to inspire people through engaging arts experiences that are diverse, accessible, and relevant. For more information, visit mesaartscenter.com.