Arts Archives - AZ Writer

Mesa Artist Finds Warm Reception in Montana

East Valley Tribune

Born in Banning, California, artist Linda Glover Gooch moved in 2001 to Mesa, Arizona, where she lives with her family and works in her studio. Her Impressionistic paintings reveal her wonder from Western landscapes in Arizona and Montana –– grand places such as the Salt River near Phoenix, the Grand Canyon and Glacier national parks and Flathead Lake in northwest Montana. About 20 miles from the lake, she is hosting “Intertwined with Living Waters: The Art of Linda Glover Gooch” in Kalispell at the Hockaday Museum of Art occupying a 1904 Carnegie Library on the National Register of Historic Places. For the most part, she works “en plein air,” setting up her easel to create, in this case, paintings, field studies and sketches of life-giving water in its varying forms of river, fog, snow and clouds.

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The Art of the Allison

Western Art & Architecture, February/March 2020

The Allison Inn vibrantly celebrates its place on 35 acres in Oregon’s spectacular Willamette Valley. On the surrounding hills, signature to the vinicultural area southwest of Portland, the 85-room luxury hotel in Newberg cultivates seven pinot noir and pinot vineyards. Throughout the LEED Gold-certified hotel and the site are 500-plus original works by more than 100 Oregonian artists, including paintings, photography, ceramics, fiber art and sculpture. And, the 100-seat restaurant, JORY, honors the glacier-deposited soil that has made the area world famous. The artworks are curated by Loni Parrish, the daughter of the hotel’s founder, the late Joan Austin, whose husband’s family homesteaded nearby seven generations ago. Her brother, Ken Austin III, handcrafted two tables, bothe part of the collection and your dining experience when you visit.

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Plein Air Events Mark Grand Canyon and Zion Centennials

Western Art Collector, July 2019

Being even a small part this year of the centennial celebrations for Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks has been inspiring. I had the honor of writing a few pieces about these events; this is one of them. Part of the joy was that these are, indeed, commemorations of 100 years of national commitment and personal commitments of individual Americans to their preservation. But I will not be here for the next such event; neither will most of those reading this. Please remember that the next one is for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What President Teddy Roosevelt said of Yellowstone National Park in 1903 carries for all of these remarkable shared treasures: All of us, he said, looking forward 100 years and beyond, must “jealously [safeguard] and [preserve] the scenery, the forests, and the wild creatures.” Cherish this jealousy, practice it.

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Michael Barnard: Ellis Island Medal of Honor

The Entertainer!, July 2018

Michael Barnard, producing artistic director of Phoenix Theatre, was recently honored as an Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipient. Here in New York Harbor, 12 million immigrants entering Ellis Island sought the rewards of America from 1892 to 1954. As described by the Honor Society, “The Ellis Island Medals of Honor embody the spirit of America in their salute to tolerance, brotherhood, diversity and patriotism. Barnard’s paternal grandmother came through Ellis Island just before the Nazi occupation of France in 1941. His grandfather helped found Glendale with Senator Carl Hayden. Others include former Vice President Joe Biden, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Nobel laureates Elie Wiesel and Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, John Sculley, Muhammad Ali, Lee Iacocca and Rosa Parks. “[The arts] help make us strong, individually and together,” Barnard says. “They offer innovative, evocative ways to build acceptance, hope and tolerance.”

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Haunting Return: Anne Frank

The Entertainer!, April 2018

“I can only cry out and implore, ‘Open wide. Let us out,’ wrote Anne Frank in what became the famous ‘Diary of Anne Frank” after its post-World War II publication. The teenage writer was one of 60,000 Jews who found home in Amsterdam, attempting escape from the Nazis, who eventually captured the city July 6, 1942, and began searching for them. Frank died of typhus at one of the death camps, Bergen Belsen, in early 1945, perhaps two months before the liberation of Europe by the Allies. Recently, David Ira Goldstein, who completed 26 years as artistic director of the Arizona Theatre Company in June 2017, returned to the Valley to direct an adaptation of the original Broadway play. The Anne Frank cast featured Naama Potok, daughter of author Chaim Potok, who was Edith, Anne’s mother. The play summons vigilance, self-evaluation and affirmation: “Hatred is a choice,” she says. “We can choose a different path.”