Like a sacred untouchable, the bulldozer has been allowed to destroy the very places that give us life. Tucsonan Sharyl Wagner had made a deft planner's drawing, the kind that helps direct the bulldozer to its destructive work. A cyanotype blueprint of a lush desert slope, it's scarred by an overlay of drawings of the regimented houses and palm trees that will soon supplant the wilderness. The results of these architectural efforts are seen from the air in the work of Adriel Heisey, the aerial photographer who's also exhibiting a whole suite of Sonoran Desert photos out at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. But all around this majestic geological formation white houses are littered like so much trash.
Intrusions read loud and clear, and remain for years.
Photographer Kent Kochenderfer of Tucson turned his attention to a specific local calamity. Stressed by the encroachment of the city and long since deprived of their once marshy riverbanks, these trees burned so forcefully this summer that a heavy cloud of smoke choked the city for a day and a night. This beautiful work is a memento mori, colored in elegiac golds, browns and grays, but it's also a sad warning of more losses sure to come. Gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. From 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday, September 19, and coinciding with the Art Square Fine Art Market at 186 E. Broadway, the gallery will stage a series of free performances inspired by the exhibition.