Exploring your authentic Arizona lifestyle
Visit unique places throughout Arizona!
If ever there was a woman comfortable in her skin, it’s Patricia Griffin. Wearing paint-spattered overalls, owl-rimmed glasses and a smile that shines with inner radiance, she took time to talk about life and art from inside her studio.
Back in the 1600s, a wave of immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and England made their way into remote areas of North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia, bringing with them ideas and music from their native countries. As they cultivated the land and forged new lives, they began singing songs and playing music that not only reflected their day-to-day struggles, happiness and loves, but that also gleaned bits and pieces of the cultures from which they came.
In the aisles of Desert Foothills Library, David Court is a rock star. Though he lacks a swagger and the button-up shirts he wears are far from flashy, when he steps inside this building, he’s a hero.
Touchdowns, cheers and school fight songs—it’s as American as apple pie and the Fourth of July. Yet in Cave Creek, the sound of the band has been nearly non-existent in recent years. Budget cuts all but amputated funding for music, and the high school band program tapered down to a dozen or so students.
For a couple of guys who make their living fooling the eye, Rich Kovacich & Felix Lagazo are as real as they come.
If summer heat has got you down, a taste of the Valley has moved to the cool pines of Prescott. Just an hour or so from Phoenix, Chef Ryan Peters and his wife Brittany, who kept crowds coming to Tonto Bar and Grill, have opened the doors to Farm Provisions, one of the newest farm-to-table ventures in a growing list of restaurants focused on fresh, local fare.
Over two millennia ago, Aristotle opined that art imitates life. It took more than 2,200 years of human pondering before Oscar Wilde countered his theory, saying that it is life that does the imitating. Art, he said, provides the language we need to appreciate life, and without it, that appreciation would not exist.
Writer Amanda Christmann Photographer Saija Lehtonen f we ever were to forget exactly why we chose to live in the desert Southwest, all...
Writer Amanda Christmann he heat is on, and so is the fun at Independence Day festivals around the Valley. Indoors and out, there’s no...
Writer Amanda Christmann Photographer Loralei Lazurek n the early 19th century, Horace Mann launched the public school movement, advocating for, and eventually winning, educational...
