Merry Christmas!

Wishing all my blog readers a very Merry Christmas!  I hope you are having a safe, peaceful, and enjoyable holiday.  Thank you for stopping by and visiting my blog over the past year!

carved palm tree heads

12/15/2012, Tucson, Arizona

I drove past these guys Saturday morning, did a double-take, and had to circle back around to take a few pictures.  I've seen wood stump carvings before, but I don't think I've personally seen any carved out of palm trees  -- very interesting texture, almost looks like pressed sawdust from a distance.

tilting at windmills

12/2/2012, Tucson, Arizona

This picture shows two things:

1. A cool looking windmill made out of bicycle fenders at the Whistle Stop Depot
2. That my lowlight handheld camera shake is very questionable 

BICAS Bicycle Art Auction (Dec 2nd 2012)

12/2/12, sculpture by Zach Lihatsh

The annual BICAS Art Silent Auction fundraiser was held at the Whistle Stop Depot last Sunday night.  This is the fourth time I've attended -- always a good time looking at and bidding on such a diverse collection of way cool art made by some incredibly creative artists!

BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art & Salvage) is local non-profit collectively-run community education and recycling center for bicycles that welcomes people of all ages and walks of life.  Among the many positive things they do for our community are: teaching classes on bicycle repair, renting tools/shop space to work on your bike, recycling bicycles into new working bicycles, recycling bicycles into art.  This event is their primary fundraising event of the year.

Friendly faces greeted people at the Whistle Stop Depot in downtown Tucson.  If you were planning on bidding on anything, a quick signup sheet here provide you with a bid number that you could write down on any of the silent auction bidding sheets located next to the art, along with your bid.  This was a nice improvement and made it much easier to bid or update a bid on any of the bid sheets inside.

Early evening, plenty of room to scope out all the cool art and see which ones strike your fancy for possibly bidding on later.

There were hundreds of art objects up for silent auction, designed and made by many different artists.

I really liked the desert scene below, a great example of what can be accomplished with bike parts and an especially creative mind!

12/2/12, Desert Scene by Colin Holmes

 I really liked this lamp below, made out of wheel quick-release levers.  I bid on it several times, but it didn't make it home with me.

12/2/12, Lamp by Erik Bang

12/2/12, lamp by Erik Bang & Monique Laraway

 Ah yes, the Javalina.  You may remember him wandering around in a prior post when I saw him at the Bicycle Swap Meet recently.  A lot of bicycles spokes went into the making of this guy.   Very well done, and very popular at the auction.

12/2/12, Javalina by Troy Neiman

12/2/12, sculpture by Troy Neiman

 Earrings made from bicycle parts

In addition to the art, there was music, a puppet show for the kids, food, drinks, and even cotton candy!

Great turnout for this event -- here is the crowd as it got a little closer to the 9 PM bidding cutoff

12/2/12, sculpture by Emerie Charley

perfect for those "deer in the headlights" moments?

The artists, organizers, and volunteers should all be very proud of the event -- a really outstanding event and fundraiser!  BICAS holds this auction around the end of the year each year, keep your eyes out for it next year and drop by to see and bid on some very cool art supporting a great organization.

Color Vibe Tucson Run at TMC (2012)

Saturday morning I went over to the Tucson Medical Center campus to take a few pictures of the Color Vibe 5K run.  This fun event involves a lot of food-grade cornstarch dyed powder, runners with white shirt and clean faces, and, well you get the idea.  Looked like everyone had a lot fun, lots of smiles!

Here's a slideshow of 46 of my pictures on Flickr (click bottom right icon for fullscreen):


http://www.flickr.com/photos/23727418@N02/sets/72157632154489286/

Note to self: when shooting an unknown event with a somewhat ambiguous course route direction, make sure you have the route direction right or that perfectly chosen morning sunlight in their faces location suddenly becomes a nightmare shoot into the sun situation.  Ooooops.

Learning is fun!  *smile*

neighborly conversation

11/10/2012, 6th St near train tracks, Tucson, Arizona

Spoken like a Javalina

This beautiful Javalina was wandering around the BICAS booth during Saturday's Community Bicycle swap meet.  Made predominately out of bicycle spokes.  Very well done, I'd say.   My understanding is that it will be one of the items up for silent auction at the upcoming BICAS bicycle art auction/fundraiser in December.

Procession of Little Angels (2012)

Here are a few of my pictures of the Procession of Little Angels (PoLA) held on Saturday afternoon/evening, November 3rd, 2012 in Armory Park as part of the All Souls Procession weekend.

This family-friendly event focuses on acknowledging and celebrating deceased loved ones from the perspective of the child.  The kids all looked like they really enjoyed having their faces painted and working with arts and crafts to make wings, stars, and painted sugar skulls.

Painting wings

The picture below is actually among my favorite shots for the whole weekend.  Somehow, to me at least, it seems to capture the spirit of angels and stars looking down and watching the activities, memories, and celebration by those still on earth of those who have passed on.

There were a number of very nice memorial altars in the park.

There was some great harp music during the afternoon to go with the angels.  All angels should have harp music, right?

and of course, lots of photos to be taken by everyone

As evening approached, there were a number of great performances, including stilt walkers and performers who are students of Tucson Circus Arts.  I like the picture of Nadia Hagen pictured below on the right.  The look, the smile, the hand out: challenge, support, confidence, success, happiness -- says a lot about how their student program must work.

Once it got dark, the Procession of Little Angels began, walking around the Armory Park block, led by a great bagpipe player and stilt walkers.  Everyone was having fun.

Every Procession needs some great drumbeats, and they delivered.

Just like the bigger All Souls Procession held downtown Sunday night (also family friendly), some children carried pictures of loved ones who have passed on.

This group were having a total blast dancing, clapping, and jumping in the air as they walked along to the beat!

Back at the main stage, more performances to enjoy.

A lot of the kids really got into dancing to the drum beat at the end of the evening, a great way to end the day.

Also at the PoLA, the new water cut stainless steel urn for this year.  This urn is filled with people's notes of memories, wishes, and remembrances during the PoLA and the next day's All Souls Procession and then burnt up during the finale (as shown in my prior post).  Amazing work and designs on this new urn!

Congrats and kudos to Jhon Sanders and all the other folks who put so much tireless effort and spirit into making this a successful event!

Here is a Flickr slideshow of my full set of PoLA pictures (click lower right icon to expand fullscreen)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23727418@N02/sets/72157631949784585/with/8163118880/