A long, long time ago….Downtown used to be a hotbed of arts activity. As a 20+ year downtown veteran, I remember. I was even a part of the buzz for awhile as a staff member of the Tucson Arts District Partnership – the group tasked with downtown revitalization through the arts. Established in the mid to late 1980′s, after a feasibility study said that’s what we should do, the arts district burst onto the scene with a signature event – Downtown Saturday Night. Wildly successful in bringing the community to our urban core, it sadly ran its course and became a shadow of itself after a few years, but it was pretty amazing at its zenith. Thousands of Tucsonans walking the sidewalks (and spilling onto the street) to experience galleries, cafe’s, shops and performances of both art and music. New art spaces opening up in vacant storefronts (phantom galleries), the sight of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra performing in the Ronstadt Transit Center, artists in residence interacting with the public to create murals and other works of art.

Downtown Saturday Night was just one program of the partnership (Managed aptly by staff member Claudia Jesperson) and became our community arts showcase. Other TADPI programs included; Artists in Residence, Thursday Night Art Walks, the Art 30 publication, Phantom Galleries, Art studios, an Artspace loan program, Warehouse District master planning, the Phantom Sculpture program and on and on.

What happened to all of this good stuff?

Times change, with the illusion of free easy Rio Nuevo cash, and, the creation of the Business Improvement District (Tucson Downtown Alliance), a lot of additional cooks entered the kitchen. TADPI’s original, long serving Executive Director Sarah Clements moved on, and so did many other staffers (Mary Glenn, Mary Ellen Wooten, Myself – to start the Fox Theatre project) and an era ended. Are we better off now? Those who remember the glory days may not think so, but I think this era laid the groundwork for what came next. No doubt in fits and starts, but this activity did get a segment of the community comfortable with coming back downtown. The decline of the seedy bars (Manhattan, etc.) and rise of hip galleries (Dinnerware, Central Arts, Berta Wright, etc.) and eateries – R.I.P Cafe Magritte – along with retail like the Arts District Bookstore were the needed transition elements. I hope we see this type of success again soon, and if not let’s remember what we had – a small urban success led in part by a noble organization, thanks TADPI!

Let’s hear it for the Kokopelli!

Along with the saguaro, the kokopelli is the ubiquitous symbol of the Southwest. Plant the first in the front yard, and hang or display the other inside on anything from wall art to table napkins and you’ve arrived! Practically a native! Authentic Southwest!

How the kokopelli rose to the top as the lowest common denominator of native Southwestern art is beyond me.

Who or what the kokopelli represents is beyond anthropologists, too, as various origin legends trail off onto divergent paths lost to the past.

No matter. The kokopelli has charisma and charisma sells.

Camp Verde Arizona proudly claims the rights as home to the world’s largest kokopelli. Sunland Home Décor has an entire online store devoted to the kokopelli. An outfit in Houston sells kokopelli jewelry, candles, coffee cups, tiles and other merchandize. The kokopelli is carved, painted, printed, sculpted, sandblasted and cut from iron. Shoot, I even put a kokopelli inlay in one of my own pieces.

"World's Largest Kokopelli" - Camp Verde, AZ

As we all know, the kokopelli can be traced back to pictograph’s chipped into sandstone dating from about 750 AD.

In one account, the kokopelli derives from Aztec culture as a trader who traveled north, a bag of goods over his shoulder (morphed now into a typical hunchback), his flute used to announce his peaceful arrival among the ancient pueblo peoples.

McNitt inlay kokopelli

Another version is more prosaic. The name may be a combination of Hopi and Zuni words for a deity and a particular fly known for its voracious sexual appetite. Many pictographs depict the kokopelli as a Mr. Happy Pants of prodigious proportions, an appendage rarely seen in modern home décor images.

The kokopelli also has been associated with fertility and the seasonal change from winter to spring.

Be that as it may – the kokopelli, by popular consensus, represents good cheer, good fortune, playful mischievousness, healing of woes and realization of dreams.

So, be it in the form of ancient pictograph, cultural symbol in contemporary art, or everyday kitsch, here’s to the Kokopelli, whoever he may be!

Note: I welcome your suggestions for future blog posts – benmcnitt@gmail.com

A friend posted this on Facebook regarding MJ’s legacy – “of course the death of a human being at 50 is tragic, but wasn’t Jackson a talented disco singer who was part of the depoliticization of rock music during Reagan’s ascendance to power?”

As I recall it, that was the era of the me generation, a narrowing of horizons in which young people wanted to have a good time without getting involved too much in what was happening in the world around them.

 Not to take away from his great talent and unmatched ability to  touch so many around the globe in a truly positve way, but as my friend put it, a part of his legacy, too, was as “a dynamic sugary surface pop music star assisting unconsciously in the depoliticization of the culture of the times.”

What do you think?