My husband located his on the Northeast panel and I found mine last night on Southwest panel 1, as all 4 panels are now up on the walls. We were excited to finally locate our portraits amongst the thousands of other tile portraits.

Check it out at www.tucsonportraitproject.com. The photographer was Darren Clark and the concept was created by Gary Patch.

I blogged about this project on August 21, after Tucson’s Birthday Celebration in 2009, but only one panel (the Northwest one) was up at that time. Click here to read my original blog, with details on how to locate your face.

What a great sense of community we felt by being amongst 7,000 other Tucsonans.

Note: Here’s a partial list of some faces I recognized:
NE panel – Randy Accetta, Michael Carson, Al Classen,Tim Keene, Phil Lopes, CT Revere, Ruben Reyes, Regina Romero, Ken Scoville, Chris Tanz;

NW panel – Donna Branch-Gilby, Michael Patrick Brewer, Michael Bryan, Gail Cordy, Albert Elias, Gene Einfrank, Julia Fonseca, Bud Foster, Joyce Gee, Jim Glock, Nancy Janetta, Roslyn Miller, Ron Spark, Karin Uhlich;

SW 1 panel – Laura Burge, Roger Carrillo, Pat de Vito, Carmen Dolny, Rodney Glassman, Maurice Grossman, Jim Hannley, Gary Low, Pancho Medina, Monique Martin, Jim Nintzel, Tom Prezelski;

and SW 2 panel – Katie Bolger, Raul Grijalva, Sat Bir Khalsa, Erika O’Dowd, Alan Leibensperger, Diana Rhodes, Shirley Scott, Nina Trasoff, Robert Walkup.

Maurice Grossman

A friend of many of us, Democratic activist Maurice Grossman, age 82, passed away on January 21 following heart valve surgery at TMC Hospital.

Maurice was a retired art professor from the U of A (1955 to 1989), who continued his ceramic art work at his studio at his home in the Sam Hughes Neighborhood. He was dedicated to many social causes, and very active in the Southern Arizona Stonewall Democrats (a GLBT group), Democrats of Greater Tucson, Wingspan, and Sam Hughes Cares for Seniors, a volunteer program providing mostly transit services to fellow neighbors.

Maurice was the Grand Marshall in last October’s Pride Parade in Tucson, and he was always a participant at Tucson’s Aidswalk, also held in October.

I knew Maurice as a friend, neighbor, and fellow activist, and I will miss him, as will many of us in Tucson. Farewell dear friend. He told me he would not live to see gay marriage pass in Arizona, and he was right. We have to carry on for him.

Jan. 25 update: KUAT Channel 6 is airing an art interview with Maurice by Sooyeon Lee tonight at 6:30 p.m. Or watch it online at: http://ondemand.azpm.org/videoshorts/watch/2010/1/25/kuat-remembering-a-pioneer/

The Celebration of Life of Dr. Maurice Grossman will be held on Sunday, February 7, 5:30 pm at the Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Avenue, with stories, sharings, and farewells.

My photo gallery on Maurice, click here.