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Tucson has no shortage of galleries or artists, perhaps it is the quality of light out here. Recently I made time to visit a couple of the art galleries in town that I have always wanted to see. My first stop was at the Diana Madaras Gallery at Skyline Drive and Campbell Avenue. I am attracted to Madaras’ use of intensely bright colors and her desert scenes. Having grown up in the Sonoran Desert I can attest that though some of her paintings seem outrageous, I have actually seen fuchsia and amethyst hued mountains, glowing vermilion and tangerine flushed cactus, and cerulean colored rocks.

Though she’s always loved painting, Madaras came to her art career later in life. After graduating from the University of Arizona in 1977 Madaras opened a successful sports marketing company. In 1993, at the urging of an art professor, Madaras took a month off to study art. By the end of the month her life was transformed. She returned to Tucson, sold her business and embarked on her painting career.

I was pleasantly surprised by Madaras’ extensive collection of animal paintings and even more pleased when I learned she donates a portion of those sales to a foundation to care for abused or neglected animals. The gallery was light and open with a very welcoming atmosphere and the sales lady treated my small purchase of note cards with as much respect as the $7,500 painting that she sold just minutes prior.

My next stop was DeGrazia’s Gallery in the Sun in the foothills north of town. When Ettore (Ted) DeGrazia built his home up here in 1951 he had an uninterrupted view of the Santa Catalina Mountains and the small town of Tucson far below. DeGrazia had come a long way from his humble roots. He was born in 1909 in the copper mining town of Morenci, the third son of Italian immigrants. In the 1920s his parents moved the entire family to Italy for four years. I like to think the exposure to all the art in Italy had some influence on him.

When DeGrazia and his family finally returned to Arizona he re-enrolled in school, eventually graduating from Morenci High School at the age of 23. DeGrazia dabbled in art during high school and in 1932 he moved to Tucson and began to study art at the University of Arizona. After multiple attempts, DeGrazia eventually earned several degrees including a Masters degree in music and art in 1945.

During one of his “dropout” periods from the university DeGrazia traveled through the Southwest and into Mexico. This time of exploration brought him into contact with many of the native peoples: the Yaqui, the Navajo, the Apaches, and the Papago (now known as the Tohono O’odham). These peoples he would later celebrate in his art.

In 1941, after Arizona Highways published one of DeGrazia’s paintings, he traveled to Mexico to study under Diego Rivera; the rest, as they say is history. I will admit there was time when I couldn’t stand DeGrazia’s pastel images of Native American children. I now attribute that dislike to my lack of exposure to his other works. I also know more about the man now and I find him fascinating. I admire his respect for the native cultures of the Southwest which he conveyed in his work. He was certainly a character; for example, in 1976 DeGrazia rode horseback into the Superstition Mountains with 100 of his paintings. He burned his art to protest the U.S. inheritance tax.

Today the Gallery that DeGrazia and his wife Marion, also an artist, built in 1965 and his home, small chapel, and studio are all open to the public. Shortly before his death in 1982 DeGrazia established the DeGrazia Foundation to ensure that his gallery and art would be preserved and remain open to the public. In 2006 the ten acre site, started over 50 years ago because no one would showcase his art, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Of his fame, DeGrazia once said, “Success transformed me from a drunk to an eccentric.”

Understandably, the focus of the site is on DeGrazia’s art and though I enjoyed wandering the gallery’s many rooms, I felt that something was missing. There should have been information illuminating DeGrazia’s story—it would have helped me relate to DeGrazia, the man. Maybe the DeGrazia Foundation will put together some exhibits in the future.

During my visit I learned that DeGrazia dabbled in many art forms, not just painting, though that is what he is most famous for. It seems to me that DeGrazia was a simple man who saw art everywhere. He not only fabricated his own colors from the environment, but he created art out of every day objects such as aluminum cans. And perhaps that is the best lesson to take away from DeGrazia’s Gallery in the Sun; that there is beauty in everything.

Finally, I must tell you about my brush (pun intended) with yet another famous artist of the Southwest, Georgia O’Keeffe. During O’Keeffe’s years of painting from her small home near Abiquiu, New Mexico, she met Arthur Pack who owned the nearby Ghost Ranch. In 1934 O’Keeffe moved to a place on the ranch and became friends with Pack. For Pack’s wedding O’Keeffe gave him a cow-skull symbol that she had designed.

What does this have to do with Tucson? In 1941 Arthur Pack and his wife moved to Tucson and opened up the Ghost Ranch Lodge on the then-outskirts of town. Located on Miracle Mile the lodge which welcomed guests for over 50 years was set up like a ranch with a large cactus garden. The centerpiece of the sign that still stands outside the lodge today is none other than Georgia O’Keeffe’s cow-skull.

As it turns out, Arthur Pack figures prominently in Tucson’s cultural legacy. I’ll be talking more about him in a couple of days so stay tuned…

Photos: View our photographs from Art in Tucson.

Notes: Erin visited Tucson art galleries on 02/21/2008.