This morning we went with our friends Dottie and Mike to the Tucson Museum of Art. The main event was a presentation by artists Bill Schenck and Julie Sasse and professor Peter Lehman of ASU about The Cinematic West and its Influence in Art. Bill Schenck creates Andy Warhol type images from stills taken from western movies. He also has an exhibit of his work at the museum at this time. http://www.tucsonmuseumofart.org/exhibitions/bill-schenck-the-serigraphs His work is quite distinctive. I describe it as Andy Warhol meets Frederic Remington and interprets John Ford images.

The discussion was very interesting as Bill shared slides of his appropriated movie images and the subsequent painting interpretations he made from them, and they discussed the impact of cowboy movies on art and art on movie-making. They got off on tangents discussing the importance of directors to making good movies. It was very interesting. I thought of my buddy Glenn and wished he could have been there.

Then we went to lunch at a cantina in a nearby cluster of folk art places. As we sat down at our table a show of Aztec dancing began! That was quite colorful and the dancers went to great lengths to explain the dances.

Following lunch we toured a few buildings of old Tucson that are part of the museum property. This included another visit to the Tucson Nacimiento display that Jean and I saw in January. These nativity displays are a long-standing custom in Mexican culture. It is a sight to behold. http://www.tucsonmuseumofart.org/exhibitions/el-nacimiento

This evening we had a light dinner at Mike and Dottie’s place and watched the sun set on the mountains. Ahhhhh!