DeGrazia (1909-1982) hauling desert wood
I went back to one of my favorite Tucson spots a few days ago, DeGrazia's Gallery In the Sun, which I've blogged about numerous times. I'm entranced by the artistic adobe buildings he constructed by hand with the help of local Indians back in the 1950s out of desert materials. There are hundreds of his art works on display in the main gallery, but I keep going back to wander through the other little buildings, which I usually have to myself.
He's best known for his images of Native American children from the Southwest and other Western scenes. You may recognize his style. But like I said, I go for the buildings.
This is his small chapel, and there are also his small home where he lived with his wife, a little gallery where visiting artists now exhibit and the main gallery.
The buff colored softly rounded adobe blends in with the desert because it's made from the desert. He bought 10 acres of land in the Santa Catalina foothills in 1949 for his compound and used natural materials from the surrounding land to construct it.
The views of the desert framed from inside the buildings are like works of art themselves, and they're always what capture my attention first.
Here you can see part of a mural that he painted in the chapel. I love how the ocotillo spines (I think that's what they are) forming the door filter the light and create striking shadows on the floor.
Inside DeGrazia's old home
After I take in the intimate views of nature, I look at the walls. Here's how he describes them:
"A wall out of mud is beautiful and satisfying, but a wall of mud and straw is a union of materials that are in complete harmony and produce an esthetic feeling, long to be remembered. To me this is the great Southwest. The mud wall is masculine -- physically strong and durable. The straw is feminine -- delicate as a thread. Its color is sun and gold. Some of the walls in my new Gallery In the Sun are like this.
"On other Gallery walls I use plaster with rough gravel ... This produces a severe texture. Then, while the plaster is still wet, I paint it with at least three colors, sometimes as many as six. Colors are used to achieve the counterpart of the structure, to soften the walls. The result is that they come alive. They sing and exude beauty."
A design imbedded in a wall
Then my eyes move up to the ceilings, which he describes:
"On my Gallery ceilings I have used resawn lumber, with teeth to grab. I used all pastel colors to paint them with; and a dry brush with very little color on it. You feel the color rather than see it. Lightly applied, like a breath of air it produces a delicately colored atmosphere that's there yet you know it's there only by feeling it."
The floors are magnificent! The one above is made from cross sections of cholla cacti.
His description of his floors:
"On some of the Gallery floors I use mud; on others jumping cholla cactus. The cholla, cut about four inches long by an Indian, is sanded and sealed with wax. The tops of some of the cholla I dye in color. Then I bed them in cement. The finished floor produces a feeling of walking in a strange magic place. You see it; you feel it in your feet -- texture on your toes, so to speak. A magic rug."
More desert gifts decorate the buildings, like the brittle dead plant hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier and a skull on an outdoor wall brushed with gold.
A cactus boot, from a decayed saguaro cactus, hangs like another piece of art. When a bird excavates a hole in a live saguaro for a nest, the cactus forms a protective callous around the hole. After the softer cactus decays, the calloused "boot" remains (shaped like a boot).
The outdoor areas are also works of art, but that's a whole other story! I wish our contemporary buildings were constructed with such artistry and attention to surrounding land.
Have a colorful day.
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