Phoenix Art Museum. Photo by Bill Timmerman.

On Wednesday night, Phoenix Art Museum's Contemporary Forum awarded eight local artists who've made a mark in the contemporary scene.

The annual event recognizes up to seven emerging Arizona artists with $1,500 grants to purchase materials and one mid-career artist with $5,000 plus a special exhibition of his or her work alongside past award winners.

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Photos by Benjamin Leatherman

The neon sign inside Gringo Star Street Bar in Tempe during its soft opening Wednesday night.

When members of the college-aged party brigade or recent ASU grads looking to celebrate their milestone stroll into Gringo Star Street Bar this evening (and in all likelihood they will), they'll encounter a few things that are a bit foreign to the Mill Avenue nightlife scene. Namely, arcade games, skeeball, and street art.

Gringo Star, which officially opens to public consumption today and tonight, boasts all three of these in abundance, and Jackalope Ranch was allowed a sneak peek at the place on Wednesday during its soft opening.

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You've probably seen them at flea markets -- metal letters, words, and images that were once set, inked, and rolled against paper in a printing press to create the daily newspaper, novel, or informational flyer.

Once an industrial process, letterpress (the act of printing with metal, wood, and now polymer-based type and imagery) has grown into an artform that has taken off in contemporary culture the last few years.

Sky Shipley is one of the last letterpress experts and aficionados who casts metal type used for letterpress. We caught up with Shipley in his foundry in Prescott, where he talks about the artform's long history, it's roots in Arizona, and it's complicated future.

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Photo by Dayvid LeMmon

Kendall Buster's Dual Apparitions

On Thursday, May 16, Scottsdale Public Art is teaming up with the International Sculpture Center (ISC) to bring an ISConnets event to the Hotel Valley Ho. A Conversation: Sculpture + Architecture will be a panel discussion followed by a sunset reception on the rooftop of the Midcentury Modern hotel.

With Matt Lehrman moderating, panelists Will Bruder, Kendall Buster, and Jeffrey Stein will explore the junctions between architecture and sculpture.

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Phoenix Art Museum. Photo by Bill Timmerman.

Wednesday night, Phoenix Art Museum's Contemporary Forum will recognize eight local artists who've made a mark in the contemporary scene.

The annual event celebrates up to seven emerging Arizona artists with $1,500 grants to purchase materials and one mid-career artist with $5,000 plus a special exhibition of his or her work alongside past award winners.

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Devon Christopher Adams

Ryan Severyn of Phoenix wears his Mass Effect 3 Spectre armor and holds a digital art print by Anabel Martinez at last year's "Controllers & Canvas" at Bookmans in Mesa.

As anyone who's ever played Shadow of the Colossus, Rez, or Ico would likely attest, video games have become much more than just amusing distractions for geeks and teens. It's as much a legitimate art form as painting or sculpture, and no less a source than either the Smithsonian or Museum of Modern Art (both of which have exhibited arcade classics in recent years) can back that up.

Local artist and gaming fiend Anabel Martinez also is a big proponent of the legitimacy of video games as art, which is one of the reasons she's helping co-organize and promote this Saturday's "Controllers & Canvas" event at Bookmans Entertainment Exchange in Mesa.

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Courtesy of El Moises

El Moises and his painting Xicanindio on a Indio.

When El Moisés began planning this weekend's Grand Avenue Get Down, he initially envisioned it as an stunning convergence of Latino culture, art, and automobiles of every shape and size. But one thing the 38-year-old artist didn't want, however, was for the two-day event to be considered "just another Cinco de Mayo thing," despite the fact it's occurring in the midst of the annual holiday.

"They've made Latino culture into a drinking cliché, so we wanted something to avoid all that and incorporate more of a celebration of art and culture," Moisés says. "Since it's going to be on Grand, I thought, 'What better place to line up all these cars from one side to the other?' And also line it up with this multicultural crossover between artwork, cars, lowriders, bikes, and all these other vehicles."

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Hank Fries, "Litany," mixed media

Robrt Pela didn't intend to permanently open a gallery when he first used the space on McDowell and 5th Avenue to host The Joe and Jan Show this past March. But the veteran Phoenix New Times critic and contributor was encouraged by others who, like himself, recognized a need for quality in the downtown arts scene.

R. Pela Contemporary Art will host its grand opening exhibition of work by Jake Fischer and Hank Fries this Friday, May 3rd. And the show proves that Pela's commitment to quality isn't just talk.

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https://www.facebook.com/hoodlumsmusic

Tempe's Broadmor Elementary is home to some seriously creative students and some very cool parents who've joined forces for the past five years to produce Hoodstock.

Think indie music and arts festival meets school fundraising event and you're on the path to what's been an annual showcase of emerging talent (and a cool excuse to fund creative programming for kids).

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Rossitza Todorova, "Contained Path Book," paper, 2012

Local artist Rossitza Todorova says she's trying to visually collapse space and metaphorically collapse time in her work -- no small feat, to be sure. The thing is, the recent graduate actually achieves this goal with resounding success.

Todorova's solo exhibition Intersections opens this Friday at ASU's Night Gallery. There are two forms of work in the show: three-dimensional paper forms and two-dimensional works on paper. But the idea of movement within a structure remains a central theme in both mediums.

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