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​A group of accordion fanatics in Texas aren't happy with Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake.

This coming weekend is the International Accordion Festival in San Antonio, Texas. The Festival is subsidized by the National Endowment of the Arts, an independent agency of the federal government pegged with dishing out cash in the form grants to support the arts.

Last year, the NEA gave the Accordion Festival $35,000. Thanks to Congressman Flake, the festival only received $30,000 in government coin this year.

As Gwen Rivera, the festival's director, told New Times yesterday, the festival -- which has a budget of $150,000 -- is feeling the cuts.

See our story on the festival here.

She credits Flake with the cuts to her budget after he grilled Rocco Landesman, chairman of the NEA, during a U.S. House Appropriations sub-committee meeting earlier this year. Flake wanted to know why -- given the current realities of the U.S. economy -- the NEA should give funds to certain groups that, according to him, are "a bit tough to justify."

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Joel Delgado admittedly has a problem: he writes "Jugz" on stuff because it gives him a "rush."

​"Jugz" is headed to the joint.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge sentenced 27-year-old graffiti vandal Joel Delgado, a.k.a. "Jugz," to a year in prison and four years' supervised probation for -- authorities claim -- being the worst graffiti vandal in Phoenix.

It seems Delgado was tagging just about everything he saw with his infamous "Jugz" tag.

Delgado scrawled his tag on more than 300 sites over a 20-month period.


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Arizonans won't be asked to increase their taxes to pay for art -- not this year, at least.

​
Maybe they're not so crazy after all.

Citing the ongoing state budget crisis, the Metro Phoenix Partnership for the Arts announced this week that it was abandoning its plans to seek a sales-tax increase on the November ballot.

MPAC CEO Myra Millinger announced the group's decision in a letter to arts organizations released Wednesday.

You can read the text of the letter here.

The decision represents an abrupt about-face for the privately funded group, which told New Times just one week ago that it was pressing ahead with plans to put an initiative on the November ballot, asking state voters for a 1/10 of a cent sales tax increase. The increase would have generated $100 million annually for arts groups.
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Tanya Marie Paige

​An "aggressive investigation" by Scottsdale police has led to the arrest of a suspect in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old prostitute last month.

Brian Nathaniel Black, 25, abducted the victim the night before her bullet-ridden body was found in front of an unoccupied house near Hayden Road and Shea Boulevard, says an online police bulletin.

Police believe Black shot Tanya Marie Paige as she tried to flee from Black's vehicle.

 

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Jessica Andrews, who helped manage the Arizona Theatre Company for 15 years, is stepping down from her role as executive director following a successful fundraising campaign.

In an announcement today (see below), Andrews says her focus on raising money for the theater company in recent years has been rewarded with about $2 million in contributions. The money was used to "stabilize" the company, create a cash reserve and purchase a historic office building in Tucson.

Andrews will continue to advise the company as a consultant.

Partial news release follows: 

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Frank Goodyear, the director of the Heard Museum for the last 10 years, will retire at the end of the year.

Goodyear's tenure coincided with a period of expansion and growth at the Valley's best-known museum, and he was appreciated for his fundraising skills. According to the news release below, Goodyear was responsible over the years for scrounging up a total of $44 million for the museum.

His efforts to improve the museum still show. Read this 2006 New Times story to get psyched up for your next visit.

Text of Heard's news release follows:

HEARD MUSEUM DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
Frank Goodyear to Retire After 10 Years; Search for Successor Begins

PHOENIX, Ariz. - Just months after his 65th birthday, Heard Museum Director Frank H. Goodyear, Jr. announced to the Board of Trustees and museum staff that he will be retiring from his position at the end of the year. The announcement caps Goodyear's 40-year career in the museum field. A national search for the Heard Museum's next director already has begun.

"I have been extraordinarily privileged to serve as the director of the Heard Museum over then last 9-and-a-half years," said Goodyear, who plans to live part of the year in the Valley and part of the year at his ranch in Cody, Wyo. "The Heard is a unique cultural landmark in the American Southwest. Great institutions are defined by great ideas and great people. The Heard is blessed with both. I leave with a large sense of pride and appreciation for the work of the Trustees, volunteers and staff. They turned the dreams of the last decade into a reality."

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Who could possibly think it'd be a good idea to build an over-sized statue of a stereotypical, sombrero-wearin' lazy Mexican out of sand and put it in the middle of the desert?

The far-out cats at Arizona State University's Future Arts Research, that's who.

As New Times writer Kathleen Vanesian covered in the paper's March 5 edition, the college continues to use a mix of public and private dollars to pay a bunch of artsy-fartsy types to think and maybe, if they feel like it, create something (or hire someone else to create it).

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If you try to do a "drive by" shooting of something as majestic as the Grand Canyon and expect to get a picture anyone else will want to look at, "I think you'll fail," says photographer-extraordinaire Jack Dykinga.

Shutterbugs take note: When it comes to the state's most famous hole, Dykinga (that's his self-portrait at right) is a real expert -- something that's evident when you see his work. The Tucson-area photographer who won a Pulitzer back in the 1970s recently came out with a book called "Images: Jack Dykinga's Grand Canyon" containing his latest stuff.

You can hear him talk tonight in a discussion entitled "A Love Affair with the Grand Canyon" at the Burton Barr Library in Phoenix, 1221 North Central Avenue from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., which kicks off a Grand Canyon photography exhibit at the library running through March.

We caught him on the phone in Tucson this morning and bugged him before his drive north, seeking tips that will turn our (and maybe your) Grand Canyon pictures into something special. Dykinga tells us that even with an  average rig, we can probably take a picture of the Grand Canyon we'll want to proudly display in a frame. But it won't be easy.

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Is Edward your kinda guy? Or does Jacob do it for you?

If you can answer that question, odds are you'll be one of the many heading to Changing Hands Bookstore tonight to pick up a copy of Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer's final installment in her Twilight series.

If you can't answer that question, we offer the following educational resources:

• Our 2007 profile of the Phoenix author.

• Ammunition to argue for Jacob as the answer to the above question in the form of Team Jacob: Top 10 Reasons Why The Twilight Series' Jacob Would Make a Better Boyfriend Than Edward, posted on our sister blog, Heartless Doll.

We'll be at Changing Hands tonight for the midnight release, so check back in the morning for photos and more.

By Joseph Golfen

It sounds like every thrift store shopper’s dream. Teri Horton, a 75-year-old former long-haul trucker, bought a painting for a friend as a gag in a California thrift store, only to learn that it could be a lost masterpiece by Jackson Pollock worth more than $50,000,000. The original price tag: $5.

“I saw it at the shop and I asked how much they wanted for it. They told me eight dollars,” says Horton. “I told them, ‘I love my friend, but I don’t love her that much. I’ll give you five.’”

When the painting wouldn’t fit into her friend’s mobile home, Horton brought it back to hers and eventually tried to sell it at a yard sale. When a local art teacher remarked that the painting could be a Pollock, Horton responded with what would later become the title of a documentary about her find: “Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock?”

The Phoenix Art Museum will be showing Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock on Tuesday as part of its Contemporary Forum Summer Film Festival (as reported by Lilia Menconi in her piece "Art Breaker"). Horton will be in attendance to present the movie and offer insights into her struggle to promote her painting as a legitimate Pollock despite biting opposition from the established art world.

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