Phoenix News Blog

​Representative Doug Quelland must give up his seat in the legislature. Quelland was found to have violated campaign finance rules earlier this year. Quelland plans to appeal the ruling in Maricopa Superior Court...A fire broke out in the auditorium at Red Mountain High School in Mesa last night. Fire officials believe the fire started when a curtain was pressed against a hot stage light. A teacher quickly grabbed a ladder, cut down the curtain, and extinguished the fire...Patrick Chorpenning, the former director of the Arizona Department of Veterans Services, has been indicted on charges of misusing public money and sidestepping state procurement rules. The Attorney General's Office believes that Chorpenning violated several laws, including creating unadvertised jobs for his son and wife...Opponents of the controversial photo radar cameras are poised to file a lawsuit against the state. Shawn Dow with Arizona's

Representative Doug Quelland.

​Citizens Against Photo Radar claims that Redflex, the company that manages the speed cameras, has been ticketing people illegally for several months...A toddler found walking alone on the streets of Buckeye yesterday has been reunited with his mother. Police say the mother fell asleep and the child snuck out of the house. The mother claims the child, despite being a toddler, knows how to operate the deadbolt on the front door of the home...About 3,000 Scottsdale residents are without power today. APS officials say they doesn't know what caused the outage, which killed power in homes and businesses in the area of Pima Road/Loop 101 to the west, Greenway Road to the north, 100th Street to the east and Sweetwater Avenue to the south. Traffic lights are also out and APS officials are urging motorists to treat dark traffic lights as a four-way stop.

 

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.

 

 

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: 

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."

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).

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.

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.

By Jonathan McNamara

Yesterday's post about 1700 Curry chronicled the end result of graffiti and fine artists joining forces to tag Building G. Thanks to photographer Michael Healy, you've now got a chance to see what the building looked like before the work was finished.

Looking at these pieces you get a sense for how they're developed one layer (and color) at a time.

See graffiti artist Such tackle a piece that combines elements from each of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and a few more images of the unfinished works in our slide show Behind the Scenes: 1700 Curry.

By Jonathan McNamara

Giulio Sciorio has invited complete strangers to his photography studio 13 times now to have their portraits immortalized on film mid-orgasm.

After bringing them in, Giulio positions them and sets up his lighting gear. He chooses a backdrop and takes a few shots to determine that everything is just right. He makes sure that his subjects have blankets and towels if they need them. He plugs in any toys they may have brought and establishes whether they will give him a verbal cue or rely on a discreet hand signal to let him know that the magic is happening.

“When they’re ready they just yell out whatever they yell out,” he says. “I know…it’s pretty obvious.”

Sciorio’s portraits comprise a work in progress he calls Faces of Ecstasy, which is currently on exhibit at Perihelion Arts. These 13 faces are only the initial stage of a larger project which Sciorio hopes will one day turn into a book. For now, his immediate plans revolve around expanding the number of portraits and taking the show to other cities, where proceeds raised will benefit a local AIDS charity. This month’s showing at Perhelion Arts benefits Body Positive.