Tucson Arts Heroes
JDD Specialties completed another season of “Arts Heroes” for ON Media. Arts heroes are the backbone of the arts and culture communities in Phoenix and Tucson.
Category Archives: Arts and culture
Artist-in-residence
Creative placemaking
A feature article on Carolina Aranibar-Fernández explains how LISC Phoenix takes creative placemaking to next level with a new artist-in-residence position.
COVID-19 & racism
ASU VP navigates 2 pandemics
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, ASU vice president of cultural affairs, is a force for the arts on the regional and national scenes. In 2020, her work centered on two pandemics: COVID-19 and racism. The Red Book Magazine featured her in its holiday issue.
Arts Heroes, 2019-20
Heroic efforts for the arts
For the third consecutive year, JDD Specialties wrote all profiles for the ON Media Arts Hero program. Arts heroes are honored each month in theater programs for venues in Phoenix and Tucson.
The 2019-20 profiles of heroes are available in digital booklets:
Piper Trust
Promoting special initiatives
JDD Specialties is a consultant and writer for Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, one of the nation’s top-100 foundations. The trust awards annually about $23 million in grants to nonprofits in Maricopa County.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, JDD Specialties helped the trust communicate a multifaceted, rapid response of strategic emergency grants.
In August 2015, JDD Specialties helped the trust and the Arizona Commission on the Arts with a joint announcement about a three-year grant to launch the AZ Creative Aging initiative, which a national leader of the creative aging movement called “brilliant.”
JDD Specialties wrote the extended profile on Russ Perlich, the 2015 Piper Trust Encore Career Prize awardee and the brief profiles of 2016 Encore Prizes for Exceptional Organizations.
Artistic intellectual
Painting with beads
This personality profile about Marlena Robbins is about how she puts all of herself into her work. And there is so much to the person that she is. She is an artist with a keen intellect and a biding respect for indigenous culture. (The article appeared in the holiday 2019 issue of The Red Book magazine.
(Photos by Tina Celle.)
Personality profile
Welcome, Cece Cole
The Red Book magazine wanted a profile on an artistic newcomer who has quickly made a name for herself in the Valley. She brought a lot with her in her move from Louisiana to Arizona.
2018-19 Phx Arts Heroes
(Photo credit: Howard Paley)
Leaving legacies
ON Media celebrated the third year of its Arts Hero program in Phoenix. (It conducts the same program in Tucson.) This has become one of my favorite annual projects because of all the talented and extraordinarily decent people I meet.
Fran Cohen Smith, a champion of modern dance in Arizona and a driving force behind Wolf Trap, an arts-integrated, early-child-learning program, was one of my favorite interviews of the 2018-19 season. We laughed and talked for hours at First Draft. Her profile appeared in March programs at Valley venues, about two months before she died at 87. Fran was seen dancing on stage with children just weeks before she died.
(Photo credit: Howard Paley)
2018-19 Tucson Arts Heroes
Heart and soul
ON Media honored another season of Arts Heroes in Tucson. It’s always a pleasure to write profiles of the honorees. Soleste Lupu and Joey Rodgers, owners of Dancing in the Streets AZ, were among my favorites for the 2018-19 season. The husband-and-wife team teaches classical ballet in South Tucson.
‘Renaissance Man’
The Red Book magazine
The Red Book Magazine asked Jennifer Dokes to write a short profile of Gerd Wuestemann, the new CEO of Scottsdale Arts, for its January 2019 issue.
Arts Heroes, 2017-18
Heroic efforts for the arts
JDD Specialties wrote all profiles for the second annual ON Media Arts Heroes program. ON Media selected 17 arts heroes in Phoenix and southern Arizona. Their profiles appeared monthly in theater programs during the 2017-18 arts season.
Rusty Foley is an ‘Arts Hero’ and a bad chick
I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing nearly two dozen people in the Valley and southern Arizona for the On Media Publications Arts Hero project. It’s been a labor of love during the past few months because I’ve met some of the coolest people doing amazing, righteous things for our communities.
Most of the honorees are new to me. But Rusty Foley, the Phoenix Arts Hero for January, is very familiar. She built a legacy long before she put her talent and energy into Arizona Citizens for the Arts. I knew her first as a very good journalist and then as a community mover-shaker while at SRP.
You can call Rusty a hero. I call her a bad chick. Not many people hold that high status in my book.
‘Life is Sweet’
Celebration of Fine Art
JDD Specialties wrote the profile of Susan and Jake Potje, owners of the Celebration for The Red Book Magazine’s feature, “Life is Sweet: 7 people who make it even sweeter.” The Potjes are owners of the Celebration of Fine Art, a Scottsdale winter tradition.
The Red Book Magazine
‘Leap for Joy’
The Red Book, a resource for those involved in the social and philanthropic community, and azredbook.com launched a new magazine. The Red Book Magazine will have a single focus. The premier issue published in September 2017 focused on the arts. JDD Specialties was honored to write a feature, “Leap for Joy,” for the first issue of The Red Book Magazine
ON Media
Arts Hero project
On Media hired JDD Specialties to write profiles for its Arts Hero project. The 17 profiles will appear in the 2017-18 theater programs published for Phoenix and Tucson performances.
September Phoenix Arts Hero
