This week on Arizona Illustrated poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña shows at MOCA Tucson.
(Cecilia) Everything that we do is participating in multiple realities.
Learn about the ancient practice of falconry.
(Nate) To be able to share it with other people is awesome.
And Rick Joy and Claudia Kappl Joy share their personal spaces with us.
(Claudia) It was apparent to everyone who worked with us, that there was just a wavelength maybe, a way that we could communicate.
Hi and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.
I'm Tom McNamara.
Artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña was born in Santiago, Chile in 1948, and she worked in relative obscurity for several decades.
But, her creative power and sensitivity is no longer a secret.
In the last several years, she's held solo exhibitions at the Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim in New York City.
She was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
And now she brings her unique artistic practice to MOCA Tucson What I was doing in the ritual is an act of thanks.
and life receives it and multiplies it.
That's where the fecundity where the fertility begins.
Quipu means knot in Quechua.
Quechua is an Indigenous language of South America.
If you look it up in Wikipedia, they will tell you that it is an archeological object that consisted in a form of writing with knots instead of letters.
From the moment I saw an image of a quipu its like the quipu decided that I belonged to the quipu because even without thinking, the quipu began to show up first in my poetry.
I was already speaking of my body as a quipu I perceived my legs as the quipu knots carrying meaning through their movement.
A moment came when, after the military coup in Chile in 1973, I began doing sculptures in the form of a quipu that doesn't look exactly like archeological quipus.
It is a transformation of the quipu.
And from that moment forward, I have continued to transform, transform, transform and create new forms of the quipu as if the work that existed before me had not stopped.
So I am not recreating the past.
I'm opening new ways of doing quipu in the world.
So for this MOCA Tucson exhibition six months ago, we put out a call for people in the city to gather twigs, pieces of metal, plastic, both natural and industrial materials.
Anything that people don't want.
So when I arrived here at the museum, I had a mountain whatever kind of huge things and tiny things.
And it was so beautiful.
You can still see the tables, everything laid out as a precious object just by the principle of picking up things these things that are garbage are transformed into creatures of beauty, creatures that transmit the pain, the suffering, the will, to persist.
That even objects have.
Tradition has it that it is through sound that the dimensions communicate.
I will begin in Spanish.
[singing] [singing] The quipu hears better if instead of being just one voice, there's a collective voice [singing] You didnt want to sing.
All of us.
Having done this so many times that does something for the group.
does something for the gallery, for the room, the soil, for the water that circulates in our bodies.
Well, the first thing I tell a new team is that here they have to forget this is not an exhibition that has been planned, programed Therefore, I am not an artist that gives orders.
I begin playing.
I tell them I hope that they telepathically will understand how to play.
Like, for example, when two kids that have never met one invites the other to play, just maybe by throwing them all.
It's a form of collaboration that is really telepathic, that is really heart to heart, because usually my team is artists themselves and they already know how to touch materials.
So the knowledge of their hands is incredibly important for the piece.
And I would say 90% or 99% of the time they come up with something even more beautiful than I had imagined.
Let's say I have 2000 little objects for me to know which one belongs and which one doesn't.
That's where the method that I have evolved in my life really comes into place.
I go into a state of naked joy.
I begin to sort of dance as if I were another piece of garbage myself.
And then suddenly I see it and I pick up one little thing and it's little thing slowly, like saying: Here I am.
It's an act of joy, you know?
And so this joy is the one that affects the powerful of transformation.
So when you come and you feel, wow, this is speaking to me, is the joy that speaking is the way that something that has been disregarded is suddenly treated with attention, with care, with love.
Many people think that this reality of daily life in the city would be the reality, but that isn't the case.
Even molecularly, even from the point of view of science and from the point of view of the human spirit.
It's certainly not there because our human spirit has access to the infinite Quipu because it means knot knots and ties and interconnects realities.
So the reality as I see it here is a community full of incredible creative people, and each I wish for them to be part of the quipu as well in order to work together to transform the reality of destruction into a reality of healing and abundance [singing] The quipu was never perceived only as an object.
It was perceived as an idea that connected us human beings to the cosmos.
So that is the Indigenous way of thinking that everything that you do is participating in multiple realities and you are not necessarily aware of all those multiple realities in your daily life.
But you can be aware if you wish.
How do we open up to see them?
By wanting to become aware, it has to be tasted It has to be felt.
It's not an idea.
It's something that you have to experience.
Falconry is ancient.
In fact, the first references to hunting with birds of prey date back thousands of years.
Now it's a highly regulated sport that's practiced all around the world.
And here in Tucson four licensed falconers got together and started a school they call the Sky Island Falconry Experience.
[Ominous music] (Nate) Any given day.
We're waking up, sunup to sundown.
Our lives are kind of consumed.
We'll fly our own birds, our own personal birds, and then we'll go out and run programs for guests.
I love the quote that “It's extreme birdwatching ”.
If you love watching birds do bird things, man.
Falconry is just it's is about as extreme as you can get.
(Amber) This is my sixth season.
I also am a business partner with Sky Island Falconry.
My husband and I and our two friends run a falconry education business here in Tucson, Arizona.
(Carissa) I've been flying birds for five years and a lot of those years with was with our best friends, Nate and Amber.
And we're also known as the Super Friends.
And we have a lot of fun flying birds.
[Laughs] (Brian) With Carissa and I, We started we both flew Harris's hawks.
We were able to go out together.
And once we had Evelyn, our our child, our daughter, she tagged along everywhere we went, we got a little backpack, baby carrier.
And when we're out hunting, we're together doing it.
And so far, she loves it.
[Whistling] (Amber) Cmon girl.
(Nate) When you put a glove on somebady and they call a bird to their glove for the first time, that smile that they have on that face like I know what that's like.
That's why I do it right.
And so to be like share it with other people is awesome.
And so we pursued that permit.
February 2020, I was talking to to my wife and Brian and Carissa that I'm going to do this and they said that they'd like to be in on it.
So we're going to head.
Into the field over here.
(Nate) Fortunately, because of what we do, it's outdoors, it's small groups.
It still actually succeeded and we still were able to make it happen through the pandemic.
And so we started Sky Island Falconry Experience.
It's a U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Services licensed falconry school, and it allows us to take people out, teach them a bit about falconry.
They get to put a glove on, they get to call a bird to the glove.
They get to see a hunt with some of our programs.
And and we get to share share falconry with people.
[Ominous music] With Sarah the Coopers Hawk, I run two bird dogs most mornings and the bird dogs will go try to locate the quail.
They walk up on point when they find one and we work our way over and try to flush it.
So you see how he's standing rigid, tail straight up.
If they stop moving at all.
For more than a handful of seconds, They have scent of quail.
It could come out any direction.
I'm going to try to push it this way Unless it's maybe down here and it's just coming up the hill.
Yeah, there's no no, just a dead, prickly pear.
There it is!
That quail is haulin!.
Oh, my goodness!
Trust your dog!
Sarah should pursue if she feels like it.
She did it.
Most of the time this morning.
Today we were running to Hungarian Vizalas.
and they've got a really unique history with falconry.
They were originally bred for the sport of Algeria.
They were running under Falcons thousand plus years ago, working with birds of prey and humans to make it hunt successful.
[Whistling] (Brian) Not much has changed.
I mean, I got a GPS on a dog.
That's a big difference in the GPS on the bird.
Sarah, the Coopers Hawk is this green dot.
And shes just under 1100 feet away.
But other than that, the way we handled the birds and a lot of the training of the dogs is very similar.
Right there.
There we go!
That was a lousy chase.
(Brian) She was unsuccessful in her pursuits this morning, but that's not out of the usual.
I think birds of prey miss 80% of their pursuits, so their success rate is pretty low.
It does get a little better with the help of a falconer and the dogs.
But even then, today we were skunked.
Cagey birds.
Yeah, they are.
People think I love to catch quail.
I used to chase and kill quail.
Right.
But I also love quail.
I appreciate them deeply because I've seen what they do.
I've seen how capable of an animal they are, how how they've adapted and evolved to escape predators.
And then I've got to see my hunting partner, how they've evolved to, you know, surpass those abilities.
[Pensive music] You ready?
Come on, girl.
Petra.
(Amber) I fly with a bell on Petra.
It's kind of the typical falconry.
That's like the original GPS of the falconry bird.
I feel lost without a bell on a bird.
I don't fly with GPS with her because I found myself somewhat being becoming dependent on it.
And so instead of coming out here and enjoying what I like to do and enjoying nature and just wandering and being able to enjoy what I'm seeing, I was constantly looking down at my phone and looking instead of being like, Look, I know how to do this.
I know where she is.
I know how to look for her.
I know how to find my bird.
So I love like being able to be successful and have her catch something.
But for me, like, that's, that's just to provide sustenance for her.
And that also when she catches something for me, it's an honor that she felt comfortable enough to do it in my presence and wait for me to help her.
[Running footsteps] [Subtle screeching] [Heavy breathing] [Pensive music continues] [Pensive music continues, bell rings] Watch your tail.
(Carissa) I'll do another run with her.
You ready?
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!
(Carissa) I had it on a lure machine.
and I was just building up fitness.
She's a baby bird that fell out of the nest.
I am flying her for a rehab right now and also building up confidence.
Her catching that just makes her believe she can.
Um, and then, you know, with her being a baby bird and not being outside her flights and, uh, flying hard after that, prey just helps build up that muscle.
[Hawk vocalizing] (Nate) You get to actually be an intimate part of that predator prey relationship.
Being able to observe wild animals in their wild habitat, doing wild animal things, it's an incredible experience.
[Pensive music] Good work.
I'm proud of you.
Good work, buddy.
[Hawk vocalizing] Well, instead of my glove she flew to my shoulder.
Last year at the MOCA Gala held here at the Museum of Contemporary Art Downtown, architect Rick Joy and lighting designer Claudia Kappl Joy were given the Local Genius Award, which honors visionary Tucsonans whose work has a global impact.
In this next segment, this internationally recognized couple takes us on a tour of their own home and offices.
(Rick) I design with the narrative quite a lot.
You open the gate and it squeaks a little bit, and then you come in and you hear the dripping water and then the ground crunches under your feet.
You have to negotiate nature, so you have to duck a little bit.
That's intentional.
I was told by my high school guidance counselor that I would be good at air traffic control or architecture.
I always had architecture on the back of my mind because I used to sit at the kitchen table.
My father was a printer.
He'd bring home these big, long sheets of paper, and I'd put them on the kitchen table and I would draw underground cities with people and cars and lights and all that kind of stuff.
That all came naturally.
But I didn't put it all together until I was 27 in art school.
People started noticing when I did the first rammed earth project.
The world just came unglued because they'd never heard of it before.
Even though it's thousands of years old.
When you think about it, the rammed earth that you guys have been photographing, is plaster.
It's sand, aggregate and water and a little clay and all the stuff that is stucco that you see on all these buildings.
Like, why put another layer on it when the whole wall is made out of the same stuff?
The material just basically took me by the back of the collar and said, You're going to do this for a while.
My client kept wanting to put a house on that site.
His name was Rick, too.
No, please Rick.
Nobody's going to want to live there and come down that alley and go in their front door.
Can't do it.
So he called me one Sunday night and he said, Rick, I got an idea.
How about if we build you a new studio right there?
And I'm like, okay.
And so that was a Sunday night.
Monday.
I designed it.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I did the CDs.
And Monday I was digging.
And he's like, Why are you going so fast?
And I'm like, Rick, I was just afraid your medication was going to wear off and I wouldn't be able to actually really do this.
And so we did it.
It's really great because they're working in architecture.
(Tofan) I discovered his work in my first year in architecture school.
It just clicked with me and my my sensibilities, I guess, and.
And I wanted to learn from him, basically.
His work is beautiful and so pragmatic and to the point that it's poetic.
(Rick) The idea was to have the sun come from the South, hit that wall and bounce back into the room.
And so we can have a rammed earth building with no lights on during the day.
Daylight comes through that skylight at the end at noon.
It's lunchtime, guys.
See the light?
(Tofan) It's easy to get complicated in architecture and design in general.
To kind of rein that back, you know, the complexity, rein it back into something pure and simple.
And that's really about the space and about the space around it as well.
It's difficult and challenging.
(Rick) The diversity is just amazing for our firm.
Right now, I think two thirds of the office are from other countries.
And I learned so much from them.
And so it's a give and take.
They learn from me.
I learn from them.
It's a real learning studio.
(Claudia) Architecture, I studied at one of the technical universities in Austria during my final thesis project.
I realized that I was particularly interested in atmosphere and didn't know enough about lightning, which pushed me towards an additional, occasionally a lighting design.
I went into a bookstore in Graz and there was Rick's first book.
And I was just moved to my core and I'm like, this is exactly what fascinates me about architecture.
It grounds you in an environment and it's always reduced to the essence of what it needs to be and nothing else.
What I obviously had no clue about is that a few years later I would go visit these buildings that were documented and described in this book.
(Rick) If you look at our first book Desert Works, I pretty much did all that lighting myself and it's not that good.
When Amangiri came along, we hired a lighting designer from Stockholm.
The only one we could find that was working through the qualities of atmosphere versus just light fixtures.
(Claudia) Lighting being an ephemeral medium, you sometimes can't quite grasp it, but it has the power to have an emotional impact.
(Rick) Claudia was the main person on a bunch of projects.
The lighting design quality is just so superior.
(Claudia) We always had a really great way of connecting, and it was apparent to everyone who worked with us that there was just a wavelength, maybe a way that we could communicate, and then we became romantically involved.
When I actually joined Rick here in Tucson, my rule was, I'm not going to work for you or with you.
We said like, well, maybe, you know, we managed to do this before, so why don't we try again?
And then it worked out pretty well.
We are currently in my studio that I co-found with Rick nine years ago.
It's called CLL, Concept Lighting Lab.
(Rick) Somehow she's right on the cusp of the knowledge for lighting design, and I never see her studying.
I don't know how she knows it.
(Claudia) Very often you will hear people not talk about good lighting.
People will usually point out when lighting is lacking, when there is not enough, when it's glaring when it's good, it's just accepted.
We are in a historic building.
From 1900, it's an adobe structure now painted white.
So there's a lot of general bounce in the space because of our proximity to the street.
We have a film on our windows that diffuses the light.
Then we have these few skylights, adding another quality at a different level.
Everyone has a task light, which is the most essential light for working.
And then we have indirect uplight, which comes from the floor or from the ground, and was a conscious choice to be respectful with the historic structure.
We try our lighting to be more in the background, just doing its thing without calling attention or without calling too much attention.
Let's say that.
[bell chimes] We're at home.
Tucson, Arizona (Rick) and West University neighborhood right up the street from Time Market.
This house caught our attention that we we weren't sure if it was in our reach.
We loved it because of its elevation, because of its location.
But I would say mostly the light.
We're like, Wow, that's it, that's that's it.
(Rick) We stripped it down to its bones and then just started redoing all the infrastructure.
(Claudia) For ten months straight.
(Rick) There were some periods where we just couldn't wait to get here after work.
You know.
(Claudia) You make it yours by the process of working on it.
(Rick) I don't like trims on anything.
Also, no grills for the AC, so we invented our own way of doing it.
Those are rules from all of our projects.
Could even see we're using tomato cans for recessed cans as a joke and fun and the color is amazing.
(Claudia) It's a coming together or a coming apart through these processes.
For us, it was a really fun, creative way of just feeling very aligned, just really own the corners, the detail.
(Rick) We don't get to do the work that we do in the office without us being like that.
There's moments where I like to celebrate the imperfections, but the rest of it has to be perfect.
Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.
I'm Tom McNamara, and we'll see you again soon.