Mexico: A Real Big Mess

I've been going to Puerto Penasco, Sonora since I was ten years old. My family yearly May/June vacations have been the only family vacations my family has taken my entire life. They have become our solace. For my 12 year-old-sister "Mexico," as we call it, is like a second home to her. So, in all those years we have witnessed quite a lot of change in the town, in the economy, in the other visitors and in the attitudes of the locals.

Most recently, The Arizona Daily Star published an article on Feb 11, 2007 titled "'Tucson's Beach' is booming." And boy is it ever. Las Conchas, the private home community which once a single row of homes on the beach, is now two rows deep with high-rise condos under construction on the third row.

On the other side of town, Sandy Beach, five-star resorts are popping up like wild flowers and grandiose condos are decorated like a Paradise Valley estates. Not your typical picture of Mexico, but with its four hour convenient drive from both Phoenix and Tucson, lack of rules and significantly lower prices, Rocky Point is becoming a vacation haven for both college age students and families alike.

Anyway, the whole point is, Rocky Point has changed, big time and for long time vacationers, and I’m sure the locals, it hasn’t changed for the best.

But for all it’s worth if you take comfort in the less crowded areas and only venture into the town when you need to buy fresh fish or that must have token hand painted shot glass, a Rocky Point vacation can still be a perfect weekend getaway. Because it’s on the Gulf of California the water is much warmer than the Pacific, dolphins and breathtaking sunsets make regular appearances, it’s always a few degrees cooler than the desert mother land of Arizona. Not to mention the local food is cheap and fantastic as well as the alcohol.

I wish Rocky Point had stayed my secret hideaway, low-budget, relaxing vacation spot forever, but I guess it’s inevitable that the big wig developers would capitalize on it and so would everyone else. Hence the four hour traffic back up I encountered on Sunday throughout Sonoyta, the border town you cross through in Mexico. Granted the majority of the traffic at 11:30 a.m. on was due Spring Breakers trying to get back to campus before their Monday morning classes, but another part of the traffic back up had to do with the Mexicans stopping every car trying to collect money for their poor and disabled.

What is normally a four-hour trip, became an eight-hour trip and it leaves me wondering what the policies are for the Mexican police when enforcing traffic issues. Obviously policies are either undefined or not followed, but either way something is going to have to change if the increasing flow to and from Rocky Point is going to continue.

To see more of my vacation, check this out:

Sierra Vista Artist in Spotlight

Photo courtesy of www.restevensart.com

Roderick E. Stevens has lived for 30 years in Sierra Vista, Arizona. His realistic acrylic paintings stood out to me among the hundreds of booths at the Scottsdale Arts Festival after I read the sign "These are not PHOTOGRAPHS they are paintings." But it wasn't just me who was intrigued, I ran into Alice Cooper getting information from Roderick on one of his paintings.

The brilliantly colored paintings are, to put it simply, amazingly realistic. Reflections and lighting are the highlights of the paintings, the parts that make the viewer confuse photograph with painting. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of Roderick's work is that he has only been at it with intention for the past two years.

By trade Roderick is cinematographer for Indie films and music videos, but when he found himself in need of more of a spiritual connection he found his way back to painting, which he dabbled in as a child. Surprisingly, he considers his work his own private art school. Each painting is a challenge, each new technique is almost like a game to him. As with his paintings of fruit, where he nails the glare and listening liquid texture to perfection, they were proposed to him by a fellow artist and he greeted the challenge with complete enthusiasm.

Photo courtesy of restevensart.com

He has been touring for the past year and a half across the southwest, but has made his way to Texas and Florida where he said his paintings sell the best.

Although he was born and raised in Illinois he moved to Sierra Vista as a child and chose to stay there once he began raising his family, even though most of his cinematography work is in Los Angeles. Surprisingly, living so close the border he said neither his work nor his life are much influenced by his surroundings although he has experienced a few migrant border crosser incidences.

As a child his house was broken into twice by migrants. Once while filming a sunrise for one of his films, and group of heads began bobbing into his frame. Other than that, he lives and paints in Sierra Vista relatively unaffected by his surroundings as his subjects are varied but reflect nothing of the southwest.

Glass bottles so realistic you feel as if you can virtually see through them to the background, a shiny black Harley-Davidson motorcycle covered in chrome you can almost see your reflection in and a row of polished yellow, brown and baby blue guitars are just a few of Roderick's remarkable pieces.

Photo courtesy of restevensart.com

He calls it Contemporary Fine Art Photorealism, I call it genius.

For more of Roderick's work go to www.restevensart.com or find him at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair March 23-25.

Check out my footage from other events at the Scottsdale Arts Festival.

Ballet Hispanico

Photo courtesy of Ayano Hisa

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In Ballet Hispanico's third trip to Tucson, they opened the evening's two hour, three act performance at The University of Arizona's Centennial Hall with an ensemble Latin infused modern dance piece. Surprising as it was for me, I enjoyed the modern dance twist, complete with innovative formations and interpretations. A very close friend of mine is a modern dance choreography major at Arizona State University, so I have been attending modern dance performances for four years now. But sitting through a professional dance performance by myself, when I'm not what you would call a dance enthusiast, was an entirely new venture for me.
Judging from the lack of intermission babel about the performance, I gathered that my fellow dance patrons shared my feelings that I was less than blown away by the show. That is of course except for the lady behind me who proceeded to