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Tucson Portrait Stories 1st LIVE Art Festival
March 12 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Tucson Portrait Stories 1st LIVE Art Festival, Sunday March 12, 1 – 4pm at the Tucson J
The Tucson Jewish Community Center is proud to present Tucson Portrait Story Art(ish) Live Festival: a brand-new immersive art experience in partnership with local artist Lauri Kaye of Create for the People Ventures and Southern Arizona Arts + Culture Alliance, Sunday, March 12 from 1 – 4pm at The J. The festival is free and open to the public.
Tucson Portrait Stories is an ongoing series by Lauri Kaye; the festival features 60 of the portraits, which illuminate the people, places, and events that make Tucson extraordinary. These digital media collages on metal each include a short story about the subject. Over 15 of the subjects represented in the portrait stories will be live at the event hosting interactive exhibits and activities sharing their talents and/or missions. Funds made from the sale of the artworks will be donated to Tucson nonprofits including Arts for All, Primavera Foundation, and Casa Maria. This festival is a kick-off, as the series will tour other Tucson locations continuing to share new stories and raising money for local charities.
Chef Maria Mazon, Sonoran Institute, UA Poetry Center, Guitarist Gabriel Ayala, The Loft Cinema, Hotel Congress, Bookmans, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Fox Theatre, Tree-ring Research Lab, Tucson Audubon Society, Reproductions Inc., Monsoon Chocolates, and DeGrazia Gallery are among the exhibitors offering a variety of opportunities to taste, listen, watch, and learn about the rich culture of Tucson and its inhabitants. Experiences will include food tasting, live music and poetry readings, exotic animals and more.
About Lauri Kaye/Create for the People:
Fine artist, Lauri Marks Kaye, enjoys wandering around Tucson in search of great coffee shops in which to take up residence sketching and enjoying endless cups of coffee; an early morning habit that began while attending Parsons School of Design in New York City. After graduation, Kaye had the good fortune of working with a motley crew of outstanding graphic artists at Rolling Stone Magazine, NSI Design and eventually opened her own design company, Sun Design. In 1998, after one too many cold and snowy days, Kaye packed her bags leaving the big city and headed west to a magical place in the Sonoran Desert, Tucson, AZ. In Tucson her artwork direction evolved into her current business, Create For The People Ventures, a studio, where she creates original and commissioned mixed media artwork. (Detailed hand drawings layered with photography and digital color then printed on metal.) Her subjects range from people, places, events and social issues exhibited for corporations, advocacy groups, public arts projects and galleries. Kaye’s experience over the past 25 years in Tucson, AZ is that of a unique and vibrant blend of desert life, eclectic and passionate people, fascinating history and endless opportunity. Kaye’s quest is to use her professional artistic experience and journalistic passion to capture the magic of the old pueblo in her latest series, “Tucson Portrait Stories” illuminating the people, places and events that make Tucson extraordinary. There are over 60 works to date. Having always been drawn to the rawness, vibrancy and primitive nature of graffiti art and murals Kaye loves using unusual surfaces such as metal and wood and for the final production of artwork bringing outdoor adventures indoors. A majority of her work is community based, collaborative and affordable, hence the name Create For The People, often with proceeds from exhibits dedicated to local Tucson nonprofits and charities.
