(upbeat music) (Tom) Exploring Tucson at night on bikes with the notorious Tuesday night ride.

- Happy Tuesday.

(Justin) We definitely do take over the streets and some people don't like that.

Typically people in automobiles.

(Tom) Our desert plant series continues with the Mexican sunflower tree.

(Hannah) In addition to the flower, you see we have the seed heads right here that many small birds enjoy.

(Tom) Take a trip to Sierra Vista and meet Arizona's official state balladeer.

(Dolan) I really missed Arizona, so I quit right at the pinnacle of our success.

And everybody, all my friends, all my peers thought I was completely crazy.

(Tom) And life before art with printmaker Eric Avery.

(Eric) I'm living on the edge of this evolving movement of people from war, from climate change, from just the chaos of the world.

[Music] (Tom) Hello and welcome to an all-new episode of Arizona Illustrated from Reid Park.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, every Tuesday for at least the last 15 years, dozens, even hundreds of cyclists gather around the flagpole at the University of Arizona campus and take off on the Tuesday night ride.

You may have seen it, it may have come through your neighborhood, and it can be a little bewildering to watch, but it's hard not to smile as these people ride past and wish you Happy Tuesday.

"Happy Tuesday!"

[Bike wheels on gravel] "Oh!"

[ Upbeat music ] "Happy Tuesday!"

[ Upbeat music continues ] (Justin) I moved here January 2021 and a friend of mine saw me biking to work every day and was like, "Do you know about the Tuesday ride?"

And I was like, "What's that?"

And he was just like, "Go to the flagpole 8:30 on Tuesday night and you'll just, you'll see."

[ Upbeat music ] (Carolina) I really enjoy biking.

It's the quickest way for me to learn the streets and just the landscape in general.

(Joselyn) People that I would have never thought, like, would intermingle, but they all become friends just because, you know, the bike brings them together.

"Happy Tuesday!"

(Andrew) Everybody kind of commingles in some way or another.

It really brings a lot of people together.

See, that's kind of the common thing when someone walks by and says, "Happy Tuesday."

(Justin) We meet here at 8:30 and we take off a little bit after that.

(Joselyn) Most of the information comes from the Facebook group, Tuesday Night Bike Ride.

The rules are kind of written on there.

You know, we just say rain or shine.

We meet at the flagpole every Tuesday.

"Nice, alright" (Justin) If they don't say it in the Facebook group, someone shows up and says, "I'm leading."

And they'll say two minute warning and we're going, "Oh, okay, they're leading."

And then we just follow them.

[Howling excitedly] (Joselyn) Seeing, you know, 100, 200 riders at a time, just taking over the whole street is, it's incredible honestly.

And then halfway through, we usually break at a park for about up to them because they're leading, but typically 20, 25 minutes, sometimes 15, sometimes 40.

[Playing Chuck Mangione, trumpet] "I don't know the rest" (Carolina) I love riding and I love riding in Tucson at night.

[ Funky low-rider music] (Joselyn) I feel like I really know Tucson now because I've been coming to Tuesday Night Ride.

We go to some crazy places that you would have never gone to if you were driving or anything like that.

(Justin) Especially doing it at night, you're like, "Where the heck are you?"

You know, I had no idea.

And you go to these places that you didn't even know existed.

It kind of really brought me out, got me expanded to different social groups.

It really introduced me to the lot.

Happy Tuesday!

(Justin) Working people are on this ride.

You can tell that this is a lot of people's favorite out of their week.

They're off work, they're not worried about anything else, and we're all just coming here to do one thing collectively, and that's just ride bikes and hang out with each other.

I don't have a car.

I commute by bike.

I don't think drivers really care much about cyclists.

[ Fast paced jazz music ] [Car honks] (Justin) We definitely do take over the streets, and some people don't like that.

Typically people in automobiles, BUT, (Joselyn) When all of us come together, it brings to people's attention that we are here.

There are people who ride their bikes every day.

(Justin) If people are beeping, getting mad at us, they're going to have to get used to it because you sort of have to know that this is a cultural phenomenon that's been happening in this town for I think at least 15 years.

(Joselyn) That feels really powerful.

It makes drivers stop for a second, as opposed to like, we usually are the ones that have to wait.

(Justin) For us to have our one night in the evening, when streets are at their least congested point on a weekday when they're maybe safer than a weekend.

I know when we're passing by all of them, they're maybe kind of pissed off.

We all have smiles on our faces and we wave and we say happy Tuesday.

(Carolina) The potholes, honestly.

There's a lot of potholes?

Yeah, there's a lot of potholes, that's for sure.

I feel like they always tear up roads that are just fine and then repave them again when they didn't even need to be.

We've been on this rise to see all the little nooks and crannies of Tucson and there's some that's like, you're on the surface of Mars over here, just, pfft, you know.

[ Ominous music ] (Carolina) Another present danger is the tram rails downtown, for sure.

Many a cyclist's enemy.

(Andrew) Everyone just eats crap from the railroad tracks.

I mean, you have like proper education on how to get around those things when they come around.

Never ride in parallel to the rails, never.

Yeah, you gotta hit them perpendicular or you hit them at a slight degree angle, you want to lift your front wheel, get up over that thing.

(Justin) The community aspect of this ride is really, really important.

It brings in all types of people from this town.

(Andrew) Yeah, you see a lot of people from all different age groups that will bring their kids.

I see people in their 60s, 70s out here sometimes.

I think it's important for young people to know like older people.

I think it's hard to get out of your age group, but I think it's important to know all different kinds of people.

You learn a lot from their stories.

(Andrew) It's a lot more easy to approach someone while on this ride than just going up to somebody randomly in a bar or whatever, other kind of setting, you know.

(Justin) Made most of my friends here, it's really grounded me in community.

I really believe in the power of bikes.

Something that gives you freedom and autonomy.

Biking for leisure, you really just focus on like your body and how it's all in tune.

(Justin) It's never not happened since I've been coming.

For even with like the bad weather, we had like maybe snow earlier that day and rain and that night we had maybe 20 of us and we did a whole ride, we were soaking wet.

We just can't not do it, you know.

[ Jazz, drums ] (Andrew) I think people should give it a try.

Like, you know, 13, 14 miles seems like a lot, but I don't know, when you do it with your friends and you're in the groove, it doesn't feel that long.

(Justin) Being able to rely on one another to keep it going is just like for me, been everything.

Whenever I meet someone, I've probably within the first five minutes of knowing them, told them, "Do you ride bikes?"

"Oh, you're thinking about it?

Well, regardless, you should come on the Tuesday ride.

I think you'll have a good time."

Get a bike.

[Laughs] [ Upbeat jazz, wheels on gravel] Happy Tuesday!

(Tom) You can grow thousands of native or drought tolerant plants in the Sonoran Desert and some have the added benefit of producing flowers and nectar for pollinators and of being unarmed for homeowners, meaning no thorns and no spines.

Here is one large sunflower option for your yard.

Hi, I'm Hanna Blood.

I am the nursery manager and propagation manager here at Tohono Chul Gardens.

I'm standing here in the butterfly garden in front of the Tithonia fruticosa, which is the Mexican sunflower tree or bush.

It's a perennial sunflower.

It's a really neat plant that's not that common to find in nursery production.

We do try to grow a few here at Tohono Chul that gets to ginormous proportions.

It gets to be 12 feet by 12 feet.

It is found in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico, in canyons and pine oak forests.

It does need the right spot to plant it.

It needs space, obviously, but it also needs to be protected from high winds because like many of the sunflower family, they have hollow stalks.

So you don't want it in a high wind area.

And it also, in this spot, which is low, it gets frozen back about halfway every year.

We have another one in the gardens that doesn't get frozen back because it's planted in a really protected garden.

It's really a large sunflower.

It's actually a member of the Asteraceae family.

So it has the sunflower landing pad for all sorts of pollinators to come and get nectar and carry pollen off, butterflies, bees.

And in addition to the flower, you see we have the seed heads right here that many small birds enjoy gleaning the seeds out of.

So you'll attract a lot of lesser goldfinches and the verdin.

It also has really lovely velvety leaves.

This is a larval food for the Painted Lady butterfly.

And many other butterflies seek its nectar as well.

Like many plants, they are water dependent on how fast they grow.

And these guys do like a moderate to high drink being a canyon plant.

We do sell them occasionally in one-gallon containers and you can get quite a bit of growth on them.

I just think it's a fabulous plant if you have a special spot for it.

(Tom) For many more examples of native plants that will thrive in your yard, go to our new website azpm.org/desertplants There may be no person alive who knows the songs, the history and the myths of our state better than Dolan Ellis because in all likelihood he wrote them.

He has dedicated his life to traveling around Arizona and writing and collecting songs about the most interesting characters and legends of landmarks in the state.

Now although a medical condition prevents him from performing regularly anymore, his legacy lives on at the Arizona Folklore Preserve in beautiful Ramsey Canyon that he established near Sierra Vista.

I just happened to have my guitar here.

See if I... ♪ [Song: "Low Down No Down Payment Home" ♪ Well anyway that goes on and on.

Well that's the Grammy Award that you see the picture up there and then this is my personal certificate for the Grammy Award.

I'm Dolan Ellis.

I'm Arizona's official state balladeer.

Been that for 57 years.

This is kind of an interesting item over here.

I'd always loved music and my guitar and such.

The folk era was really big back in the late 50s early 60s.

That was the music, the pop music of my day and so I gravitated toward that.

I started following my dream and the rest is history.

In my early career I was pursuing fame and that's when I went to Hollywood and I did that whole scene and I was one of the founding and one of the original members of The New Christy Minstrels And we took that group from ground zero to Gold records and a Grammy Award in 1962.

That gave me the window to a wider window to the audiences and it really helped to catapult my music.

♪ Song: "Denver" But I really missed Arizona.

So I quit right at the pinnacle of our success.

And everybody, all my friends, all my peers thought I was completely crazy.

But I did and I started back to writing and photographing and traveling the state.

Governor Sam Goddard sent a word to me, said, "How would you like to be our state balladeer?"

I'd never heard of such a thing, but I thought it sounded pretty cool.

And so I said, yeah, I think that would be really neat.

I am the first balladeer of the state of Arizona and the first balladeer of any state of the United States of America.

If you enjoy the program today, my name is Dolan Ellis.

I am the official Arizona State Balladeer.

If you do not enjoy the program today, my name is Garth Brooks.

(Audience laughter) When I first got that title, people used to kind of laugh because I was young and anything having to do with the establishment back in the sixties was not cool.

So it took a number of years for people to figure out I'm dead serious about what I'm doing.

When I was traveling, I would intentionally go to here, go to there hear about this person, hear about that old timer over there, hear about this old rancher over there.

The guitar and music, it's magic.

You pull out a guitar, it's a magnet.

I like to document interesting people and interesting places and interesting lifestyles.

And so I just, I don't know, I felt that those stories needed to be saved.

Those experiences needed to be had.

I needed to crystallize them.

♪ Dawn is breaking through the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ Raven's riding on the morning breeze ♪ We went down to Ramsey Canyon.

I always wanted to go there.

I'd never been there.

And this property was for sale.

It had the creek running through it and the big old sycamore trees.

I bought that place specifically to build the Folklore Center.

I did shows for five years down there in the little old Moffitt House it's called, the little gray house that's kind of downstream from the main Folklore Center.

That was our first venue.

It was cool, yeah, because I lived there and for the first time in my life I didn't drive to go to work I just walked down to the Folklore Center and do my shows and walk back up home again and have dinner.

So we've just been trudging along ever since and so far so good.

[Announcer] Put your hands together.

For Mr. Dave Stamey.

My name is Dave Stamey, I'm a singer songwriter in the western music genre and I'm here to perform at the Arizona Folklore Preserve for I think this is my eighth or ninth time something like that.

In Arizona they're very hooked into the themes that I celebrate.

The history, it rings very loudly here.

Thanks for playing along, I appreciate that very very very much.

♪ On the wings of a desert breeze ♪ ♪ Lift your eyes to Arizona skies ♪ ♪ And let your soul run free ♪ I didn't think I'd ever retire even now even though I can't do shows anymore it still comes out I'm still at my desk writing every day and researching and interested you know a creative person can't retire it just keeps coming out it just keeps coming out.

♪ Arizona, through and through It's almost religion to me.

I am so tied to the flora and the fauna and the history and the legacies of this state.

♪ Home to me ♪ And you Play ball!

(audience applauding) (Tom) To learn more about the Arizona Folklore Preserve and to check out upcoming events at this one-of-a-kind venue visit ArizonaFolklore.com Eric Avery is a physician, psychiatrist, and printmaker.

Now his art explores issues such as human rights and society's response to sexuality, disease, death and the body.

His motto is "Life Before Art" as he plunges into helping victims of society wherever he finds them.

[MUSIC] (Eric) I'm an artist who became a psychiatrist and practiced medicine for many years.

And Andrew Rush was my printmaking teacher in 1969 and 70 at the University of Arizona.

When I was in my undergraduate degree, the Vietnam War was going.

This is 1969 and they were drafting.

It was the first draft and my number was 69.

I was going to be drafted into the war.

Andy said, "Eric," he said, "if you continued your education, you could avoid the draft."

And he said, "you're always talking about being a doctor."

He said, "why don't you try to become a doctor?"

I said, "Andy, I can't be a doctor.

I'm an artist.

Artists cannot be a doctor."

And so Andy said, "well, why don't you try or you'll look back perhaps on your life and say, I should have tried."

And I visited him here at Rancho Linda Vista over 40 years.

And on this day here as an artist, I was invited to put up an exhibition of my work.

And that's why I'm in Rancho Linda Vista.

I live in a small community on Rio Grande.

It's 30 miles down the river on the border from Laredo, Texas.

And when Trump was president, he was putting a wall across the southern United States.

And he wanted to put a wall through this historic city, Laredo.

And a group of activists in Laredo organized and convinced the city council to not give permission for the wall to come right through this historic town.

We painted a mural two blocks long on the street.

And the mural says defund the wall, fund our future.

Across the street was the federal courthouse where the case was being heard by the judge to stop at the federal level the wall from being put in Laredo.

And I made a print from the sky view in the print is a small drone.

And the drone looked down at us waving at the drone.

The print I made was a stash house in Laredo.

There are lots of stash houses.

As migrants or refugees are trafficked to the north by cartels, huge industry, once they cross the Rio Grande, they find their ways to what are called stash houses, houses where people gather.

The wall that we were trying to prevent in Laredo exists in southern Arizona and across California, and the wall is still going to be built because we are going to build a cage that we live in.

And it won't work.

It won't work.

You can build a cage.

And so I say to people, I said, "Your wall is my cage."

I worked in Somalia with refugees.

When I came back from Somalia, I said, "We can't live in a world where people have nothing and we have everything."

And now this is 50 years later.

And I'm living on the edge of this evolving movement of people from war, from climate change, from just the chaos of the world of people moving towards the United States.

So I'm a social content artist.

So things that happen around me find their way into making my work.

I mean, I learned this in Somalia, where I was a doctor with just thousands of starving children.

And that's where I really began making prints as a way to help myself feel better.

By the making of the art, I heal myself.

Prints function by the multiples going out into the world.

I began making art in the space between art and medicine.

That has been a subject of my work forever.

Educating people about what's happening on the border is a social function of art to educate.

I'm a doctor, teacher, educator who uses art to educate out.

[Music] Join us for AZPM News Daily, the podcast featuring the latest headlines, issues, and in-depth stories impacting us all across Arizona.

Whether it's elections, border issues, or what's happening right in your own backyard, you can count on AZPM Daily for the best in local and statewide news coverage.

AZPM News Daily, listen anytime, on your time.

Download at AZPM.org or wherever you find your podcasts.

(Tom) Before we go, here's a sneak peek at a few stories we're working on.

(upbeat music) (Narrator) The bobcat is a relatively common and charismatic North American native that inhabits this area.

(Jennifer) They're just so special.

Look, a spotted cat in your yard.

It's amazing.

(Karen) The bobcats have always been part of my life living here.

I really enjoy the bobcats.

I think they are my favorite wildlife for sure.

(Kerryl) Avery has her kittens right in the urban development.

So she's in the middle of housing developments and raising her kittens.

And because she doesn't have rock piles and places to stash them, she's been using roofs.

So she lives on top of a roof and stashes her kittens there right after they're born for six, eight weeks, something like that.

(music) (Dolan) My journey with the saxophone has always been an adventure.

For me, I really found my identity within it.

And through the saxophone, I've learned a lot of different aspects of my life.

(Tom) Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you next week for another all-new episode.