(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we're joining you from the Joel D. Valdez Main Library downtown.

Learn the craft of writing while helping others learn to read with Make Way for Books.

(Stephanie )You know, there's a lot of adults who have young children who don't know how to interact with books and with their children, and that's really what the app is meant for.

(Tom) Take a trip to the Gilded Age from a Black perspective.

(Ivy) I'm using the word Gilded to say privileged or wealthy, but as a Black person.

(Tom) The process and paintings of Tucson master, Jim Wade.

(Jim) How can I adapt some of the ideas about processes?

Is there any way to make a painting that sort of echoes that?

(Tom) And take a trip back in time through the plants on the University of Arizona campus.

(Tanya) We consider it a living laboratory, meaning it's a dynamic place for people to learn.

Hello, and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We're joining you from the Joel D. Valdez Main Library for the Pima County Public Library System.

Earlier this year, plans were announced to leave this 90,000 square foot building built in the 90s and move across the street to the former Wells Fargo building.

That should take place in the next three to four years, so there's still time to appreciate this iconic building before the move.

For over 25 years, Make Way for Books has been promoting literacy in our community, and now they've designed an exciting new app to captivate the next generation of readers.

(gentle music) So at make way for books.

Our mission is to give all children the chance to read and succeed.

This is actually our 25 year anniversary this year, and we've been working to ensure that young children and their parents, the adults around them, have all of the tools that they need so their children can start school ready to read.

We received feedback from families that they wanted to continue being in our programs or continue having more access to that type of content.

So it was thought that by developing something like an app, we might be able to make these resources available.

It's an early literacy app designed for families with little ones ages 0 to 5.

And we're here today because we've developed this really beautiful collaboration with the University of Arizona.

(Stephanie) I'm so thrilled with Make Way for Books and this collaboration that we've done.

About 30,000 people are impacted every year by the work that Make Way For Books does.

You know, their goal is to provide literacy skills at that point when when kids have, you know, the best benefit from it so early on, providing them the tools that will help them really succeed throughout their life.

(Fernando) One of the most important ways that we work to achieve our mission is by giving families, like I said, lots of books.

We want to give them access to books.

That's a real core piece of what we do.

And the app is a really important element of that.

(Student) Have you ever considered putting books like, online through it as well?

(Stephanie) So the 389 is an introduction to publishing in the Children's and Young Adult market.

(Fernando) And we developed this idea that students that are in her publishing class might be able to develop original manuscripts, and since they come from such a variety of backgrounds, they really bring a whole lot in terms of their own personal experiences, their own kind of diverse backgrounds.

(Stephanie) First eight weeks of this semester, they're focused on just picture books.

They're learning, they're learning the form.

They go through brainstorming.

They kind of group up with what do we want to write about?

What have you been seeing, you know, in what you've been reading?

And so they go through that.

They go through a series of peer reviews.

I give them feedback.

We go through numerous drafts and they're creating their own stories.

(Jenica) So getting to work kind of like hands on actually read like query letters, write query letters, like that sort of thing.

Go through reading, actually line editing.

That all really is interesting to me and I felt that it was useful to my overall career in general.

So what you are going to help us do through this collaboration is help us to create original books that really do have a real tangible impact a lasting impact in our community.

(Stephanie) Jose, who's now running the app at Make Way For Books He started off in my 389 class, so it's kind of cool to see that come full circle.

(Jose) It almost feels like it needs to be two illustrations.

(Jenica) Mmm Hmm (Jenica) Getting to actually go to the Story Sprint and work on that like process of actually sitting there with editors and illustrators and fixing it.

like, go down to lines, actually figuring out what this is supposed to be.

I found that to be perhaps the most hands on part.

(Stephanie) She did great work in that class, but then to have her come in and now do this and see how much she's grown as a student and as a writer, it was great.

(Jenica) I got to speak with the illustrator, read my story to her.

My mother told me when I was a baby that it was clear and it would change colors as I grew.

Speaking with the editors, they would read it, kind of give me feedback on maybe what I could fix.

(Editor) So I think you're on something there.

Kids, know feelings.

And then it was awesome.

I was just redrafting, like right there.

(Stephanie) For a college student to be able to say, I've got a publication It's a really great experience.

(Jenica) We don't have a lot of experience just getting your work out there and so that was, that was really awesome.

And they were all so, they were all so kind, and helpful.

(Stephanie) I got to see when her artist, you know, turned it around and her face like, Oh my gosh, like, this is my story.

So it's been great, you know, and I, I love the continuity that I get with some of these students.

(Jenica) It really give me a way to see into what this process could look like on a larger scale, not just working for like children's books necessarily and make sure that this is good to like put out into the world.

(Fernando) But then after that, we publish them, we illustrate them, and make them available bilingually on the app for free so that families anywhere can use them.

And every semester, I think kind of, you know, it just keeps getting better.

(Stephanie) You know, there's a lot of adults who have young children who don't know how to interact with books and with their children and that's really what the app is meant for.

It's not meant to like be handed off as entertainment, but rather how can we how can we learn and read this together?

(Fernando) And it's grown along with our family education and literacy programing, kind of hand in hand really, because the app is trying to replicate that experience or provide more of that.

(Stephanie) And so for students to realize how much you can do with not a lot of effort.

And, you know, the more people that are stronger readers, stronger readers, critical thinkers, the stronger our community is as a whole.

And joining us now is Jessica Pryde, a librarian with the Pima County System.

Thanks for having us in.

You're in your air conditioning.

It feels wonderful in the library.

Your specialty is adult fiction, but Books Invited to the Cookout is what we're here to discuss.

And it's adults and kids.

Tell us about the program.

So Books Invited to the Cookout is a project of the Kindred team, which is focused on supporting, reaching and celebrating the Black community.

The whole list compiles adult fiction, nonfiction, poetry, youth of all kinds, and graphic novels.

It compiles books written by Black authors about the Black community and celebrating the Black community.

And what was the test for books to make the cut?

What was it about those certain books, at least the ones you were involved with, that let's choose this book over those books?

So we focused on the year 2024.

We're going to try to make this an annual list of the previous year.

And it was mostly about books that we felt were excellent, but that might have been missed.

So if you pick this up, you might notice that there is a big book missing because it got all the awards last year.

We don't need to include that in this list, but there are a lot of books that we feel like really encapsulate the life, the love, and the joy in Black literature.

It's been a positive reaction to the publication itself, the presentation of it.

Every library has so many books, and to have someone be able to guide you to something that might actually be of interest is always going to be exciting.

So being able to just grab that off the shelf and off of a display in a library or go find it yourself has been, it's always exciting for kids.

They love that.

(Tom) What about the timing of books invited to The Cookout?

Why now?

Why so important This is a project that has been in evolution for about a year and a half now with my team.

The Black population in Pima County is actually pretty small.

It's about four and a half percent, 40,000 people.

And to be able to connect to the people who want to see themselves in books, but also introduce our population to people who don't encounter us every day.

To be able to present a vast array of types of books.

Like this isn't just non-fiction about the struggle and books that are about specific life.

There's fantasy, there's history, there's the joy and the pain.

And we wanted to make sure that people could see all of that.

(Tom) Does the cookout last beyond the summer?

Oh yeah.

(Tom) The program?

Yeah.

Yes.

We intend to just keep keep this going.

This is our first annual books invited to the cookout and we want to keep the cookout going.

And it's Tucson, so the cookout can keep going all year.

(Tom) You got it.

And how?

Thanks Jessica.

(Jessica) Thank you.

If you've been to a play or dance performance in Tucson, you've likely seen the work of Ivy Wahome.

She's a seamstress with a very accomplished resume.

She has a master's degree in costume design and production from the U of A.

And each year she hosts an interactive art show to exhibit her costumes to Tucson.

[Soft guitar music] (Ivy)I love mythology and I love thinking about how black people can be powerful or like royal or have their own mythical stories.

My name's Ivy Wahome.

I grew up in Kenya in a really small town, Nakuru, like 2 hours from the capital Nairobi.

[Soft guitar music] I am getting my MFA in costume design and production at the theater, film and Television Department of U of A.

First year of grad school.

All this stuff is from that time.

I don't like putting my work that I've made even.

It's even if it's a class work or it's just my own project, I don't like putting them in the closet to get dust.

I want to take them out and show them.

I'm in- between a textile designer artist installation.

Plus, I love creating spaces, and I always think about how people will walk into this space, what they want to see, how I guide them through it.

It's a story.

[Soft guitar music] The name of this show is Gilded in Black.

[Soft guitar music] This is a Queen Anne house, and it's sort of about the same time period of the costumes that I had researched during that time.

I wanted to make it like personalized it as if it's worn by someone from my background.

So that's why I put this show together.

[Classical music] I'm trying to keep it in the black realm.

The music will be black.

The food will be black.

The art is black.

But it's in a Victorian house.

[laughs] [Classical music] I can tell the people the story about how this was supposed to be this, but I flipped it.

It was after Black History Month.

There was a whole sales rack, African black fabric, so I got the whole bulk of one of them.

I figured, why not use that fabric and make a costume from the 18th century?

[Classical music] And using the word gilded.

It was for me, it was flipping it because Gilded Age, it's associated with families that were wealthy during that time.

I'm using the word gilded to say privileged or wealthy, but as a black person, so privileged to be black.

Wealthy to be black.

Blessed to be black.

[Classical music] They always mention these gods and I bring them up a lot because people don't know these names, but they know Zues and they know Athena and they know Venus.

One of my favorites is Elegua.

He's the first one with a black and red, and he's also outside in the garden.

To me, he's almost like a trickster God.

He comes in to check if you're doing something good, if you're doing something bad and he punishes you or he rewards you.

They all represent something.

They represent a day of the week.

They represent a color.

They represent a type of force.

If you want to pray to one of them, you have an offering that you give them.

You ask them for guidance to learn about our history, our culture.

That's one thing I want people to remember.

”Thank you, thank you” I don't see a lot of black people in the arts.

I do a lot of Broadway shows with touring companies and we see actors and actresses.

But when you work backstage a lot, it's I rarely see a lot of black people.

They told me that I think since 1926 that they started the charter here in Tucson, that they have never had a black woman in the union.

Apart from being the first black woman in the union.

In Tucson, I'm usually either the only black person in my department or in my classes.

I always feel like it's me or one other.

So, yeah, it's hard.

I feel like it's better for me because then I get to create my own path.

Like, nobody's.

I'm not following anybody's footsteps, you know?

I'm just, like, doing what I like.

The way that I like.

[Laughs] Jim Wade is a Tucson painter celebrating a 40 year career as his work hangs in major museums like New York's Museum of Modern Art.

He paints a visceral world bursting with life and filled with light and energy.

Jim likes to say, my paintings are enactments of the world around me.

[Nature sounds] [♪ Upbeat guitar music ] (Jim) Being a gardener, you know, your hands and your knees, you're digging in the earth, that sort of thing.

So you start talking about what's growing under the earth and the process of making that.

So a lot of times I think those first steps in the painting, those are the seeds planted and then the piece grows to whatever its size it's supposed to be or image it's supposed to be.

What I'm trying to do is create light filled spaces with energy in them.

I was born in Oklahoma, the youngest of three boys, and both of my parents were teachers.

And from the time I can remember, I had a pencil in my hand and was drawing.

(Julie) I've known Jim Waid actually since the 1980s.

While I didn't know him personally.

I knew about his work and I followed his paintings.

He is never afraid to experiment and to change and grow and take those risks.

Any big show that focused on the Southwest, he was in it.

He was considered one of the top ten and remains so today.

(Jim) “Where is that one brush?” “That clumsy old brush I use.” (Paul) He wakes up and the first thing he does is wants to go out to the studio works, you know, morning, afternoon, night and his approach to it, to, you know, always he loves art.

It's inspiring.

[♪ Soft guitar music ] (Laura) I've been familiar with Jim's art for over 40 years.

It's hard to be in Tucson and not be familiar with his work.

I would go to auctions at places like Dinnerware Gallery and Tucson Museum of Art, and he was always generous and donating a piece to whatever fundraiser, and that's when I first became familiar with his work.

(Dan) He has his own completely unique style and approach to color.

And of course, you know, he's in the Metropolitan Museum and other pretty major museums.

(Jim) I had a cousin who was taking art classes, and so he taught me, gave me some lessons when I was in grade school, but it was sort of like how to draw Porky Pig and those kinds of things.

When I was 11, we moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and then I went up to Albuquerque to go to a much larger school to study painting.

I mean, by this time I that's what I wanted to do.

Graduated there in 1965 and moved to New York and was there for three years and working at a job and also painting when I could on the weekends and nights and that kind of thing.

I think I learned as much about art there as I did anywhere.

(Paul) My father's paintings make me feel closer to nature even though they're not exact representations he's using, how nature is put together constantly.

they make me feel like life, the joy of life.

[♪ Guitar music continues ♪ ] Right now I'm exploring just similar concepts, you know, space, light, pattern, growth.

It's a beautiful world.

Show that and enjoy that as opposed to the negative thing.

[♪ Pensive music ] “White, white, white, white.” “I need white.” (Jim) So I'm teaching at Pima college And we really didn't have a room that was conducive to drawing in.

So I started taking students out in the desert right there and I'm realizing like, Whoa, this stuff is incredible.

And I and that's what sort of got me started with some of the imagery I've been using, you know, since then.

And so it's very much Sonoran Desert inspired at first that it turns into an overall interest in nature and processes.

And then how can I adapt some of the ideas about processes?

Is there any way to make a painting that sort of echoes that or deals with the same kinds of issues?

trying to create a work of art that seems to have a sense of real life to it?

(Julie) Ultimately, what you end up seeing is the same from the very beginning of his work, which is the essence of nature, the vibrancy, the sense of crackling, of movement and growth.

And I love that about him.

It's not just a replication of nature or a picture of nature.

It's more of the experience of nature.

I just find it exuberant and colorful and exciting.

(Jim) I'm interested in forms that just hover right on the edge of recognition so the mind can read them in different ways.

[♪ Soft piano music ends ♪ ] [Brush on canvas] (Jim) I usually start on the painting with a colored ground.

I will use another color on top of it, usually dark or frequently black, and lay it all across and then scrape away while it's still wet and sort of like a reverse drawing or maybe a I might even call it a glorified scratch board art.

Then when I get that layer, it's sort of like a structure.

The bones of the piece or the black say, overlaying the other under grit.

Then I start changing those black colors and other colors, usually, unless it ends up being a black painting, which occasionally happens.

And I'm always trying to surprise myself and learn new things.

I feel like every day I go out there to the studio and I go almost every day is I'm trying to learn how to paint.

I do not understand the process.

I don't question it.

That's the way I'm driven.

That's the way I'm made.

[♪ Soft pensive music fades slowly ♪] The trees and plants that grow on the University of Arizona campus tell a lot about why Arizona looks the way it does today.

You see, for the last 100 years, the campus was a laboratory to test which plants from arid countries all around the world were suitable to grow in Arizona for food and landscaping.

[upbeat piano music] (Tanya) A lot of the early researchers wanted to identify plants that could be used as agricultural commodities.

And so they traveled around the world, brought plants back to the main campus, and used the campus grounds as an experiment station.

And as a result of their research, many plants were identified like cotton and citrus that were useful as a commodity crop in Arizona.

As a byproduct of the research, many of those plants remained on campus and have grown to this day.

Later in the midcentury, the needs of the state shifted more towards dealing with issues relating to resource conservation, especially concerns about water as well as urbanization.

Trying to identify plants that could be used in urban landscapes that were resource conscious.

And if they were successful, they were then introduced into the nursery trade.

You probably recognize plants like Bottle Brush.

Callistemon.

Maybe you know vitex, the monk's pepper.

Many of the landscape plants that you find in arid cities throughout the world were tested here.

[bells chiming] Kind of by chance, we develop this incredible botanical resource and many of these plants are on campus.

So there was a feeling that there should be advocacy for their preservation and proper care.

And so at that point, 20 years ago, the Arboretum was formally established.

We consider it a living laboratory, meaning it's a dynamic place for people to learn.

So trying and testing new and interesting things that are not just adapted to our past climate, but which are going to be better adapted to our future climate.

We've inventoried all of the plants on main campus and all of those plants are mapped on an interactive tree map.

But we also have select plants with botanical signage installed.

And not only do those plaques now have the name of the plant and the origin, but it also has a QR code embedded.

Participants can scan it and it will then connect them to a web page that describes what that plant is.

So it gives a really rich experience for people who just happened to be walking through the campus grounds.

[soft piano music] The Campus Arboretum collection houses specimens from every continent on the planet.

We have approximately 1200 unique species of plants that are growing on campus.

Some of the most famous plants in our collection are now designated as University of Arizona Heritage Trees.

And there's 22 of them.

One of the most well-known of the heritage trees, though, is the baobab tree.

And the baobab is the only flowering specimen of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

Another really famous heritage tree in the collection is a date palm and typically date palms that we see and in landscapes have a single trunk.

This one has been allowed to grow naturally.

It was a tree that was gifted to the university in the 1950s by the Iraqi government.

[birds chirpping] This is a really cool thing about trees that they were here before us and they are usually here long after us.

And so it's a way of giving us this broad perspective about where we are in time.

Thank you for joining us from here at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library in Tucson.

Nice place to be in the heat of summer.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again next week.