(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, Ignis Clothing is a local clothing brand with grand ambitions.

It really turned into something that was more than just something fun to do.

It turned into a business idea.

A cross country athlete whose biggest challenges has had nothing to do with running.

I knew something was wrong and advocated for myself but I wasnt being heard.

And our collaboration with the Poetry Center continues with To Erasures, Erasures by Susan Briante.

Thoughts move across you weightless as currency clouds across a Sonoran sky inscribing a promise.

(Tom) Hello and welcome to another all new episode of Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

You know, all summer long we're coming to you from cool places where you and we can escape the heat.

In this episode, we have found one of the coolest and coldest places in the city.

This is the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium on the University of Arizona campus.

This learning center is perhaps best known for its planetarium and observatory, but it also has two floors of science exhibits to explore on hot summer days like Fossil Corner, Destination Mars, Sharks Revealed and more.

And this year, the undersea discovery exhibition opened to the public, which features many hands on activities.

It has saltwater aquariums, even a touch tank, where a trained member of the Flandrau staff will help you safely hold some of these underwater creatures.

So joining us now, in Undersea Discovery is Shiloe Fontes who is design and planetarium manager here.

Shiloe, congratulations on the exhibit.

Tell us about this piece of ocean you have in the desert.

(Shiloe) Well, thank you.

It's just super exciting.

Undersea Discovery has been just that, a discovery for so many kids and visitors to see this really different environment in the middle of a desert.

(Tom) If you don't mind, I'd love to try out the touch tank.

(Shiloe) Of course.

So one of the creatures Ill hand you this morning is actually going to try and escape from us first.

(Tom) Okay.

(Shiloe) This is a green, brittle star, and they are in the family of echinoderms.

(Tom) He wants to escape.

(Shiloe) Yeah.

(Tom) Dont want him to fall.

(Shiloe) So this is a short spined pincushion urchin.

And.

(Tom) Well named.

(Shiloe) Right?

If I put it on your hand, you'll start to feel all those little pins moving around.

This guy is another kind of brittle star.

This is going to be a banded brittle star.

(Tom) Flandrau is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

And discounts are available for EBT cardholders, seniors, college ID holders and military members.

Streetwear is a style of clothing that was made popular in the nineties.

Originally worn by members of New York's hip hop and California's surf culture scene, It's now a global phenomenon embraced by leading fashion houses around the world.

Well, next meet Ian Urquhart, the head of Ignis Clothing, a streetwear company that discards perfection in order to promote creativity.

(Ian) Let's get to work.

When I go out and someone compliments like a piece Ive made and they're like, oh, I really like your shirt.

Im like, thank you.

I made this.

And they're like, what, you made that?

And that's honestly one of the best perks of being a designer.

Ignis began because I saw someone else printing their own shirts at my school.

And during that time I was really, I was really into fashion in general.

So at one point it was a school project and then it really turned into something that was more than just something fun to do.

It turned into a business idea.

But then I had to go to GCU for freshman year of college and I was swimming on the swim team.

In one of my classes I got like one bad grade at the beginning of the semester and one thing kind of led to another.

And then I was off the team and I was like, well, time to just go crazy with Ignis and see see where that goes.

Ignis is about, you know, not having to be perfect.

And I really tried to go back to that.

Super rough, doesnt have to be, you know, perfect.

With this brand, you know, I want to help out my community in any way I can.

So, like, when I went to Kenya, I really wanted to do something to help out.

Why not take some of the proceeds from this brand and have it go towards these kids in Kenya that could honestly, like really use it?

And then for this show, yeah, we went to the Z Mansion and just toured it.

And they said they had this awesome program with workship and I really wanted to, you know, have a part in that as well.

(Woman) One, two, three, perfect.

Thank you ladies.

(Announcer) Ignis is all about embracing the imperfections that come with turning an idea into a physical product.

So you are witnessing history tonight.

And with that we present Ignis clothing.

(Ian) Currently creating is really about how we are always kind of creating something.

So with this show I have 13 looks, 13 models and yeah, that was super fun because I've never had to create this many pieces for a collection.

Fashion is one of those industries where you have designer brands which are expensive, sometimes super hard to get.

I think it's really cool to create your own piece that looks super expensive.

That's where you see that really cool piece, is after you've put those hours and on the sewing machine.

We sewed them all together and created, created this hoodie.

When I was in New York for Fashion Week last year, I got invited into this year's New York Fashion Week.

I think I may be staying in New York for a little bit.

In the grand scheme of things, what's next for Ignis is just having one of the kids would say the most fire brand out there.

Just like a high end streetwear luxury type brand.

I really want to use this brand to help out others and also inspire others.

That's where we're headed so.

Im really liking the trajectory.

Division one, college athletes have to train exceptionally hard in order to achieve success in their chosen sport.

But nothing compares to what recently graduated U of A cross-country runner Brigid Hanley had to overcome in order to become one of the strongest runners on the cross-country team.

This next story will show you just how far drive and determination will carry someone.

(RECONSTELLATED BY KARIMA WALKER PLAYS) [sound of running on gravel] (Brigid) Running is just that perfect amount of pain where I'm distracted enough, where I can think clearly.

It is a quick body scan.

Real quick.

You will know how you are feeling when you start to run.

Even if you didn't know how you were feeling before.

Any type of run makes someone a runner, you know, you can go out your door for 5 minutes a day and then you're a runner.

And I think that's really, really cool.

[Music] It was pretty scary to go to a college team.

I thought that I was gonna be the worst on the team by far.

I never predicted how a team that was motivated and driven and a group of women who all really love to do the same thing, that common focus and drive and having that bigger thing to work towards.

I loved it.

Like I really fell deeper in love with the sport.

A third of the time you're going to feel on fire.

Youre going to feel great.

And a third of the time youre going to feel pretty average and a third of the time you're going to feel pretty, pretty awful.

[percussive, energetic music with strong femme vocals] [song of vinyl record crackling] I had been working out all through COVID.

I felt like I was pretty fit in the fall and we started having races and I was just surviving them.

I just felt like every workout was just burning through my whole tank and then some.

And I started to have abdomen pain...

I think we normalize a lot of women's pain in general.

If you have a period, same thing with, you know, birth control methods like the pill or like an IUD, these things are have a lot of side effects or a lot of pain associated with them.

And we just kind of brush it off.

I went to the doctor multiple times and I talked about how I was starting to have my period every two weeks and how it was different and I was feeling fatigued.

Athletes really value that mind-body connection, and for the first time I started to feel like my body was a stranger to me.

I knew something was wrong and I advocated for myself, but I wasn't being heard.

I was diagnosed with bone stress injuries in one of my feet.

It just was a sign that there was something else going on because your ovaries regulate your bone health.

It's all connected.

I started to get back into running.

I was having a really hard time, but I thought that it was just because I hadn't run in a while.

And then I fainted on a run.

[sound of heavy breathing and running breaking up] I got wheeled into the hospital and I heard a nurse go like, “oh, don't give her a room, like she's just a runner.

She needs like a juice and then she can leave.

” I was like, okay, like, I'm not being dramatic.

And then every time I tried to get up, I would faint again.

Then they thought I was pregnant because I, my tumor produced hCG.

And so I actually tested positive for pregnancy.

And I was like, there is no way because obviously not straight.

I was just freaking out.

I was like, am I pregnant?

Like...[inhale of awe and confus The ultrasound was where they picked up the tumor.

I believe it was 17 centimeters?

It was huge.

My mom finally comes into the E.R.

and then the OBGYN walks in and she says, “so it says here you've been sexually active with a woman, but not a man in the past six months.

” And my mom didn't know I was gay.

Uhhh, yeah... And then it was like, first they were telling my mom that I was pregnant.

Now they come and tell her I'm gay, and then they follow it up with a, oh, but you have a huge tumor, cancerous tumor inside of you.

So I'm like two truths and a lie Pregnant, gay, or cancer?

I wasn't pregnant, but I am gay and I did have cancer.

Mental health matters so much in this sport specifically.

My cancer and my coming out both definitely affected my running.

I never officially came out to my team or my coaches in the way of saying I'm not straight, but in the fact that I was in a relationship with another woman.

We make the athletes understand that we are in this together.

We are one family.

We are all brothers and sisters here.

And so we are making sure that everybody is free in our team to basically be who they are.

It is a safe place whenever you come to practice.

Nobody's judging you.

Nobody's going to think of you any other way because of anything, because of how you identify yourself.

(Brigid) Athletes are generally perceived as not being gay.

[music] I think in general, my teammates took it really well.

Honestly, I think better than I maybe expected at the time.

When everything was feeling like it was falling apart, that's when I realized that I wasn't straight.

I think it's because all of the identities that I had held myself to and all of the boxes I put myself into were all just coming completely undone.

I started to open myself up to the possibility that I wasnt straight without even realizing that's what was happening.

Because I had a crush on a girl and I didn't even question it.

And it seemed so normal.

Coming out just always keeps happening because it's a process where you're going to be coming out to people your entire life.

And I think that's something that's really important to understand about the queer community.

It's sort of this strange and difficult experience where a lot of times with certain people you're testing the waters of how much you should come out or will they pick up what you're putting down.

And for some people you're just completely coming out.

And for some of the time, coming out just means that you're at the store and someone sees you with your partner.

It's not a one and done process.

I was outed to my mom at the hospital.

I didn't have any agency over how that happened.

And yet at the same time, I think I would have had a really challenging time coming out to my parents.

But it also felt violating and certain in a certain sense as well.

So I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the spring of my sophomore year and it was a long time coming as far as the symptoms until my diagnosis.

I went through a period where I was really struggling in races and in workouts, and I just felt like I needed so much recovery and I ended up having cancer.

(Bernard) Brigid and I were really close friends.

And at the same time we have that close knit athlete-coach relationship.

She told me, coach, and she broke the news to me.

I went to my room and I cried.

I don't think I've even felt that way.

Like, why?

Why her?

I needed emergency surgery for the tumor because it was really, really huge.

I barely had any time to process the fact that I had cancer.

It just felt boom, boom, boom.

And so I go into surgery and I'm terrified.

And I had a radical hysterectomy.

She ended up having to remove my entire reproductive system, and I didn't expect it.

I just was about to turn 20 and I just found out I will never have kids.

(Stephen) To completely go in for surgery and come out.

And you're, you're stripped of all of your reproductive organs.

Whether that's important or not, you just don't have a choice.

I mean, that's like night and day.

I'm the director of athletic medicine and the senior associate athletic director for the C.A.T.S.

Health Wellness and Performance Program.

0.02% incidents per 100,000 could get this type of cancer.

So it's extremely rare.

It was a malignant ovarian germ cell tumor.

(Brigid) When you have cancer, you sometimes it feels like you stop being a person, and you start being a patient.

It just really changes your relationship with your body a lot.

I started to be angry at it, you know, for betraying me.

Even though it didn't.

It just felt really strange to find out there was something growing inside of me that could kill me if I hadn't caught it.

And I just had a hard time trusting my body.

And that lasted for a while afterwards.

You're looking out the window at people going to work and you're wishing you could go to work, you know?

And now I think it's crazy because I sometimes complain about going to class.

(CHANGED BY EMILY XANDER PLAYS) I know how it feels to go from cancer and chemotherapy to trying to run.

It doesn't feel like I am a division one athlete when I'm, you know, out the door bald down the street, just like huffing and puffing trying my best.

Not feeling like some days wanting to get out of bed and, you know, looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person that's staring back at you.

I know how it can feel to come back from that and how hard it can be to build fitness again.

And I know how great it can feel to cross the finish line and feel like you're on fire.

I am in remission.

I was so excited to come back to school...bald, excited to be back on the team, and I think I had a bit of a rude awakening because there is an aftermath to cancer treatment where you don't realize how much it quite affected you because you're kind of in survival mode.

And I feel like I really started to process it after the fact and I think I'm still processing it.

Not realizing how chemotherapy affects your body.

It is really bad for you.

And I ended up breaking my hip.

I was not in a place to be going back to running 60 miles a week.

I was still bald.

I was on crutches, I got COVID and I was just like down in the dumps.

It was really bad.

I was, I was done, but I wasn't really done.

(Stephen) We really struggled with whether she was safe enough to perform.

And that's the guiding principle for everybody.

Through the surgery and the recovery and the chemo, she still ran.

And the problem was, Brigid, you know, as I told her, I have to protect Brigid from Brigid.

(Bernard) For me, I'd never coach an athlete that has gone through that.

And so it was something new for me.

It was not even clear if she was going to be let compete because it was risky.

I was able to tailor the training to make sure that she is doing just enough to compete, to be competitive.

I'm going to tell you this.

I could not believe that when she came back to this racing, I did not even think she would be my number one athlete in the distance program.

She ended the season with the fastest time in the 3000 meters indoors.

She competed the whole season, running faster than she has ever done before.

Believing in Brigid has results, and that results were the ones that I knew it in that first day when she started lacing up after chemotherapy, after everything that she had gone through, the injuries.

And was supposed to be a great athlete and she was.

(Stephen) Where she is now, she's a beacon of hope for other people and for this whole condition.

And she's so strong and she's so self-confident.

The thing that is most important for me is Brigid learned to take care of Brigid.

(Brigid) I think that I have kind of an open road as far as where my mind's at and where my body's at and what I've overcome.

My experience gave me a very unique patient empathy that I could bring to a health profession.

(Bernard) If there's a story that could be written of how somebody can be who she wanted to be, after conquering all those obstacles of resilience, bravery and hard work, determination, focus, all those stuff, you see it in one name.

Brigid Hanley.

(Tom) Now we bring you something a little bit different for our show.

This is the final installment of our six week long collaboration with the Poetry Center.

We teamed up to bring you a series of poems written by local poets and then visualized by our team of producers.

This next poem is called To Erasures, Erasures.

It was written by Susan Briante, who's the author of four books and professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona.

(Susan) To erasures, erasures.

One.

Salt in the mouth, multitudes of mouth in the Palo Verde trees, buzzing, emergency circulating, poisonous flags and their flowering green fig beetle with armor.

The color of currencies who mouths me sidewise from its middle wings: when you careen across a border, do you exceed or collapse it?

A desert exceeds, a border snares: a snake drawn to a river, a river to erasures, erasures of footprints and flag, seasons that exceed, the poisonous expatriate green beetle.

like a font, like a script, like thoughts in a sky to awaken us to our discomfort in the sky.

Two.

The fig beetle.

fights for sap, fights for fleshy us fruit, that's capitalism, font in its teeth, everything that dies after its feed: the document of its hunger.

Roots under, under the Palo Verde trees kind of talking, maybe that's capitalism, too, the roots, and not the anecdote, maybe that's nation spreading or the sprawl of law, hysterical as history, grammar wobbles underfoot, sand shifts like a sky, law touches unpredictably as a breeze, documents from which we nibbled away a little shade.

All the while, the sun: a federal agent scanning us.

Three.

Thought moves across you weightless as currency clouds across a Sonoran sky inscribing a promise, a season completing a circuit of labor and capital or this sentence: I am ashamed to be an American.

How does it end?

Like cloud?

Can you finger its border at my lips?

On the page?

in the cool of your ear?

Does it canyon or arroyo inside you?

Four.

Around the town square, old men revved motorcycles, buzz black helmet, chrome armored beetle out the 4th of July parade, won't let us cross the street, mouth me full throttle sun, flags on the antennae of pickup trucks trembling like bugs Five.

I am ashamed to be an American.

I am afraid to be an American.

I am working to be an American.

I am walking miles across the desert to be Six.

Severed, said the Palo Verde tree, and threw down the line of shade, black boxed, a beetle pulses through the docu-sky, a poem chattering, on a mouthful of wings, poems chattering to themselves about the deaths and the heat, limbs twitching.

Seven.

Hum in the mouth of currencies, spit in the mouth of state, to make a fist of words, to mourn in the mouth, the beetle flies illegible, unaccountable, to song out the throat with no visa, no work permit.

Not even the sky is equal access, make the page roof, suture the mouth in penance, we are alone in the text as a wordless cloud drifts past like a citizen, miles away and touches no one, saves no one.

(Tom) Many people in Arizona leave for cooler weather during these hot summer months.

And let's be honest, a lot of us go to Southern California.

If you're headed that way, check out our digital only release of Field Notes: Noguchi Garden for a look at one of Orange County's lesser known attractions that desert lovers might appreciate.

Tucked behind this fancy steak house and these office buildings is a space that has a completely different feeling from its surroundings.

This is a sculpture garden by Isamu Noguchi.

Noguchi was an artist and landscape architect and is probably best known for his coffee table design.

(Tom) Thank you for joining us from the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again in September for another all new season of Arizona Illustrated.