Arizona Illustrated

January 8th is a day that Southern Arizonans will never forget. In the 12 years since that horrific event, the January 8th Memorial Foundation and the Southern Arizona Heritage and Visitor Center teamed up to establish "The Embrace" memorial, which is a tribute of remembrance and hope. It is housed at the old Pima County courthouse, which was once Tucson's civic center. It's now a place where visitors can come to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those who were changed forever. As a symbol of how our community banded together and “embraced” one another in those days that followed, it is a place of remembrance, reflection, and inspiration. Nazafarin Lotfi is an Iranian-born, multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Tucson. She focuses on the notions of self and identity formation in relation to architecture, landscape, space, and place. Lotfi’s art practice is rooted in her experiences of growing up in post-Revolutionary Iran. She continued her education and artistic career as an immigrant in the United States. For Lotfi, the body, the house, the garden and the nation are enclosures that define the self and the other, inclusion and exclusion, access and belonging. She is also the founder of the Hamrah Arts Club a refuge for Afghani and Syrian refugee women in Tucson. Jane Hamilton has operated a gallery in southern Arizona for 30 years, and she traces its roots to the time she prayed while staying in a tipi in New Mexico. She began her business in Bisbee in 1992 and moved to Tucson in 2001, surviving in a challenging industry that is affected by issues such as recessions and road construction. There are thousands of native and desert-adapted plants that can be used in Sonoran Desert gardens and the Baja fairy duster (Calliandra californica) is one them. As its name states, this profuse bloomer is from Baja California, but there is also a native in the Tucson region, the desert fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla) that is a recommended variety although it stays smaller and does not bloom as much as its Mexican cousin.