Arizona Illustrated

When Lisa Bates was thinking about what to do with her life, someone told her to reflect on her passion. She did, and in 1998, she founded the Tucson Wildlife Center. Today, the center receives more than 3, 000 birds and other animals each year. It depends on donations (no government funding) and has more than 150 trained volunteers. Terrol Dew Johnson is a complex figure living in multiple intersecting realities. He is perhaps most well known for his grassroots community activism with the group Tohono O’odham Community Action, which he helped found over 20 years ago. Johnson is also an accomplished artist with work in the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Heard and the Smithsonian. This story catches up with Johnson in October 2016 after returning from Standing Rock as he prepares for a new exhibition with architecture and design firm, Aranda/Lasch for the Museum of Contemporary art in Tucson. The beauty of the natural world has long been an inspiration for writers and poets. in April 2022, poet Jodie Hollander teamed up with the National Parks Service in Arizona to host workshops across the state celebrating national poetry month by inviting anyone who is interested to learn about the art form, reflect on their environment and even write their own poems. Hollander is working with NPS on a similar schedule of events for April 2023.