“We … find our way on canoes as we travel across the ocean where there are no street signs.”
Even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no land in sight – and no GPS – Lehua Kamalu knows where she’s going.
Hōkūle’a was designed to replicate traditional Polynesian voyaging canoes. Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
I learned about Lehua through an interview on the Overheard at National Geographic podcast. As part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS), she has learned to find her way across the waves by employing ancestral knowledge and constant, keen observation of her surroundings.
Captain navigator Lehua Kamalu before departing on a voyage from Hawaii to California in August 2018. Photo by Hye Jung Kim / Polynesian Voyaging Society.
“Wayfinding for us really is the idea that with the naked eye, with all of your senses, [you] immerse yourself into the signs of the natural world around you.”
The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in the 1970s, part of a Hawaiian cultural renaissance of pre-colonial arts, language, knowledge, and skills. They re-learned how to build the large, ocean-going canoes that had originally brought Polynesians to the Hawaiian islands centuries ago, as well as the navigational methods that guided them.
“Waves create regular, readable patterns in the ocean that are long range and very consistent, particularly in the tropics, particularly here in Polynesia, and are very reliable to find your way.”
The first voyaging canoe PVS built was the 62-foot long Hōkūleʻa, which was launched in 1975 and has since traveled over 140,000 nautical miles! The next canoe, Hikianalia, was built in 2012.
Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
In 2018, after years of honing her navigational skills, Lehua Kamalu became the first woman to captain one of these canoes on an extended voyage.
It was fascinating to hear her describe what it’s like to sail across the Pacific Ocean without present-day navigational equipment.
“The navigator’s job is to spend as little time sleeping as possible. And as much time watching for consistency, watching for patterns in the sky and in the ocean, and also for changes and comparing what’s going on between the two.”
Currently, she’s one of the 400 crew members of two Polynesian voyaging canoes (Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia) that are circumnavigating the Pacific on the 43,000-nautical-mile “Voyage for the Earth,” Moananuiākea.
The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) wasn’t even open yet the morning after Thanksgiving 1985, when an employee arrived to find a man and a woman already waiting outside. The gregarious couple managed to talk their way in, following the employee into the building.
University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1982 via Gannett.
The woman, wearing a red jacket and a scarf in her hair, chatted up a security guard, while her mustachioed partner went upstairs toward one of the museum’s most important works.
Woman-Ochre had been in the museum’s collection since 1958. It was unceremoniously taken off exhibit when this Black Friday visitor hacked the canvas out of its frame, rolled it up, stuffed it under his jacket (or somewhere), and made a hasty exit with his accomplice.
The empty frame of the missing de Kooning painting via UANews.
The two were peeling out of the parking lot with the painting before anyone at the museum realized what had just occurred. Back then, the UAMA didn’t have security cameras, and there were no leads. All they had was testimony from the few eyewitnesses, police composite sketches, and an empty frame.
Composite police sketches of the thieves, along with the empty frame they left behind. On display at UAMA’s Restored exhibition.
UAMA put the theft insurance money they received from the state into getting surveillance cameras and otherwise tightening up their security.
Possibly unrelated, but the university has also renovated the area, so you can no longer pull a car right up to the front of the museum.
UAMA today – with security cameras.
Periodically, UAMA would remind the public of the missing painting. Staff held out hope for its return, but they really didn’t know if they’d ever see it again.
And, for over 30 years, they didn’t.
Willem de Kooning with Woman I peering over his shoulder, c. 1952. By Kay Bell Reynal, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The Origin: New York 1955
“Beauty becomes petulant to me. I like the grotesque. It’s more joyous.”
The painting they had stolen was Woman-Ochre by Willem de Kooning, who is considered to be one of “the twentieth century’s most influential artists.” He was a contemporary of New York abstract expressionists like Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko.
Jackson Pollock, Number 20 (from 1950), painted on the back of a game board.
Woman-Ochre is part of the controversial series of Women paintings de Kooning did in the early 1950s. Described by some as “aggressive” or “violent,” they were too abstract to be considered portraits, but the recognizable human forms meant they weren’t abstract enough for de Kooning’s avant-garde friends.
Woman-Ochre by Willem de Kooning, 1955.
Perhaps his refusal to fit neatly into categories is part of what has kept people intrigued by de Kooning’s art over the years. His works are “among the most marketable in the world.” In 2016, his piece Interchange sold for $300 million, making it the world’s most expensive painting at the time. The University of Arizona (UA) estimated Woman-Ochre itself to be worth $160 million in 2005.
The Alters’ home in Cliff, New Mexico. By Cheryl Evans/The Republic.
The Discovery: New Mexico 2017
“…if the thief has kept the painting, he or she eventually dies, and the surviving family finds the painting and tries to sell it. The painting is returned — but the process can take decades.”
–UANews article written in 2015, when Woman-Ochre’s whereabouts were still unknown
In 2017, a retired public school speech therapist named Rita Alter passed away in Cliff, New Mexico, a town of under 300 people. Her husband, Jerry had passed a few years before, so their nephew was left in charge of dealing with the house and eclectic estate.
A tile-covered pyramid, one of the random assortment of possessions the Alters left behind. Image Courtesy of David Farley via Arizona Republic.
Most of the furniture and some other household items were sold as a lot to Manzanita Ridge Furniture + Antiques in nearby Silver City for $2000.
Manzanita Ridge Furniture and Antiques via their Facebook page.
That included an intriguing mid-century painting that was found awkwardly hanging behind the Alters’ bedroom door. Once it was on display in the store, people started asking if it was authentic and offering huge amounts of money for it.
Woman-Ochre hung behind the Alters’ bedroom door. Photo on display at UAMA’s Restored exhibition.
Puzzled, store co-owner David Van Auker removed it from the floor and began researching the painting. The search turned up articles from the 30th anniversary of Woman-Ochre’s theft, which UA publicized to keep the missing work in the public eye.
One UANews article from that time basically called it: “Usually, a stolen painting gets returned to a collection in one of two ways. The thief may try to sell the piece shortly after the heist and get caught. This often takes only a few years. But if the thief has kept the painting, he or she eventually dies, and the surviving family finds the painting and tries to sell it. The painting is returned — but the process can take decades.”
David picked up the phone and called UAMA. “I think I have a piece of art that was stolen from you guys….”
The Co-Owners of Manzanita Ridge Furniture + Antiques. Photo on display in UAMA’s Restored exhibition.
A few days later, museum staff made the 3-hour drive from Tucson to Silver City to authenticate the painting. They were moved to tears when they realized it truly was the piece that had been missing for so long.
“The thieves actually committed two crimes that day. First, they stole an important signature painting from the University’s museum collection. They also stole more than 30 years of access from the public and scholars across the world, depriving them of the opportunity to appreciate, learn from and be inspired by a significant artist.”
How did it get there in the first place? There’s evidence to suggest that the couple who owned the New Mexico home where the de Kooning was found were the ones who had made off with it all those years before. Since they’re both deceased, they won’t get a jury trial. However, we know the pair was in Tucson the day before the heist, celebrating Thanksgiving with family. And they do bear a resemblance to the police sketches made shortly afterwards.
Via ArtNet: “A police sketch of the suspects in the 1985 de Kooning heist released shortly after the crime took place, and a photograph of Jerry and Rita Alter at Thanksgiving dinner in Tucson the day before the robbery. Image courtesy of the police department and Ron Roseman.”
UAMA offered to purchase the painting from Manzanita Ridge, but they refused to accept any money for it.
Aerial view of the Getty Research Institute. Via the Getty blog.
The Restoration: Los Angeles 2019-2022
They didn’t steal [Woman-Ochre] from the museum, they stole it from all of us. From everyone.”
–David Van Auker, the antique store co-owner who found Woman-Ochre
It turns out that violently wrenching an oil painting from its canvas, rolling it up, and then stuffing it under your clothing are not recommended art preservation techniques.
Woman-Ochre close-ups sent to UAMA after its rediscovery in New Mexico.
When Woman-Ochre was finally found, it was a mess. The paint was cracked and flaking off. Damage caused by the theft was made worse by amateur attempts to repair it and the haphazard way it was stapled and screwed into a new frame. (Also not recommended.)
Laura Rivers, Getty paintings conservator, working on the restoration of Woman-Ochre. Via the Getty blog.
The painting was taken to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where their team of experts painstakingly assessed and repaired the damage. They were able to use infrared photography and X-radiography to find out exactly what type of materials de Kooning had used to create his painting, so they could treat it appropriately.
Woman-Ochre before restoration: under raking light (left), XRF (Macro X-Ray Fluorescence) scan (middle), close-up of cracked paint (right, top), and microscopic paint cross-section (right, bottom) on display in UAMA’s Restored exhibition.
Conservator Laura Rivers spent months cleaning it and using a microscope and small dental tools to reattach tiny paint fragments piece by piece.
Work restoring the painting went on for about 2.5 years before it was ready to be back on exhibit.
Woman-Ochre on display in UAMA’s Restored exhibition.
The Exhibition: Tucson 2022-2023
“I believe art should be where everyone can see it.”
After an exhibition at the Getty, Woman-Ochre returned to its Tucson home.
Mark Rothko’s Green on Blue (left) and other mid-century works on display in UAMA’s Abstract Perspectives in Mid-Century Art exhibition. You can also see Woman-Ochre (centerpiece of the Restored exhibition) through the doorway on the right side of the photo.
Phillip and I got to see the Restored: The Return of Woman-Ochre exhibition, as well as Abstract Perspectives in Mid-Century Art, which displayed art from de Kooning’s contemporaries, showing the context of his work.
Phillip walks by “Number IV” by Morris Louis, 1957, at UAMA.
Restored wrapped up today, but the Woman-Ochre painting itself will remain on display at UAMA. It will return to museum’s second floor in a gallery that has been renamed the Manzanita Ridge Gallery in honor of the antique store owners who were crucial in its journey home.
Via Manzanita Ridge Antiques on Facebook.
More to Watch + Listen to about Woman-Ochre…
The Thief Collector: Documentary about Woman-Ochre’s theft and the secret lives of the crime’s main suspects. I got to see a screening with my friend Laurel at UA in October. I’ve wanted to recommend it, but there wasn’t really anywhere you could see it. Now it’s finally available to rent or buy on Amazon! (Not endorsing Amazon but glad this gripping yet thoroughly entertaining doc is getting out there!)
The Recovery: 10-minute video by the Arizona Republic.
“Ukrainians have been decorating eggs, creating these miniature jewels, for countless generations. There is a ritualistic element involved, magical thinking, a calling out to the gods and goddesses for health, fertility, love, and wealth. There is a yearning for eternity, for the sun and stars, for whatever gods that may be.”
–Luba Petrusha of pysanky.info
For agrarian societies dependent on seasonal crops, the end of winter brings the beginning of the growing season and the food to survive. So the return of spring represents life in a very real way.
By Bo&Ko. CCL.
With this in mind, it makes sense that many cultures of the distant past worshiped the sun, including ancient Slavic peoples. To them, eggs were associated with springtime, the sun god, and the life-giving cycle of the seasons.
A variety of styluses for creating pysanky, from traditional to modern. By Luba Petrusha. CCL.
Writing Pysanky
Pysanky are created using a wax resist process (similar to batik). Traditionally, you would have prepared dyes yourself, using natural materials like onion skins or red cabbage for color.
Then you would make the first part of your design on the egg’s shell by using a specialized stylus (a kistka) to apply melted beeswax, like putting a pen to paper. In fact, pysanka comes from the Ukrainian word for “write.”
Pysanka Brunch by Olga Strachna via Flickr (@olga_strachna). CCL.
After laying out the first part of your pattern in wax, you’d submerge the egg into your lightest shade of dye (let’s say yellow). While most of the egg then comes out yellow, your wax lines preserve the original color below (presumably, eggshell white).
Next, you’d put wax over the parts of your design that should remain yellow and sink the egg into the next darker shade of dye (maybe green).
You repeat the process of applying the wax and then submerging the egg in the next dye color, from lightest to darkest, for as many colors as you want in your design (or have dyes for).
Finally, you soften the wax and wipe it from the egg to reveal the full design.
Diagram showing the step-by-step process of creating a single “pysanka”. Originally in V. Shukhevych’s 1902 “Hutsul’shchyna”, via UMA Cleveland.
Since it may be a bit hard to visualize, I highly recommend the 1975 short film Pysanka: The Ukrainian Easter Egg. You can see the process demonstrated from start to finish, while the narrator explains the traditions and beliefs that go along with the ancient art form.
By Luba Petrusha. CCL.
Easter
So where does Easter come in?
Pysanky existed centuries before the life of Christ. However, as the Christian Church spread, it had a tendency to adopt/appropriate parts of the local culture wherever it went. Pagan symbols were reinterpreted with Christian meanings. Even the word “Easter” itself likely comes from the name of Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility and springtime.
The tradition of blessing Easter baskets full of food continues to this day in Ukrainian Orthodox churches. Photo by Suburban Grandma.
Decorating eggs became less about the return of the sun god and more about the resurrection of Christ. Over time, the tradition lost many of its ritual components, becoming increasingly associated with the Christian faith and the Easter holiday specifically.
Simplified versions of the practice became Easter traditions in other parts of the world, as well.
PAAS Easter egg dye company headquarters in Newark, circa 1931. Via NJ.com
Artificial Colors
By the 1800s, chemists had figured out how to make synthetic dyes. Among the products manufactured in the early days of this revolutionary technology were Easter egg coloring kits. So instead of using your own vegetable scraps or whatever, you could go purchase dyes at your local drugstore.
One of these drugstores was owned by William M. Townley in Newark, New Jersey. He stocked Easter egg dye kits imported from Germany (the top supplier of all things synthetic dye until WWI), but he wasn’t really happy with them.
So he came up with his own. While he didn’t invent Easter eggs, he did start selling dye powders in convenient pre-wrapped packets.
The product was such a hit that the Townley family transitioned from pharmacists to factory owners. The Paas Dye Company was created in 1881 and would soon be operating year round just to meet the Easter season demand.
By Orest Ukrainsky (@orest_u) via Flickr. CCL.
Hidden Easter Eggs
While springtime egg decorating became more common around the world, the tradition was officially prohibited in its country of origin when the Soviets took over in the 1930s. Perhaps the ban was because pysanky were associated with Christianity or perhaps because the art form is distinctly Ukrainian.
Still, the tradition survived, like countless other folk customs that empires have attempted to suppress. Some people made pysanky in secret. Others left Ukraine. These expats may have felt an even heavier responsibility to pass their culture on to the next generation.
Giant Pysanka in Vegreville, Alberta by eileenmak via Flickr. CCL.
When Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, the art form experienced a resurgence. Today, you can see pysanky in museums or take a class on making your own. As fragile as pysanky may look, they are surprisingly durable.
– More Pysanka Info –
“Pysanka” is the singular form of the word, “pysanky” is plural. I’ve attempted to use Ukrainian terms correctly, but I do not speak the language, so don’t take my word for it!
I’ll mention again the film Pysanka: The Ukrainian Easter Egg. It’s only about 15 minutes long. If you’re at all interested in pysanky, watch it! And don’t let the slightly 1970s trippy intro dissuade you.
Pysanky.info – history, patterns, photos, all things pysanky
“Eggs Hatch Rebirth of Ukraine Culture” – L.A. Times article published shortly after Ukrainian independence (March 1992) about Ukrainian-Americans being “keepers of the flame” of traditions like pysanka.
Live performances by Miss Olivia, Greg Morton, Salvador Duran, and Mark Insley.
All proceeds go to World Central Kitchen and the refugee resettlement efforts of Lutheran Social Services Southwest.
Donations online, at the door, and (if you’re unable to attend) checks payable to Hotel Congress LLC (memo: “May The Fourth Be with Ukraine”) and mailed to 311 E Congress St., Tucson, AZ 85701.
St. Mary’s Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine in Phoenix is raising funds for Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine.
Ongoing
So far they’ve donated $32,000 to support emergency relief efforts, like shipping medical supplies!
You can give via Paypal or credit card, check payable to St. Mary’s Protectress (memo: “Help Ukraine”), in person at the Ukrainian Cultural Center (730 W. Elm St, Phoenix, AZ 85013), or wire transfer (routing #021000021, account #767167682).
The phrase made me pause the first time I heard it, as I tried to make sense of those words together as a unit. I wasn’t aware that rodeos had parades or that parades had museums – until I moved to Tucson.
Rodeo
Officially known as “La Fiesta de los Vaqueros,” Tucson’s Rodeo takes place for nine days in late February. It’s a big enough deal that schools take off the Thursday and Friday of Rodeo Week. There are roping and riding competitions, a large parade, kids’ events, barn dances, a rodeo clinic that’s also a fundraiser for local breast cancer patients, and something called “cowboy church.”
La Fiesta de los Vaqueros was first held in 1925, as a way to preserve Tucson’s cowboy-era culture, while also bringing in tourist dollars.
The idea came from winter visitor and Arizona Polo Associaton president Frederick Leighton Kramer. He met with local business owners, cattlemen, and probably some of his polo buddies to organize the inaugural Tucson Rodeo, which they held at a polo field near his house.
Parade
Before the competitions began, however, there was a 300-person parade down Congress Street. Among the participants were ranchers, U.S. Army bands from the Buffalo Soldier 10th Cavalry and 25th Infantry Regiments, Leighton Kramer’s polo players, and artist/cowboy/part-time Tucson resident Lone Wolf in the impressive regalia of his Blackfeet tribe.
Now considered the longest non-motorized parade in the U.S. (possibly the world), the 2.5-mile long procession of horses, carriages, bands, folk dancers, and decorated wagons continues to be a part of La Fiesta de los Vaqueros tradition. In past years, it has attracted around 200,000 spectators.
Museum
When the historic vehicles are not on parade, they reside in the Tucson Rodeo Parade Musuem on the west side of the current rodeo grounds in South Tucson. Specifically, they’re exhibited in a couple barns and a hangar that’s a holdover from the property’s previous days as an early municipal airport.
After the first Tucson Rodeo Parade, the museum started collecting horse-drawn vehicles and restoring them. In some cases, families donated carriages that they no longer used after switching to automobiles.
In 2021, many of these wagons and buggies were put on display outside of the museum for a special event (which is where most of these photos were taken), but that is a story for another day…
As far as I can tell, “Rodeo Week” in Tucson refers to the 5-day workweek in the middle of the festival. The Rodeo also includes the weekend before and after that, making the whole thing 9 days.
La Fiesta de los Vaqueros is one of the top 25 professional rodeos in the U.S.
Professional rodeos are the ones where the competitors do rodeo full-time (like professional ball players). There are also regional amateur rodeo circuits for people who just want to compete on weekends.
I learned about Tucson schools observing “Rodeo Break” or “Rodeo Vacation” from a friend who grew up here. He always had those days off – and he never went to the rodeo.
Smithsonian magazine has an annual tradition of celebrating Museum Day, and many museums across the U.S. join in by offering free admission that day.
Visitor center for Smithsonian museums in D.C.
I had planned to tell you – before Museum Day – about a few participating museums I’ve visited in the past. But life is weird right now and I’ve pretty much lost all sense of time, so September 18 came and went before I realized I hadn’t posted this yet. I’m still going to tell you about those museums, though. There’s one in Indiana, one in Washington, and five in Arizona. While I posted a similar list ahead of Museum Day a couple years ago, a lot of those museums weren’t participating this year. So, on to the new list!
2 Museums I’ve Visited While Traveling
Mike Pace, interpreter and specialist on Lenape life and culture. Photo via Conner Prairie.
This is a living history museum that I loved visiting as a kid! I remember candle-dipping demonstrations and sitting in on a lesson in an old-timey one-room schoolhouse. They’ve added a lot of things since the last time I was there (many years ago), like make-and-take craft activities, a balloon ride, and the Lenape Indian Camp, which explores what life was like for members of the Lenape (a.k.a. Delaware) tribe in 1816 Indiana.
Regular admission $20/adults, $15/youth (ages 2-12). $2 off when you purchase tickets online.
Closed Mondays.
Storytelling series: Thursday – Sunday evenings, September 16 – October 2. Hear about Indiana’s early history from expert storytellers, including former assistant chief of the Lenape tribe Mike Pace, who helped create the Lenape Indian Camp experience. Separate admission required for the event series: $10/adult, $6/youth.
Prairie Pursuits: various dates. Workshops on traditional skills for teens and adults. Upcoming class topics include blacksmithing, woodworking, cooking, and pottery.
Detail of “If VI Was IX: Roots and Branches” guitar sculpture, Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle.
The museum formerly known as the Experience Music Project (EMP) has an atrium devoted to constantly-playing music videos (“Sky Church”), a towering guitar sculpture (“If VI Was IX: Roots and Branches”), and galleries for Seattle legends like Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, as well as exhibitions on sci-fi, video games, and fantasy genre archetypes. Housed within a striking building designed by Frank O. Gehry, MoPOP is located at Seattle Center, near the Space Needle.
Admission prices vary, depending on factors like when you’re going and how far in advance you purchase tickets.
An eclectic history of life in Arizona. On display are objects as varied as vintage vehicles, rock and mineral samples, maps, and re-creations of notable Arizonans’ homes and offices. There’s a new temporary exhibition (“Still Marching: From Suffrage to #MeToo”) on how Arizona women have worked to drive social change over the past century.
The permanent collection is grouped into themed rooms, like…
The People: Not only will you learn about the diverse groups that populated the Old West, but you can also read testimonies of people who saw the Phoenix Lights in 1997 and either did or didn’t believe they were UFOs.
WWII: Takes you inside a military barracks, Japanese internment camp, and a POW camp. Dark corners that should not be forgotten.
Desert Cities: Probably the most nostalgia-inducing area for those of us who grew up in Arizona, It focuses on the cultural changes in the Phoenix metro area during its post-WWII boom and includes an exhibit on local children’s t.v. show Wallace and Lladmo and an iconic statue from Bob’s Big Boy restaurant chain.
30,000 square feet of exhibition space devoted to the history of combat aircraft, plus a working maintenance hangar and active aircraft ramp. Located at Falcon Field Airport in Mesa, this is my pick for enthusiasts of old military planes and memorabilia. In other words, if you’re my grandpa, this is the museum for you!
The Mesa Historical Museum is housed in what was originally a school, built in 1913 in the very oldest part of the City of Mesa as we now know it. There is a replica of the one-room adobe schoolhouse that came before it, antique farm equipment and other artifacts from the area, and a couple rotating exhibits.
SMoCA is an art and event space with a permanent collection and exhibitions in the areas of contemporary art, architecture, and design. It’s part of Scottsdale Civic Center, along with Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, City Hall, Civic Center Library, and a bunch of restaurants and bars centered around a 21-acre park.
Closed Mondays, Tuesdays, and major holidays.
Regular admission is $10/adults, free for anyone 18 and younger.
Pay-What-You-Wish admission on Thursdays and the second Saturday of each month.
Timed-entry reservations are now required for all admissions – even free tickets.
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The permanent collection is grouped into themed rooms, like…
