Every month or two a small group of friends meets to eat mid-day. Yes! We are the Ladies Who Lunch, and we offer no apologies.

Recently we have taken ourselves to the Mesa Arts Center for a look at the exhibits in the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum (we prefer to think of it as ‘the MAC’ rather than the MCAM; our way rolls more happily off the tongue). As museums go it’s small, intimate even, with just a few exhibit rooms. The shows lean towards local and regional artists, though the Museum casts a wide net when seeking exhibitors. What amazes me every time I go is how many very talented artists there are, producing interesting and stimulating pieces, year in, year out.

A couple of weeks ago we caught the end of the 46th Annual Contemporary Craft exhibit. These are not crafts the way you see them at the local Craft Fair, these are more along the lines of the Arts part of Arts and Crafts. We did not see a single gourd bird-feeder or framed photo of the Superstitions (no shade on gourd art, that’s just not what the MAC exhibits). Instead we found glass, fabric and ceramic pieces that demanded attention and, if you’ll excuse some artsy-fartsy talk, dialog with the viewer. Here, in no particular order is some of what we saw. If I’ve erred on titles, I apologize in advance to the artists.

This piece cracked me up – at first I thought it was a bunch of bananas, but no. It is 81 porcelain cactuses, suspended from the ceiling over a representation of ground. Titled What Comes After, most of the cactuses are illuminated by LED lights. It was made by Tucson artist Joseph Sivilli in 2024.

Roisan Rubio’s Breaking the Social Contract, 2022 was another quite large installation:

The artist, in his statement, said, “This installation reflects on the broken social contract between society and its instututions, focusing on the often overlooked epidemic of violence within Black communities. Each ceramic bullet represents a life lost to violence in a single year in cities like Detroit, St. Louis or Baltimore.” This work made me feel sad and helpless.

Heidi Dauphin used paper lists, thread, watercolor and fabric in Circle Squares with Lists, 2023.

I make my lists on my phone now. How much more fun it would be to stitch up a quilt of lists before heading out to the grocery store! How envious the other shoppers would be.

Jim S. Smoote II from Chicago showed several works in quilted textiles. Damon portrays a ‘typical young man,’ through painting and traditional quilting techniques.

I wish I could quilt so well! The above is from another of his quilted and appliqued works:

Richard Ansaldi, from Tucson, used clay and horse hair rope to make Roping Skills and Pot Sherds Beneath the Fabled Red “Sipapu,” 2023. And no, I don’t understand the title fully. A sipapu is a small hole or indentation in the floor of a kiva. Pueblo mythology (Hopi, Zuni, Acuma) suggests that people first emerged onto earth from the sipapu.

John Randall Nelson had us all chuckling again with his Bellhop to Bishop, 2024:

What are these beings? The are, “manifestations of the Fool and Trickster figures of deep-rooted mythos.” As the artist statement and the printing on one of the figures suggests, “The artist sees himself in them and winces with recognition.” This piece won the 2025 Juror’s Award.

Two of the smaller pieces captured my heart the moment I saw them. Steve Hagan’s pithily titled Lime Wedge, 2024 is a glass creation that simultaneously made my mouth water and my gullet crave a margherita. How does a glassmaker achieve such detail??

I’ve saved my favorite of the exhibit for last. I can’t tell you exactly why I like it so much, perhaps because of its simplicity. It is made of handwoven linen, cochineal dye, cactus spikes and a found object. It is called 31 over 110, 2023, and refers to the summer of 2023 when those of us in the Valley survived 31 days with temperatures exceeding 110 F, a result of the climate change that is affecting the entire planet. As Ann Morton, the artist, cheerfully concludes, ” Our days are numbered.”

There were many, many more objects in this excellent juried exhibit; in fact, I have tons more photos on my phone of pieces that appealed to me, but I fear your patience may be wearing thin.

Yes, these pieces were made of materials that are frequently associated with the more homely ‘crafts,’ but they transcend merely pleasing objects. They invited us to engage with them, to think about what they represent, and to react, viscerally and intellectually. It was a delightful exhibit in the true sense of the word, and I came away invigorated and… delighted. Of course it didn’t hurt that I was with congenial friends and that lunch awaited, just around the corner.