Vanishing Circles
Tucson, AZ
When it comes to the Southwest, the Arizona-sonora Desert Museum has a little bit of everything. Part museum, part zoo and part botanical garden, the Tucson, Arizona, destination frames aspects of the desert into several different contexts, from art and education to hands-on experiences.
Beginning April 4, the museum will present Vanishing Circles, a new exhibition that draws from the Vanishing Circles collection within the permanent collection. The 70-piece collection, of which more than 40 will be on view, was started to begin to document the threatened, endangered and otherwise at-risk wildlife that lives in and around the Sonoran Desert.
“The collection has been curated for quite a few years, pretty much from when we started the Arizona-sonora Desert Museum Art Institute,” says program manager Marie
Mcghee. “The works show the animals and the places they live that are disappearing, but the art also calls upon people to work on conservation, to preserve these places. And the collection has also allowed us to tell this story all around the country. We can sort of put it in a trunk and send it all over for other people to see. We can explain to them what we have here, why it’s endangered and why it’s so magical.”
Artworks in the collection include pieces from Linda Feltner, Edward Aldrich, Judy Studwell, Cathy Sheeter, Guy Combes and Priscilla Baldwin, who helped launch the art institute and whose main message was the motto for the museum: “Conservation through education.” Other artists include Carel P. Brest van Kempen, Ken Stockton, William Hook, John Seerey-lester and Rachel Ivanyi, who takes a more academic approach to her art that resembles some of John James Audubon’s early drawings of birds.
Like Audubon, the Vanishing Circles collection is a union of both art and science. “I wouldn’t put one above the other. I think they work hand in hand,” Mcghee says. “Together they make a greater whole.”
There is also a third component: activism. Visitors to the museum are encouraged to get involved with conservation efforts, inside and outside the Southwest, to protect wildlife and their habitats before they are destroyed. “The environment is changing in many ways, and we’re seeing it, whether it’s from development, climate change or wildlife’s access to water or even the border wall,” she says. “Some of the animals in the collection aren’t endangered, but they are feeling the pressure.”
The exhibition continues through July 26 in Tucson.