On the Road: MISA, January 2019—at Tanque Verde Ranch, Tucson, AZ

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Like Dorothy says to her loyal pup in “The Wizard of Oz” I might have said something similar during my recent trip to teach fabric collage in Tucson, Arizona. Leaving behind my ice-bound and below-freezing temperatures home in Maine to land in this pleasantly spring-like and arid land was something of a shock. One which I certainly spent very little time getting over, of course.

This was my second trip to Tanque Verde Ranch to teach for MISA (Madeline Island School of the Arts), the first being two years ago in January 2017. This week’s Throwback Thursday used that previous blog post to introduce this week’s visit.

Aside from the (mostly) new faces in the class, nothing much has changed in the desert environment of Tanque Verde Ranch. It’s not the hot season, so the rattlesnakes are hunkered down in the (relatively) cool days and nights. For me, it was nice to be out and about for the week with merely a light jacket or vest.

After returning home, I reviewed my blog post from my last trip there, the Throwback Thursday one. I was pleasantly reminded that I had included nice descriptive captions in that post’s Ranch slide show, so I won’t repeat myself too much in this post. Instead, I’ll focus on points not covered and of course, the week’s work by my newest set of hard-working students. Please refer to the previous blog post to get the most well-rounded feeling of the Ranch, area, and even classroom (we were in the same ballroom, but got different views last time).

The Ranch

Forty minutes east of Tucson, Tanque Verde Ranch borders Saguaro National Park, and as I found out this trip, Coronado National Forest.

Tanque Verde is a Dude Ranch where many folks come to traverse the trails astride one of the many, many horses corralled there. Being around all these horses is another unique experience for me, and I’ve never been on one. I’m content to just pat and photograph them.

The landscaping is decidedly desert cactus mixed with stonework and wagon wheels, and Ol’ Jose is still (since my visit in 2017) hanging out in the reception area.

The Week of Class

Mine was one of two MISA 5-day classes held this week at the Ranch. The other was a writing workshop by Mary Carroll Moore.

Each morning of my class, I introduce an aspect of the fabric collage process. We had a spacious classroom, large enough for a dedicated demo area and comfy chairs for the ladies. Most everyone was acquainted with my blog posts, if not already owners of my Master Class Manual. There was a lot of head nodding as they already understood what I was showing them, though said it was helpful to experience the demos and be able to ask questions then and there in class. They asked some very good questions too.

Heather Atherton of MISA was on hand all week to help any and all of us with whatever we needed with class, accommodations, and food. Everyone had nice big pinning boards to work on, plenty of table space, and good lighting. But most importantly, she printed design enlargements for a few of my students, eliminating the need to do so “off campus.” This week, Heather sent me a few photos she took during class (both above and below) for me to include in this post. Thanks for all your care and attention, Heather!

Midweek with Carol Estes, working on a bridal portrait of her daughter.

Discussing end-of-week finishing touches with Pamela Ginn for her fantastical Luna Moth.

Every so often, someone’s cute pincushion catches my eye, as was the case with Bobbi Levy-Dodge’s little penguin. I need to remember to take more photos of these little treasures—they’d make an entertaining blog post of their own.

Mostly, this class of 20 students kept me busy enough to not even think of overall classroom shots, but I did get the nice one above showing end-of-the-week progress on the projects of Kathryn Dotson’s granddaughter, Kristin Mathews’ Scottish Highland Cow, and Cindy Monserud’s Wilbur the Pig.

In the student slideshow below, you can see the week’s progress of all of the ladies’ projects—people, birds, sea life and more. Thing is, they moved along so quickly I missed out on some of the very beginning stages. Like I mentioned earlier, they came prepared with a background knowledge of the process and hit the ground running. Great job, everyone.

Student Slideshow

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My Tanque Verde Ranch Class (left to right): front row—Mary McKay, Barbara Polston, Melissa Adkisson, Joyce Maggard, Bobbi Levy-Dodge, Vicki Gadberry, Marilyn Hemmel, and Cindy Monserud; middle row—Karla Zadnik, me, Pamela Ginn, Sally Carruth, Jackie Nixon-Fulton, and Lynn Welsch; back row—Kathryn Dotson, Penny Merkel, Carol Estes, Marti Kellogg, Kristin Mathews, Lynda Flynn, and Pat Armstrong

Wednesday dinner at the Ranch is held in the Cottonwood Grove—for a Cowboy Cookout (below)—with fire pits and gas heaters aglow.

The Cottonwood Grove appears magical when lit with lights, and Western tunes played and sung by a cowboy guitarist drift across the grounds. That evening we walked back to our rooms accompanied by music, under the stars.

New to me this year, was a return to the Cottonwood Grove for Friday lunch (above). It was a nice surrounding for our final class meal, with many students soon beginning their own treks home.

Below, saddled horses await their riders’ return from this BBQ lunch that was provided for all those staying at the Ranch, not just the two MISA classes.

Back to the classroom for one last afternoon. Nearly everyone arrives to one of my classes with nice and neat stacks of fabrics. Vicki Gadberry and her friend Lynn Welsch arrived, and departed, with nice neat containers of scraps of fabrics (below). A little neater than I’d be, but if it works, it works.

In between arrival and departure, fabric piles tend to rise to a glorious mess. Just a little bit of it can be seen behind Karla Zadnik (below), as she shows me her blue lobster—one in a million, as those of us in Maine know—and one of the three sea creatures she began in the course of the week.

You can see Karla’s even more rare pink lobster in the student slideshow, and on the last day she began the seahorse below. Karla had decided she would tackle the backgrounds at a later time, preferring to learn all she could to create form and visual interest in these colorful and fanciful creatures.

Karla’s seahorse seems to emerge from the fabrics spilling out of her scrap bag.

Pictured above is Lynda Flynn, a 5-time past student who’s work had been featured in past On the Road and Finish Line blog posts. For this class, Lynda arrived with her pup’s face (above) already started. She knows by now that this process is one that takes time to perfect and finish, so her goal was to get as far as she could with his head and his white and fluffy body.

White is a special challenge in fabric collage due to the lack of visual texture on white fabrics. From a distance, even a variety of white fabrics look the same. Lynda knew this and came prepared. A lunchtime field trip to a local fabric shop helped to expand her “white” fabrics, as you can see in the development of this fellow’s white (yet interestingly varied) chest above.

The Trails

Lynda and I also got up early every morning and explored the ranch trails, starting as the sky was beginning to lighten. The following photos share some of the sights with you.

Dispersing clouds make for a beautiful sunrise on our first walk. We kept climbing the slopes, thinking we were on the “red” trail (though somehow missing the markers). After 2 miles on supposedly a 1 mile stretch we turned around and retraced our path.

Ahah. Here’s where we went wrong. We missed the gully-like red trail and headed straight on the yellow trail.

Of course, had we been chatting less and paying attention more, we may have actually noticed the yellow markers. At one point we did see where the yellow trail turned, we went straight instead (since we weren’t on the yellow trail, were we?). In re-tracing our steps, we saw the sign above, which then told us where we had been—Coronado National Forest. Ah well, we did come across some darn nice views.

Another day and another beautiful view on the “true” red trail.

One morning, we heard an unusual bird call. Lynda is a bit of a “birder” and pulled out her Sibley’s bird guide app, leading us to identify a cactus wren, Arizona’s state bird. The photo above is one I took on a nature walk on my final morning at the Ranch, as is the video below.

Two well protected Cactus Wren nests in photos above.

Lynda and I also caught sight of a male Pyrrhuloxia and a pair of Phainopepia—both pictured above from either a nature walk plaque or Sibley’s reference (though I still wouldn’t be able to pronounce either correctly).

And at the end of the week, on my way back to my room in a cute little pink adobe casita, I met up with one of the wild turkeys others had been seeing.

The Weekend

That late Friday afternoon, as I was packing up my materials and all students had left, I got a short text message: my flight for early Saturday morning to Boston had been cancelled. Tom had texted me that morning that if I hadn’t already been paying attention to the weather, maybe I shouldn’t. Unfortunately, ignorance didn’t help with the snowstorm that was making it’s way across the country.

Some students had changed their own plans by this time and had left early that last day, and I’m sure at least a couple more got caught in flight cancellations—I know that Heather did on her way back to Chicago. Eventually, and after another set of cancelled flights, I had a course set to leave on Sunday morning instead, the day Boston was to receive the worst of the storm. My hopes were not high to avoid a third cancellation.

So, after plenty of complaining over the phone with Tom, amid the poker game that was going on at our house—and no, I don’t want to say hi to the guys, thank you very much—I settled into looking at my options. On one hand I was desperately trying to get home to a snowstorm, ice, and plummeting temperatures—on the other hand, I was “stuck” at an Arizona ranch for another half-day, amid beautiful weather. I booked a guided “Cactus Walk in Saguaro National Park” for Saturday morning, adding another National Park to my Life List.

As I show this next selected batch of desert walk photos to Tom, his eyes glaze over and he suggests I put them into a slide show for those who really want to see another cactus. So I will. I’ve included other photos from my ranch trail walks with Lynda as well.

But that morning I did get a bit fascinated with cactus lore, and for those of you who would have liked to be on that cactus walk, here’s a few facts covered in the photographed sign below, in this National Park page, this museum fact sheet, and this Science Friday page.

Our tour guide, Virginia, said that even though a saguaro holds tons of water, it’s not drinkable—”that’s only in the movies.” Aside from holding the water in it’s tissues (and not like in a thermos), the water contains oxalic acid, so really, one would get a bit sick to try. But, the fruit of every cactus is edible. Two things to remember if you’re ever lost in a desert.

And here’s the promised slide show.

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Falling behind the group in Saguaro National Park.

With a very early flight on Sunday out of Tucson, I shuttled to an airport hotel for Saturday night. Amazingly, my travels to Boston weren’t cancelled, though we were one of the first flights to land that day, and the airport was closed later due to ice. Nasty roads stopped the buses from running—and Tom from driving the 6 hour round trip—to complete my travel home that evening.

So in the end, one day’s travel stretched into three. But me and my luggage got home eventually. Making the best of it, I took the upgrade offered and had a Boston Harbor view out my top floor hotel window for that last night on the road.