It seems to me that all real communities grow out of a shared confrontation with survival. Communities are not produced by sentiment or mere goodwill. They grow out of a shared struggle. Our situation in the desert is an incubator for community.

-Larry Harvey

visiting artists program

Each year, ISDA brings visiting artists to Ajo to share their creativity and talent in the Ajo community in the community of Sonoyta, Mexico, and in western villages of the Tohono O"odham Nation.

Chris Lutter of Puppet Farm Arts of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been our artist-in-residence three times, working with people of all ages and cultures to make larger-than-life, costume-sized puppets, masks, marionettes and headdresses that depict the critters of the Sonoran Desert.

The puppets created in these workshops have become the centerpiece of town celebrations and parades in all three locales. Many thanks to the Ajo Rotary Club, for taking Puppet Farm Arts to Sonoyta, Mexico, as their 2007 international project.

Sigfrido Aguillar, of the International School of Mime, Movement, and Clowning, in Guanajuato, Mexico, has twice been our artist-in-residence with his family troupe, to teach mime, clowning, juggling and movement theater to eager students of all generations in Ajo and in villages of the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Mosaic tile public artist To-Ree-Nee Wolf, of Tucson, Arizona, has brought multiple mosaic tile workshops to the Ajo community, teaching flat and curved surface, and two and three dimensional work. Her workshop participants have made murals, mirrors, frames, vases, and table tops, over the last several years.

Over the last several years, regional Native American artists have visited Ajo to teach. Gloria Raymond has taught basket weaving and dream catchers, Michael Chiago has taught water color painting, Vivian Enos has taught bead work, and before she passed away, Annie Manuel taught pottery workshops.