LaVerne Kyriss Kent Banta and his wife, Carol, moved to Tucson in 1975. His goal was to practice dentistry two days a week and golf two days a week. That plan worked well for many years as Banta built a successful dentistry practice. In 2005, the Banta’s retired and moved to SaddleBrooke, impressed with the…
LaVerne Kyriss Kathleen Brodkin loves horses. They were her whole life, she said, explaining that for 27 years she spent about four hours a day, riding, grooming and taking care of her horses. But that joy ended when she encountered a medical issue that prevented her from further riding. Grieving this loss and needing to…
Pat Parkinson LaVerne Kyriss A painting by Pat Parkinson hanging in the Jane Hamilton Gallery in Tucson got some recent publicity when it was selected to be on the cover of a publication found in hotel rooms throughout the city. Tucson Magazine is a coffee table hardbound publication featuring things to see and do around…
00LaVerne Kyriss Rita Lee’s work has taken her around the world. She learned about photography and portraiture by being a photographer’s model as a young woman. She learned about architecture, drafting and reading building plans by handling architectural sales in the construction industry and she spent 40 years working as an interior designer, learning…
LaVerne Kyriss Tony DiGiorgio spent 50 years as an educator, including 24 years as university president at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. During most of his career, he never spent much time in the arts. When he ended up as family photographer, he bought a digital camera in the ‘90s and figured out how…
Bruce Capra – Magic things start to happen LaVerne Kyriss Like many pre-teens of his era, Bruce Capra got a paint-by-numbers kit when he was 12. This gift sparked a life-long love of painting. But as a college student Capra became convinced he had no artistic talent and moved into commercial art where he took…
LaVerne Kyriss When you pass Joe Costante’s SaddleBrooke home, you’d never expect to find the botanical garden that inhabits his backyard. But when you discover that Costante has a doctorate in botany and specialized in plant physiology and biochemistry during his working years and that he volunteered as a docent at both the Biosphere and…
Maxine Ranicke’s credo: “Never Stop Learning” LaVerne Kyriss Maxine Ranicke’s first art class was as a young girl. “We lived in Hawaii and my mother knew a poor artist. I think she paid him for classes for me as a way to help him out,” she recalled. “I studied art in college at the University…
Barbara Johnson Mark Erickson has long been known for his beautiful carved works – birds, boards, letter-openers, utensils, etc. When I asked him how he got into the art of woodcarving, he attributed his interest to his father-in-law, who was a woodcarver in the mid ‘80s. Being drawn to the intricate detail and precision involved,…
LaVerne Kyriss “Just a Sunday painter,” is how Jim Morris describes himself, making it a point to insist that he’s not an artist. “I don’t paint for the market and it’s not important to me to sell my work. I paint for enjoyment and to push myself to try new things,” he explained. After moving…