Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This week on Arizona Illustrated, from Pysanky to Nowruz, we see how people from around the globe celebrate spring in Southern Arizona; Iranian artist Negar Nazari is creating impactful work even though she doesn’t know when she’ll see her family again; we’ll show you why the desert spoon might be the perfect addition to your yard, and a surprisingly honest conversation with retired neuroscientist, Leslie Tolbert.
The Art of Pysanky
Discover the intricate world of Pysanky, the centuries-old Ukrainian tradition of decorating Easter eggs using wax, flame, and vibrant dyes. Master artist Dr. Ihor Kunasz, apprentice Rebecca Lennon, and Juliana Osinchuk share how each egg becomes more than art, but a symbol of heritage, faith, and resilience. From ancient origins to modern day, The Art of Pysanky explores how culture is preserved and passed along one delicate line at a time.
Persian New Year in Tucson
The Haft-sin is a tradition for many who celebrate the Persian New Year — or Nowruz — across the diaspora. The table holds seven representative elements of life, such as lentil sprouts, a red apple and hyacinth flowers. This year as war brings ambiguity for Iranian families everywhere, it’s especially important to embrace their cultural practices and welcome joy wherever possible.
Staying Woke - Negar Nazari
How do you keep moving forward when you know you may not see your family again? How do you make art in a time of brutality, of death, of encroaching darkness? How do you rise each morning carrying the ache of absence, the quiet, constant throb of missing the people who are your home?
For Negar Nazari, these are not abstract questions. They are the architecture of her daily life. Her husband and her entire family remain in Iran. He was unable to leave because of complications surrounding his departure, and later, the travel restrictions imposed during the Trump administration closed the door more firmly still. She does not know when she will hold him again, or sit at a table with her family, or hear their voices without a screen between them.
And yet, every morning, she rises to make art.
Negar is a second-year MFA student in the Illustration, Design, and Animation Department at the University of Arizona School of Art, where she also serves as a drawing lab instructor. Recently, she was recognized with awards from the Arizona Artists Guild and the Arizona Watercolor Association in support of emerging artists, and she will be formally honored on April 21, 2026, at the Arizona Artists Guild in Phoenix. These milestones mark achievement—but they do not begin to tell the whole story.
Because what Negar truly does is transform longing into light.
She pours it into her watercolors, where color becomes breath. She builds it into her installations, where absence becomes presence. She animates it into moving images that tremble with tenderness and defiance. For Negar, art is not decoration; it is survival. It is a way of insisting on humanity when the world feels determined to erase it.
She believes art deepens our understanding of what it means to be human. Through art, we return to our hearts. Through art, we offer those hearts to one another. Through art, we gather—quietly but powerfully—to stand against the dark.
So Negar wakes each day and begins again. This is how she keeps going. This is her story.
Desert Plants – Desert Spoon
The Desert Spoon or (common) sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) is a tough and resilient evergreen plant that can be used in Sonoran Desert landscaping plans to add color, texture, and cold / heat tolerance to your garden. The plant gets one of its common names for the spoon-like shape of its leaves where they join the trunk. Sotol is also used to make an alcoholic beverage by the same name. While it resembles an agave, it isn’t one and does not die after producing its tall flower stalk.
Speaking Personally – Leslie Tolbert
Leslie Tolbert spent most of her career studying neuroscience and the mysteries of the brain, which makes her frank discussion about a recent Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis all the more interesting. Tolbert received her Ph.D. in Anatomy from Harvard in 1978; in 1987 she arrived at the University of Arizona where she has held several positions including Professor, Acting Director of the Arizona Research Laboratories, Senior Vice President for Research and Regents’ Professor, among others. In this discussion Tolbert tells Tom McNamara how being exposed to different cultures at a young age expanded her mind, how she fell in love with the brain and her husband at the same time, and how after years of studying there is still so much to learn about the human brain.
This week on Arizona Illustrated, from Pysanky to Nowruz, we see how people from around the globe celebrate spring in Southern Arizona; Iranian artist Negar Nazari is creating impactful work even though she doesn’t know when she’ll see her family again; we’ll show you why the desert spoon might be the perfect addition to your yard, and a surprisingly honest conversation with retired neuroscientist, Leslie Tolbert.
The Art of Pysanky
Discover the intricate world of Pysanky, the centuries-old Ukrainian tradition of decorating Easter eggs using wax, flame, and vibrant dyes. Master artist Dr. Ihor Kunasz, apprentice Rebecca Lennon, and Juliana Osinchuk share how each egg becomes more than art, but a symbol of heritage, faith, and resilience. From ancient origins to modern day, The Art of Pysanky explores how culture is preserved and passed along one delicate line at a time.
Persian New Year in Tucson
The Haft-sin is a tradition for many who celebrate the Persian New Year — or Nowruz — across the diaspora. The table holds seven representative elements of life, such as lentil sprouts, a red apple and hyacinth flowers. This year as war brings ambiguity for Iranian families everywhere, it’s especially important to embrace their cultural practices and welcome joy wherever possible.
Staying Woke - Negar Nazari
How do you keep moving forward when you know you may not see your family again? How do you make art in a time of brutality, of death, of encroaching darkness? How do you rise each morning carrying the ache of absence, the quiet, constant throb of missing the people who are your home?
For Negar Nazari, these are not abstract questions. They are the architecture of her daily life. Her husband and her entire family remain in Iran. He was unable to leave because of complications surrounding his departure, and later, the travel restrictions imposed during the Trump administration closed the door more firmly still. She does not know when she will hold him again, or sit at a table with her family, or hear their voices without a screen between them.
And yet, every morning, she rises to make art.
Negar is a second-year MFA student in the Illustration, Design, and Animation Department at the University of Arizona School of Art, where she also serves as a drawing lab instructor. Recently, she was recognized with awards from the Arizona Artists Guild and the Arizona Watercolor Association in support of emerging artists, and she will be formally honored on April 21, 2026, at the Arizona Artists Guild in Phoenix. These milestones mark achievement—but they do not begin to tell the whole story.
Because what Negar truly does is transform longing into light.
She pours it into her watercolors, where color becomes breath. She builds it into her installations, where absence becomes presence. She animates it into moving images that tremble with tenderness and defiance. For Negar, art is not decoration; it is survival. It is a way of insisting on humanity when the world feels determined to erase it.
She believes art deepens our understanding of what it means to be human. Through art, we return to our hearts. Through art, we offer those hearts to one another. Through art, we gather—quietly but powerfully—to stand against the dark.
So Negar wakes each day and begins again. This is how she keeps going. This is her story.
Desert Plants – Desert Spoon
The Desert Spoon or (common) sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) is a tough and resilient evergreen plant that can be used in Sonoran Desert landscaping plans to add color, texture, and cold / heat tolerance to your garden. The plant gets one of its common names for the spoon-like shape of its leaves where they join the trunk. Sotol is also used to make an alcoholic beverage by the same name. While it resembles an agave, it isn’t one and does not die after producing its tall flower stalk.
Speaking Personally – Leslie Tolbert
Leslie Tolbert spent most of her career studying neuroscience and the mysteries of the brain, which makes her frank discussion about a recent Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis all the more interesting. Tolbert received her Ph.D. in Anatomy from Harvard in 1978; in 1987 she arrived at the University of Arizona where she has held several positions including Professor, Acting Director of the Arizona Research Laboratories, Senior Vice President for Research and Regents’ Professor, among others. In this discussion Tolbert tells Tom McNamara how being exposed to different cultures at a young age expanded her mind, how she fell in love with the brain and her husband at the same time, and how after years of studying there is still so much to learn about the human brain.
