1Spot Gallery hosted a celebration of the Arizona-Sonoran landscape and its many offerings with a Saturday event called the Edible Desert Experience.
More than 40 guests gathered on the outdoor patio of 1Spot Gallery, located at Sixth and Roosevelt streets, to enjoy an evening of natural food, art, music, people and culture. The event aimed to bring together different cultures and emphasize the beauty and importance of the Sonoran Desert.
The culinary experience was enriched by the performances of El Chupacabrones, a storyteller who shared the sacred and the profane, and Michele Ceballos Michot, a dancer who choreographed her performance and performed in full body paint.
For Jeffrey Lazos-Ferns, a native Arizonan and the producer of the Edible Desert Experience, the event was a way to celebrate the beauty of the desert that he has admired since he was a child.
“I have always loved the desert, and even while I lived in San Francisco for 17 years, I never forgot it,” Lazos-Ferns said.
Lazos-Ferns said he wants people to be more aware of their desert surroundings.
“People walk by edible plants every day, but they don’t know that they are edible or that they are really healthy,” Lazos-Ferns said. “We need to be aware of how to sustain ourselves, and we should look at native plants as components of our daily diets.”
Mia Benzoni, the designer who decorated the patio, worked to a unique environment for guests. It was an intimate setting, with lighted mesquite trees, candles and beautiful aromas. Guests were able to closely converse with one another at the environmentally-themed tables as musician Michael Wordlaw played classical piano and cello.
“I wanted detail in everything, and I wanted to make it very cultural and very spiritual,” Benzoni said. “The guests loved the ambiance and atmosphere; they felt very comfortable.”
Damian Jim, co-owner of 1Spot Gallery, was impressed with the patio setting.
“There’s a lot of things titillating the senses, including the scents and the lights,” Jim said. “I think it’s great.”
Guests were treated to a meal made with natural ingredients from the desert. The appetizers included toasted blue-corn cholla buds, yellow-corn fritters, and nopales and sun-dried tomato bruschetta. Next up was a nopales and grilled pear salad that was served in romaine-lettuce boats.
“The food was tasty and fresh,” guest Trudie Jackson said. “I’d never seen lettuce leaves that big.”
For the main course, guests had their choice of mesquite fire-roasted pork loin with rosemary spice rub or Cornish hen with a desert sage, lemon and prickly pear glaze. Both dishes were served with lemon yellow-and-black rice and roasted acorn squash. For dessert, there was Sonoran Desert mesquite baklava, served with prickly-pear ice cream and agave/honey drizzle.
1Spot Gallery was open for viewing and displayed the work of Jeff Slim. The next-door Drive-Thru Gallery & Studio was also open, and featured Pat Gorraiz’s photographs of petroglyphs. Guests could view the photographs on the wall and also watch artist Brandon McGill painting the body of Ceballos Michot, the dancer.
McGill painted Ceballos Michot in preparation for her performance, something he had never done before. He said having an audience was rewarding for him.
“The best part about this event is letting people see the work in progress,” McGill said. “It is nerve-wracking, though, because I’m a perfectionist.”
Ceballos Michot, who had never been painted before, was transformed into Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of agave. McGill used colors and images inspired by the desert. Ceballos Michot used her body and natural props, such as agave leaves and a bouquet of marigolds, during her performance.
“It’s an interesting sensation because you do feel the persona that is being painted on you,” Ceballos Michot said.
Other guest artists included Twix, a Two-Spirit Apache. Twix displayed medicinal desert plants including Cota, which boosts the immune system, and osha root, which soothes body aches, headaches and sore throats.
“We want to share stories of traditional and contemporary indigenous cultures,” said Michelle Ponce, the other co-owner of 1Spot Gallery. “We are an indigenous gallery, so it makes perfect sense to host an indigenous dinner and share the beauty of desert food.”
For Ponce, the Edible Desert Experience was the perfect way to honor the landscape that is often taken for granted.
“You look at the desert and think there is nothing to eat, but you have to search for it, uncover it, forage for things in the desert,” Ponce said. “The desert has food, heritage, lineage and stories for us.”
Contact the reporter at rbouley@asu.edu
