Six speakers shared stories centered around values, insights and experiences they gained through family and community Wednesday evening at the monthly Arizona Storytellers event.
The event, sponsored by the Arizona Republic, Channel 12 and azcentral.com, was held at Phoenix Theatre on Central Avenue and McDowell Road. Launched in 2011, the live storytelling performances allow community members to share personal stories addressing a theme. Wednesday’s theme was “Stories of our Phoenix Families.”
Storytellers included Michael Barnard, Amanda Adkins, Lucretia Torva, Angel Diaz, Kathy Nakagawa and Liz Warren.
Michael Barnard
Barnard, producing artistic director at Phoenix Theatre, opened the evening with a childhood story that focused on the values of loyalty and community. He grew up in Glendale and learned about the importance of community through his grandfather.
Barnard said his grandfather started a business, Southwest Flower and Feed Company, when Glendale was mostly made up of farming areas. He said the business grew a faithful community.
“One of the things that was most important to him was to get to know individuals and how to make this area and this community a town, and ultimately a city, by joining and bonding people together,” Barnard said.
Amanda Adkins
Adkins, a local artist, spoke about the mural she painted for the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center, and the sense of community she gained through greetings from passersby while she painted.
Adkins said actors working at the center would stop by frequently to talk with her. She said she was particularly affected by stories the actors told her about Helen Mason, who founded the Black Theatre Troupe in Phoenix, now housed by the center.
“This time when I was working outside was when I really got to know Helen, and I also got to know the community,” she said. “The beauty of it was me getting to know someone through somebody else’s eyes.”
Lucretia Torva
“I’m passionate about art, and I’m passionate about creating it,” said Torva, a freelance painter from Phoenix.
In her story, she described a job opportunity that helped her think of Phoenix as home for the first time since she had moved to the city.
Torva said a position with the Phoenix Art Group gave her the confidence to become self-employed. After which, she was able to find greater fulfillment as an artist.
“It got me a stepping stone towards who I am and what I really want to do,” she said. “It appears that Phoenix has become my home, and it’s more special to me than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.”
Angel Diaz
Diaz, a local artist, recounted the time a good deed altered his career and allowed him to gain a second family.
A friend tipped him off about a woman in Tucson whose son had been shot by border patrol officers. Diaz recalled asking his friend, “Has anybody painted a mural for him?”
After finding that no one had, Diaz made the mural his personal mission.
“I figured if I paint this mural, it might bring some sort of … light to them,” he said. “Some sort of relief.”
Kathy Nakagawa
Nakagawa began her story by describing her family background as a third-generation Japanese-American. She explained that her parents, who had been imprisoned during World War II, taught her much about resilience.
“My parents didn’t talk about the hardships that they faced,” she said.
Nakagawa’s parents opened a flower business on Baseline Road when she was a little girl.
Liz Warren
Director of the Storytelling Institute at South Mountain Community College, Warren wrapped up the night with a humor-filled story about a high school experience that illustrated the parent-child relationship central to her community.
She said in 1970, when she was a 16-year-old sophomore at Gilbert High School, she was asked to chair the dress code committee.
Warren said she felt positive about the responsiveness of the parents and students in her community to her committee’s proposal for the new dress code.
“I had learned that it just might be possible for me to make a difference in the world,” she said.
Contact the reporter at Faith.Anne.Miller@asu.edu.
