[00:01:56] Jenny Burkhart: From Teacher to Tattoo Artist
Jenny shares her journey from teaching English abroad to owning Lonely Angel Studios in Tucson. Listen as she describes the deep connections she forms with clients through her tattoo artistry and how her creative process goes far beyond skin-deep.

[00:03:25] Jonas and Dimitri Canal Ski: The Rock Stars of Minerals
Brothers Jonas and Dimitri discuss how the Tucson Gem Show has helped them turn their passion for rocks and minerals into a successful business. Their entrepreneurial journey is both inspiring and a testament to the opportunities Tucson provides.

[00:07:57] Emily Walsh & Jodi Hardy: The Story Behind Tucson At Home Gnome
Emily and Jodi recount how their shared love of books led to the creation of a literary scavenger hunt that has become a community favorite. Discover how a simple dinner conversation turned into a project that connects Tucsonans in unique ways.

[00:09:15] Joe Pagic: Magic in Murals
Joe reflects on 18 years of transforming walls into works of art. From fences to large-scale public murals, he shares how his journey as an artist began and why he continues to leave his colorful mark on Tucson.

[00:19:05] Chef Dee: Culinary Creativity Beyond the Bistro
Chef Dee opens up about her time running the acclaimed Sinetai Bistro and her transition to private catering and cooking classes. Her passion for food and community shines as she shares what keeps her inspired.

[00:25:50] Episode Wrap-Up: Celebrating Tucson’s Resilience
Host Tom Heath reflects on the themes of creativity, connection, and community that define the stories shared in this episode.

This week’s episode of Life Along The Streetcar takes a reflective turn as we celebrate some of the incredible voices that shaped Tucson’s urban core in 2024. It’s not a “best of” show because, honestly, every story we’ve shared this year has been extraordinary. But this week, we’ve pulled together a few standout moments that highlight the creativity, resilience, and entrepreneurial spirit that make the Old Pueblo so special.

We kick things off with Jenny Burkhart, an artist and owner of Lonely Angel Studios. Jenny shared her journey from teaching English abroad to making a mark in the tattoo world here in Tucson. Her passion for creating meaningful art and connecting with her clients left us inspired.

Next, we revisit Jonas and Dimitri Canal Ski, teenage entrepreneurs whose rock and mineral business has taken off thanks to their love for the Tucson Gem Show. These brothers remind us that with passion and grit, anything is possible.

Then there’s Emily Walsh and Jodi Hardy, the dynamic duo behind Tucson At Home Gnome, a literary scavenger hunt born during the pandemic. Their project is a true testament to creativity and connection.

We also take a look back at Joe Pagic, a muralist whose magical artistry has added vibrancy to Tucson for nearly two decades. From fences to large-scale murals, Joe’s work is a love letter to the Old Pueblo.

And finally, Chef Dee! She brought us years of culinary joy at Sinetai Bistro and has since transitioned to private catering and cooking classes, keeping her creative spark alive.

Each of these stories reminds us why Tucson is such a unique and wonderful place.

Want to connect with these amazing individuals? Reach out to the artists and entrepreneurs featured in this episode and let them know how much you appreciate their contributions to our community!

Or drop Tom Heath a message to share your favorite moments from this week’s episode—and remind him how much his work on this show means to Tucson. Let’s keep the conversation going!

Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo. And you’re listening to Katy. Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community. Sponsored, all volunteer powered rock and roll radio station. This week’s show, we’re going to reminisce about the amazing people who have shared their story with us in 2024.

It’s a look back. Part one. Today is December 22nd, 2024. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life Along the Street car. Each and every Sunday our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about, from a man to the University of Arizona.

It all stops in between. You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on Downtown radio.org. Also available on your iPhone or Android using our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app. If you want to interact with us on the show, we recommend you do that on Facebook and Instagram. And if you want more information on the show or book past episodes or just to contact us.

You can head over to life Along the Street car.org. And of course, we invite you to listen to the podcast on tons of platforms like Spotify, iTunes, iHeart radio, or simply asking your smart speaker to play life along the Street Car podcast. We started the year off in 2024 with an interview with Laurie Shepherd, who’s the executive director of the Tucson Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center.

And that was back in January. And that was episode 279. We’re now up to around 319. So we’ve had about 40 some episodes this year. Take into account a couple of times off, and some repeats that we put on because they’re relevant to the time. That means we’ve had 40 conversations with people that are. It’s just amazing to me that people share their time with us, and it’s so fun to to be able to help them highlight what they’re doing in our community.

And so we got into this habit a couple of years ago of doing a retrospective. It’s not a best of, all of these shows, 40 plus shows. I’m proud of each one of them, and they’re tremendous people. We’re just not gonna have a chance to break 40 segments down into a a, a manageable chunk of time.

So we picked a few that were representative of what we’re doing economic development, art history, culture, things of that nature, and sharing that of today’s really focuses on the the artistic side of things. Next week we’ll talk more about people, economic development and things of that nature. But we, we certainly wanted to to highlight as many as we could.

And so we took a little snippet of some of these interviews, and we’re going to play that for you. And our first one is an interview we did in February with, a Chicago native, Jenny Burkhart. She is also, not only a world traveler, and she taught English as a second language, but she is now a Tucson business owner and an artist.

She owns lonely Angel Studios and operates out of the proper shops in downtown. And we wanted to hear about her journey around the globe. And, we call her from teacher to tattoo her. And this is just a little segment of that interview talking, where she talks about sort of this, this, the artistic side of tattoos and the spiritual side and how things really come together, for her and her clients.

Exactly. And that’s exactly what appealed to me about tattooing was the fact that, like, you can draw a beautiful painting and that’s so personal to you. And that’s something that I love about art. But the the side of it that’s like, so much more dynamic is when you share it with somebody and they’re like, I have no idea why you do this, but I connect with it from my own perspective.

And then they tell you why. And it’s like that same kind of like conduit for you to be able to learn a little bit about somebody and very like interpersonal and tattooing that too, like the hundredth degree, because someone has to sit in your chair, want your art on their body forever to change the way they look. They have to be vulnerable and in pain and really uncomfortable for a long period of time with you.

And then, you know, they’re giving you something important to them. A lot of times like this is the image that, you know, it means something to me for whatever reason. And they share that with you. And they’re sitting there and it’s like, it’s just a really, I think, wonderful way to connect with people. And part of the same thing.

Do you find yourself becoming like a therapist for them while they’re.

Sometimes they’re.

Talking through this why I’m getting this change. Yeah.

I’m not a licensed therapist, but we do talk about tattoo therapy. All you need is like a nice moment to just vent about whatever.

Jenny Berger, from a February interview we did with her. The interview is called lonely Angel. And we’re moving on to the next segment of the people that shared their time with us. And 2024, we’re actually going to go back to, earlier, in the year when we entered, we talked to brothers Jonas and Dmitri at Canal Ski.

They are from Western Michigan, and they come out to Arizona, for the gem and mineral show. And they in this, you know, as teenagers have now opened up, their third rock and mineral store, and the Tucson Gem show has been a huge part of that success. So we talk with Jonas and Dimitri back in February about their business, their influences, how they operate, and how the Tucson Gem and Mineral show plays into that.

So it really helps us get stuff from all around the world. I mean, people from every continent, every country come to this show, to trade and sell what they’ve collected. So what it allows us to do is it allows us to network with these people, with these sellers, and other buyers, to be able to bring to our stores, products that otherwise, people could not get.

I mean, if we had to go to every country to collect these things or talk to the miners directly, it could never be feasible.

Yeah, yeah. Do you have a, do you have a favorite? Is it is it gems? Is it minerals? Is it I think what is it? What is it that attracts you the most, or does it matter?

So I do more of the polished stuff I do. I mean polishing itself. It’s called lapidary. I cut a lot of stones myself. But I was just fascinated with, like, how cutting works and the polishing process. So I do more of, polishing and, finished goods like jewelry. But John is more into minerals. And can you talk more about the minerals and the science?

So, Jonas, tell us about the minerals. What is it that attracts you to the minerals?

I mean, when you think about it, at its most basic sense, it’s, you know, nature’s form of art. So you kind of view it as an extension of that, and you get, kind of a new view, on all of these pieces because they’re just absolutely beautiful.

That was, Jonas and Dimitri. Just amazing story of, success and perseverance and just finding a way to take a love of something in and and share with the world, and, you know, may open some business in the meantime, as part of that process, another duo that joined us, was Emily Walsh and Jodi Hardy.

They’re two of the founding members of the Tucson at Home Gnome. And this was a Covid era idea that’s become a community sensation of of discovering books all throughout our community. And, you know, we discussed how this came to be over a dinner conversation, with Emily Walsh and Jodi Hardy. How did this how did this get started?

Apparently, you you’ve you’ve potentially like books, correct?

Yes. Love books. Yes, we do like books. We all met through book clubs. Okay. So it did kind of grow from a blast. My books. Actually, this is Emily’s story. What’s happened over dinner? Emily, do you want us to tell us how that happened over dinner?

It’s always better if you tell us what Emily told us. Yes.

Well, I can start it. And then Jodi can chime in with, like, color commentary. So, during the pandemic, I felt like books were one of the ways I really kind of got through that time, sort of escape to reality into much more fun and interesting realities most of the time. And so as we started to slowly come out of the pandemic, had dinner with Jodi and Mary Ellen, and I’d been sort of thinking through, how do we start to recreate community in a different way again, you know, it was a very isolating time.

And, you know, books were a big part of what saved me. And I was like, wouldn’t it be fun if, like, we just shared a love of books with our community? So the three of us were getting together just to kind of reconnect. And I think I asked a question like, would it be weird if we just, like, picked a book and hit it around town, like, just as an anonymous, like, random act of kindness project, something that’s like light, that’s feel good, that brings people together, that maybe sparks some joy.

And Jodi and our third Mary Ellen, who’s not with us today, we’re like, that’s not weird at all. I mean, maybe it’s weird, but we would love it. So, like, why not?

It it’s kind of weird, but this is the right audience.

Yeah.

You know.

I think how you said it was like, would you like it if you just randomly walked up and found a book somewhere on the street? And we were like, yes, this is something I want.

Jodi Hardy talking about the dinner conversation with Emily Walsh and their other partner. And that became the Tucson at Home Gnome. Well, we’re going to wrap up this first part of our, show today, the first half of our show today with a young gentleman who recently graduated from a tank of verde High School. His name is Colton Annable.

He is, stage name is Esau. And as a recent graduate, heading off to, University of Arizona, where he’s going to be studying composition, he wanted to have a little concert in downtown, and it happened to be at the the proper shops in June. And we wanted to get a, a sense of this young man and how, he came into, the writing world and, the music world and again, a chance to catch someone before they’re super famous for hidden gems on the show.

But I think we’ve instead, maybe we’re starting to uncover rising stars. Is that a possibility?

Hopefully. You know, I’m working on it.

You. Can you tell me a little about your music?

Yeah. I, I started making music a few years ago. I’ve been doing it for a while. I mainly just happened. I don’t know, I use guitar, I use organs, whatever I can, and I just write about whatever’s going on in my life, and I think it’s very helpful, for me, at least.

And so. So you do a lot of original, original work.

Yeah.

Okay. Is there? Yeah. I know, every artist I talk to hates when I ask this question, but I have to ask it. Is there a style that you sort of fit into or.

I, I don’t know, it.

No one does. So like the yeah, my style is me. That’s who I am. And and that’s that’s it.

Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. I don’t know.

So you said you got involved a couple of years ago. Was that like during high school or did you get involved before high school?

Yeah, I started writing, like, during Covid.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it seems like a appropriate thing to do during, during that time. So at what point were you in your high school career during Covid then?

That would have been my freshman year.

Okay. Stuff. Yeah. So transition the Irish.

The yeah. And kind of what you’re expecting going into that year. Oh, what’s what’s I mean, what were you just sitting down one day and said, hey, I’m going to start writing, or had you been thinking, I want to write for a while, and then just the Covid gave you the opportunity?

I had never thought about it. I think I was just learning guitar and I would, do it all day and, you know, it’d be kind of random with the guitar. And I mess around with it and I figure out cool things. I was like, oh, this is a thing I could do.

All right. And did you like influences? Who have you been listening to that that sort of kind of got you excited about even wanting to play the guitar?

I think when I was starting, I really, really was to the Beatles recently been I like Car Seat Headrest a lot. I like, Julia Brown, a lot of bands like that, and they’ve been very influential. What I’ve been writing.

Okay. And so then your your style then is somewhat soulful. Yeah. Not heavy necessarily.

No, no, it’s pretty. It’s pretty toned down. Yeah.

No, no, no headbanging with your acoustic guitar. No. Not yet. Yeah. Not. Yeah. Yeah. So you you’re reading The Graduate and you’re influenced by the Beatles. Are you from this generation? It seems like you’re an old soul.

Yeah, yeah, I just, I don’t know, I think I got YouTube when I was too young. I just. Yeah, this is all right. I don’t know. I love to graduate. That’s such a good movie. And watching it.

I called Annabel, recent graduate, Tank Verde High School. He’s going to be on a great things in the music world. And and you get to say, I heard him here and you are listening to, life on the Street, car downtown radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtown radio.org.

Support for downtown radio was provided by the Tucson Gallery, located in downtown Tucson, inside of the proper shops at 300 East Congress Street, the Tucson Gallery offers original work, reproductions and merchandise from Tucson artists like Joe Patrick, Jessica Gonzalez, Ignacio Garcia, and many more. For information about all of the artists, including when they will be live at the Gallery, head to the Tucson gallery.com or find them on Instagram and on Facebook.

S Tucson Gallery.

Welcome back. Welcome back. We, if you’re just joining us, we’re doing our year end retrospective. We do that the last couple weeks of the year. This is not a best of this is a, shows that are representative of things that we talked about throughout the year. We’ve had, you know, 40 plus conversations since the beginning of the year and, absolutely been blessed to, to talk with these individuals.

Some of them have turned into, two part stories. And that’s kind of what we have for you here in the second segment today. We’re really featuring those that are in the artistic realm. Before the break, we talked to someone who was in tattoo Arting someone in in Gem and Mineral, musician. And, the ladies, Emily and Jody, who, were part of the trio that created the Tucson home gnome and hiding books around, the last segment here, we’re going to get into some legacies in Tucson.

A couple of individuals, Jude Cook and David Solutes that they are just incredibly, involved with making Tucson a better place and have a history going back decades. Both of their episodes ended up being two parters. But this is Jude Kirk talking about his role in an ignite science museum and his company, Cook and Company science stuff and stuff that was coming down.

And if we hadn’t grabbed it, probably would have been thrown away. That was going to be next question, that there’s there’s no one else really doing this in the area to know. There’s some private collectors that have things and there’s stuff out in the city that I’m aware of that are in private collections. And once in a while they surface, you know, the, the grill that was right down here on Congress, it came down in 11.

I knew Patrick had it. And Patrick, I think what transpired was I think the wife said it’s time to clean up. And so and it wasn’t working when we got it, you know, we we went through that one and completely repainted it, put me on on it, rewired it, and, you know, the grill of such a piece of Tucson.

Yeah, I remember the article in the paper. A lot of people were excited that just to hear that name back and, you know, surfacing that it came back around, you know, those are the kind of things that are hard. You know, we had we had, right down here, middle of the block on the north side used to be the club Esquire.

Club Esquire was in the middle of the block, and the Manhattan bar was on the other corner. They tore it down to build the Sun Tran bus station. About two and a half years ago, we had an event at the museum, and this gal says, my, my parents have the Manhattan Bar sign. And I said, really? And I said, you know, I sell it, donate it, loan it.

And about a year later, I finally caught up with her and she said, I’ll be in town next weekend. So I went out to her place and I walked into the backyard, and there’s a neon sign laying there, bad shape. And I said, so what’s what’s that? She goes, well, that’s the Manhattan bar. And I said, that’s not the Manhattan bar sign.

And they had the Club Esquire sign, but it been in the same block.

And it’s in rough shape.

But there’s enough there to see what it is. I have a photo of it in place right down here on on Congress. It was it where it was, was right where the busses pull in. They used to have an entrance on Congress, and they had an entrance on 10th. Which 10th isn’t there anymore? 10th is where we had what is the patio of Hotel Congress now?

On the north side. And it used to go across behind the MLK building and connect with sixth over there. So they had an entrance on two sides. That side had a neon martini glass. Okay. And Todd, I think it is over. The hotel Congress actually has it. Yeah. So that’s one of those things that’s out there.

Let’s let’s take a step back. You said you got your first sign in 74. Were you in business at that point for for signage or. Like what. No, I, I, I graduated high school in 72 and I went to a community college for graphic arts, actually called it commercial art. Back then. And I, I got into it and realized I didn’t want to be a commercial artist, but it led me into sign painting.

And so I got Ahold of an old teacher I had, and I said, you are not really going to be a commercial artist, but the sign thing is kind of cool. He guided me to the local sign painter, and I walked in and he was lettering on a panel, and I was like, oh, I could do that.

And that was really the beginning of getting into sign. So that was 1972. Okay. The first sign I picked up was a porcelain Coca-Cola sign that I found under the bench in his shop, and I still have it. And I just started picking up things. Just anything that came by that seemed like it was worth preserving. I went ahead and grabbed it and just held on to it, hung it on my walls.

And so, you know, I had reached the point where I kind of needed to either do something or stop collecting. You know, I was going to say that when you open the museum, probably the happiest people were my wife. Your family and your neighbors. You know, we had a lot of it at home, actually. I didn’t have that much stuff at home.

But when I finally got a neon in the living room, I knew I’d won. Was that in the wedding vows? But I didn’t know after that. But no. So. And a lot of it was at my shop, and a lot of it was just stuffed in corners. And, you know, some of it wasn’t home, some it was. But we’ve gone through and I still have a lot of stuff in my sewing shop.

When did you open ignite? We opened Ignite in October of 2018. So it’s coming up on six years right now. Wow, that was a year after we launched this show. There must be some synergy. October is a good month. October is a good month. Yeah, we bought the building in October of 2017 and spent a year getting it initially set up, and we spent another five years adding to that.

But in this, I mean obviously leads into your your profession because cook and cook and company science, that’s, that’s beyond just, you know, the collection side of things. You’re actually functional. And, you know, we.

We’re, we’re a.

Running shop. I’ve got, you know, we’ve got 15 people work at and we’re doing, you know, we’re the only neon shop in southern Arizona. Currently I have two guys bending glass full time. And then we’re doing fabrication, installation, service and repair. So we do, you know, we work down here all the time. We work on Fourth Avenue, and we work all over the city and continue to cook off of cook and company.

Cook and cosines also owner of the ignite assign a museum. Really again instrumental in preserving Tucson’s history. And we’re going to wrap up today’s show with David Sloot who has been with Hotel Congress for, I don’t it seems like forever. He’ll tell you the story about being, the first to play on their stage where they renovated and his his role and and kind of, his, his, his beginnings with Hotel Congress and his influences on music.

Again, this is a two part episode. So we talked for about 40 minutes, trying to narrow it down to just a few minutes of a highlight was a little challenging. I think we, we got a good segment here for you 27 years ago. Downtown was not what it looks like right now. I mean, there was a lot of boarded up windows and, in danger.

No, in fact, it’s it’s just a testament to everybody. People like you, the ocean rats, everyone that we’re sitting here on Congress Street in this beautiful retail store front looking out on Congress Street. And it’s terrific. It certainly wasn’t that way a quarter of a century ago. That was the Rialto. It was hotel Congress.

I remember used clothing store that I liked a lot because they had stuff my size, but that was about it. It lasted little things, little pop up, weird things. But it was a it was a it was a, dicey area. And.

You said, hey, I’m going to start my career down here. Let’s do this.

Well, I’d already started my career down here, if you think about it, if you go back all the way, you know, I started working there, in 96 with, opening up a cyber cafe because the, the my predecessor, Dan Vinik, had, had had this idea of opening up, this internet thing, and he had a connection with this giant, provider who could give us fast internet, which still faster than you get today.

Big pipeline. So we had an internet cafe in the very corner where the stage is now, and I ran that for 3 or 4 years. I was working musician, I was bored, I was looking for something else to do, and I did that for four years. That was the first four years of my career until I segue into the, which is what very naturally made sense for me to do is get into the, programing of the nightclub and other place.

That was your first role was the internet cafe? That’s right. Yeah. So the, is that still operating somewhere?

As I recall, I had to leave on to a big European tour on that, and that winter of 2008 shut down right after.

It’s what happens. You use these stars, you got your European tours, and then we just can’t keep it together without you. So, but but even at that time, an internet cafe in downtown Tucson.

It was. Yeah, it was it a little quixotic idea? The plan. But it it was it kind of worked with this little artist hub of what Hotel Congress was. And I was going to finish by saying, starting my career there. Well, my career in many ways, between this and ninos started at Hotel Congress, the first band ever to play.

And, Al Perry will tell you, was Al Perry in the cattle, the first show ever. And he proudly said that for a long time, until I reminded him that he forgot who little punk teenage kids opened up for him. That’s my band.

Oh, you opened Proud Larry. So you were the first.

Literally the first band ever to play at cocktail Congress. Those openers I know so far, we just the punk teenagers. And it’s like. But that history from 1985 all the way to now, you know, it’s like.

It was this The Sidewinder?

No, this is a band called The Vegas Kids. Okay? We’re 16 years old and just goofy.

Yeah, well, what got you the music in the beginning?

60. I just love music from.

From birth on, you know?

I mean, you know, I just listen to music. I was in the car and, you know, a Am radio fan in the late 70s and just loved music. Love music. And then, punk rock came along and allowed a lot of us who weren’t very good at music to become musicians. And that was my segue in. And, I got better, but, it was a punk rock was so wonderful in many ways, and that’s one of it.

It was the first great equalizer. So I’ll go ahead, join a band.

Okay, so so the 16 year old gets a little bit older and and what are some of you you’ve been in a couple of different, iterations or different bands work.

Sure. I mean and then I, you know, my, my band that, I still have to this day is a band called The Sidewinders. And we started in the round, then got a record deal from RCA, and we were able to dang.

You know.

Two, two albums and RCA one and PolyGram. We had two MTV videos. We had the whole thing. We had all the look and feel of a real band. And I got to, you know, tour with all these wonderful people. And to this day, we still do. And I still get small royalty checks in,

Small women. So MTV were on MTV. Oh, you are you are the first MTV star we have had on life along the street car. Just so you know that.

I think this is a little.

This is a no no, it’s all star. And that’s another first for you. You can put that. I was I opened the hotel Congress. I was the first MTV star to be on lifelong streetcar. I think that pretty much completes the cycle. It’s that that’s David salutes completing the cycle and wrapping up episode 319. It’s, a look back or he featured shows that were, symbolic.

Not there was not a best of the these are just shows that are symbolic of the people that share their time and their stories with us really focusing on the history, the, the art and culture. Next week we’re going to talk more about the economic development and, how, you know, some of our interviews with, you know, Tucson foodie Ray race and or anti, the grand that opened downtown.

So much, so much stuff private. Probably even get a little, timber toed action there with the duo that created that and maybe even Amy’s Kitchen. Who knows? There’s so many stories we can. I can, share with you. It’s going to be tough, Rita, to whittle it down. Well, I appreciate you tuning in here for, episode 319.

I hope your holiday week is a fabulous. And, your year end festivities are off to a wonderful and happy and safe start. We, are looking forward to a great 2025. If you want to listen to any of these, interviews that we did today or any of the others we’ve done over the last seven years, you can head over to life along the Street car.org, and there’s also a contact button there if you want to share information about things we should be highlighting in our community.

You can also connect with us on Instagram and Facebook. James Portis is our production specialist. Amanda Autos is our production assistant. My name is Tom Heath. I’m the host and producer and as always, we, our pleasure to have the pleasure of flying Ryan Hood to open each week’s show. And today we’re going to leave you with Shark Heart.

That’s the stage name of Laura Ruggles. And we interviewed her back in May of this year. So we thought we’d leave you a little of her music from Shark Heart. And here is. And this is a test. I hope you have a fabulous holiday week. And tune in next Sunday for another retrospective of Life along the streetcar.