Calendar

The Agave Renaissance series presented by the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill begins by taking a look at the big picture to understand how intricately linked people and agave are and have been for thousands of years.

This workshop will begin with an exploration of the Fibonacci number sequence and how it expresses itself in everything from our own DNA to the farthest galaxies—and especially in plants and their growth patterns. 

Some of the most important agave landscapes in the Southwest are in Tucson's backyard. Tumamoc Hill has a 1,500 year old Hohokam agave field at its base. This is a site where people modified the landscape in subtle yet transformational ways to capture the rain and transform it into a field of thousands of plants, cared for by generations for hundreds of years.

University of Arizona research ecologist Brian Enquist will share how measuring one tree using fractal mathematical formulas can be used to calculate carbon impact of a whole forest, then Tumamoc Artist in Residence Paul Mirocha will lead a session drawing trees using Mandelbrot formulas and other fractal imaging.

The use of agave takes a myriad of forms that both remain consistent from region to region but also have an infinite variety that reflect culture and ingenuity. We will gain insight to these traditions of use in our region by Native Nations and regional producers.

Hydrologist and wetland restoration specialist Anthony Luketich of the Watershed Management Group will talk about river meanders, and then artist Roseann Hanson will lead a session on field sketching the Tucson stretch of the Santa Cruz River.

Mathematics professors Kathy Stoehr and Janet Liston will lead this fun workshop about the mathematics of pattern-forming and introduce us to tessellataions.

In recent centuries, the cohesive and reciprocal nature of the human-agave relationship began to slip. Yet, the heartbeat of the symbiotic relationship ticks loud and has thousands of champions and masses of supporters. Learn how the choices made by each of us can and will shape the future of agave culture in a way that honors the diversity that makes it great.

The answers to how to create restorative economies, sustainable foodways, and bioculturally diverse habitats and communities are all embedded in this relationship between people and plant.