♪ UPBEAT JINGLE ♪ Coming up next on State of the Arts, typewriter performance, a musician celebrates disability pride, and the All Souls Procession returns to Tucson.

Stay tuned for these stories and more on State of the Arts.

Hello, I'm Mary Paul.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of State of the Arts on AZPM.

First up this week, an artist with a unique trade, Anja Notanja Sieger is a traveling typewriter poet who's been clacking away at her keys for more than 15 years.

Let's meet her in Milwaukee, where she writes custom poetry for her audiences.

[ TYPING ] (Anja) A lot of people are afraid to be bad at something.

[ BOWLING PINS FALLING ] But I think that's what [ TYPING ] makes life fun is to see growth at every age.

[ TYPING ] [ BOWLING PINS FALLING ] [ BELL DING ] Never stop learning, never stop trying new things, never stop expanding, because as soon as you stop expanding, learning, growing, trying, you die.

And I don't wanna die yet.

♪ LIGHT AMBIENT SONG ♪ [ TYPING ] My name is Anja Notanja Sieger, and I am a typewriter poet.

[ TYPING ] So a typewriter poet is someone who owns a typewriter, has access to paper.

And they go to places where people mill about and gather.

They set down their typewriter, they put up a sign of some sort, like custom poems.

What would you like a poem about?

And people come to that person, and they ask them, "How does it work?"

And the typewriter poet says, "You tell me what you need a poem about, and I will type it up, and I will give it to you."

[ BOWLING BALL ROLLING ] [ BOWLING PINS FALLING ] I am not remotely athletic, but bowling allows me to zoom in on a moment, because I have a very busy head that like never wants me to sleep, never wants me to go to bed.

I just want to ideate all my life.

I never want to stop thinking.

But bowling, it just says, pay attention to the pins.

[ BOWLING BALL ROLLING ] [ BOWLING PINS FALLING ] I think it's important to constantly rewrite your story, if you're an artist or not.

Yes!

Hello.

Hey Adam.

Hey, Anja.

What would you like a poem about?

[ CLEARS THROAT ] I've had a lot of jobs.

I used to hand my authority off to other people to tell me how to live my life.

[ TYPING ] Between having jobs and being a typewriter poet, being a typewriter poet is the most practical job for me.

[ TYPING ] In order to sway people to achieve what I need in life, I have to beguile, I have to charm, I have to disarm people with my ideas.

When you hear this?

It'll be complete.

Is there anything else you want me to know before I begin?

(Customer) No, I don't, I think you've got it.

All right.

Sounds good.

(Customer) Sweet [ TYPING ] It'll be 15 years of me being a typewriter poet this December.

[ TYPING ] [ BELL RINGING ] I've started performing and reading the poem because what I am offering is not a product, it is a performance, it is an experience.

I grab a peacock feather because I'm a peacock and I will perform it for them.

Aidan learned at 13, roused with hormones.

He loves to whack people.

Busy train car, choo choo, cow town, slaughter.

Yeah, and what's one thing you wish for?

And I do get a lot of feedback.

Like I get people who are like, "I got a poem from you 12 years ago and it's still on my fridge and I love it."

Or like, "You wrote me a poem and it really helped me not give up hope."

[ BELL RINGING ] Solo traveler woman can scale the globe with latte sharpened intuition but tells her which street to avoid and which will show her yaks, freewheeling as content as she.

Just like going to acupuncture, sometimes you need needles, sometimes you need something to pierce you in just the right spot by an expert hand to realign your energy.

I'm using like an acupuncture metaphor, but to realign your energy, I don't know how acupuncture works, but more or less.

Beginning on Friday, Tucson's All Souls Weekend returns.

The annual procession has been a tradition here in the Old Pueblos arts community since 1990 and has grown since then into an event that welcomes thousands of participants.

Let's take a look now at last year's All Souls Procession on Tucson's west side.

♪ SOFT GUITAR MUSIC ♪ (Ruben) The kinds of things that people typically add are photographs of people that they've lost.

I was asked to create the community altar with volunteers this year.

This is my first year doing it and it was a huge honor to be asked to do it.

I had wanted to leave space for people to come and add things to the altar.

And so I initially, it felt a little empty, but I was so, so amazed and thrilled when I came back and it was like, I really feel like half a block of stuff had been added to the altar over a week's time.

You know, because it takes a community to do these beautiful things.

You know, it's not just one person, one place, one altar.

It's all the altars, it's all the hearts that connect.

♪ CEREMONIAL MUSIC ♪ We face the direction of the west, the direction of endings.

And we thank, thank the great spirit for the beautiful fire in the sky each day.

It helps us to remember, to give thanks for our daily blessings.

(Ruben) Everybody is very respectful of items on the altar.

Nothing is ever messed with on an altar or even taken.

And I really encourage anyone who's never participated to give it a try, to hold hands with death and to talk to their ancestors.

♪ UPBEAT LATIN MUSIC ♪ This is special for me because I have a family that passed away and the idea to come is to celebrate and to honor their memories.

We are sisters, this is our niece.

And we're here on behalf of our, of Wendy and I's dad and also our sister who is Megan's mother.

(Martha) Well, I'd like to introduce my parents, Pedro and Estela Navalles.

And they owned El Tamarindo restaurant on 4th Avenue.

They were great, wonderful parents.

They were really adored by all of us.

And all the grandkids and so on.

I am honoring both my daughter and my son.

I lost, tragically my son and my daughter was murdered.

Through domestic violence here in Tucson area.

So I'm honoring them and families and friends here.

♪ LATIN MUSIC ♪ (Ruben) Tucson's mourning community is really significant.

I've noticed and I've seen over and over again when Tucson loses somebody, people come out, people adorn an altar, a roadside altar and it's just a beautiful thing.

And I think it's a really healthy thing for a community to talk and to look at death in the face and to deal with loss.

This is our 36th year.

So it was started by Sue Johnson in 1990 and she ran the event for seven years.

And then I took over in 1996 and I and MMOS which is a small grassroots nonprofit organization have been running the Procession ever since.

♪ LATIN MUSIC ♪ Tucson is a place that's so rich and like and grounded in their geography and then also the culture of the surrounding community.

♪ LATIN MUSIC ♪ (Martha) It is a great honor.

It is so heartfelt because we will never forget them.

And this is one of the greatest things they have done for Tucson.

And I'm very, very proud to be a part of it.

(Carmen) It's a big honor to see so much the community come together and support each other through this tragedy.

And at the same time a celebration of death, life.

And we're all here because we have loved ones that have passed and we're all here to share their story.

(Nadia) I think that Tucson is just, it's so many artists.

There's a lot of artists and what artists get is artists get how to make something out of nothing.

♪ LATIN MUSIC ENDS ♪ (Mary) This year's Procession will take place on Sunday evening, November 8th, beginning in Barrio, Hollywood and ending with the grand finale in the Mercado district.

Visit allsoulsprocession.org to learn more.

Now we meet Joanna Drakos, the 2026 Reno City artist.

Using acrylic, charcoal and graphite, this abstract artist strives to make work that is imperfect and irresistible.

For Joanna, her sensitivity to the world is not a liability, it's her superpower.

(Joanna) I'm almost creating an environment, a place to exist of my own making.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC ♪ My name is Joanna Drakos, I am a painter and I live in Reno, Nevada.

You're just capturing energetic marks.

♪ DREAMY MUSIC ♪ [ BRUSH STROKES ] (Joanna) Non-representational abstract art is artwork that expresses emotions through color, form and shape and not necessarily a recognizable image or feature.

There are no rules, I have complete control.

I can make it up.

I love exploring the world, I love exploring music, nature, that exploration and curiosity of the world definitely does come into play in my work.

♪ DREAMY INSTRUMENTAL ♪ [ PENCIL SCRATCHING CANVAS ] I had experienced a lot of life and I feel that the work I'm creating now could have never been created by the younger me.

Everything that you experience and you absorb into your being, it does somehow come out in the artwork.

I feel like that's me on the canvas.

♪ DREAMY INSTRUMENTAL ♪ You get into a call and response with what's happening in the painting and the painting tells you what it needs.

It's literally being developed as I paint.

The creation is happening right in front of me.

The paintings sometimes paint themselves.

♪ DREAMY INSTRUMENTAL ♪ I don't like perfection, I like to leave mistakes in.

That's the discernment is me knowing where that is and when to stop and what to leave and what to take out.

What you get with an original painting is you have surface and you have history.

Painting is not created in one instant.

It's a record of time.

It's unique and it stands out from mass production and I love using color to convey emotion, to stir something in the soul.

to stir something in the soul.

[ BRUSH STROKES ] The process of titling my work is actually one of the funnest things for me.

I keep a notebook.

I'll be doing a mindless task like taking a walk or cooking, washing dishes, whatever, and then suddenly phrases will come into my head and sometimes I can get a big download all at once and I have to quickly go write down.

That's the creative magical spark.

[ PAINT SPREADING ] [ PENCIL SCRATCHING CANVAS ] And so when I started painting again, I felt like I had come home to what I was meant to be doing in this life.

♪ DREAMY UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ ♪ UPBEAT POP INSTRUMENTAL ♪ This year they selected artist Joanna Drakos for the City Artists for 2026.

We're very excited to have her as our city artist and sort of representing visual art in Reno in the Metro Gallery.

(Joanna) It's extremely gratifying to be recognized after so many years and months of putting my artwork out and showing it to people and it makes me feel like it has made an impact.

(Joanna) It makes them stop for a moment and witness the artwork and ponder it and then question it.

It's not preaching anything to you.

It's not telling you a point of view.

♪ UPBEAT DREAMY INSTRUMENTAL ♪ I like to think that my favorite piece hasn't been created yet.

I want to create that masterpiece that is still out there and I'm pursuing that and every time I go to the canvas, it may happen.

[ AIR WHOOSHING ] Before a concert starts, have you thought about how the musicians got there?

Travel time to and from the venue, loading and unloading equipment, set up and sound check, all run-of-the-mill performance routines.

For performers with physical limitations, there are extra logistics to consider.

Singer-songwriter Tracy Marie of Ohio shares her own personal perspective on disability.

[ AIR WHOOSHING ] (Tracy) My whole life I've been figuring out workarounds.

I have to plan out everything.

Like I need extra time.

Things take a little bit longer for me and those kinds of things are challenging when you don't really have a handle on what your endurance is gonna be on any given day because it's not always the same.

There is a lot of pain involved.

So my diagnosis is complicated.

It's a rare disease.

Mucopolysaccharidoses is a group of rare inherited disorders marked by an enzyme deficiency.

And I have one of the more rare types called the Morquio A syndrome, which is Mucopolysaccharidoses type 4A.

And it's very rare.

There's only about 800 people in the US that have it.

It's an enzyme replacement therapy that I receive every week and it affects endurance.

It affects the skeleton.

It affects certain organ systems.

[ SINGING ] When you said you'd circle right It's a type of dwarfism.

Didn't grow to my full height.

And I have Kyphoscoliosis I've had seven hip replacements.

So having those repeated surgeries really held me back from being able to keep the momentum going.

[ SINGING ] Will you marry me, Willie?

[ TALKING ] In 2010, I was accepted to Berkeley College of Music.

And at that time I found out that one of my hips had failed.

And so I needed this really intense surgery and without a support system in Boston and without knowing what the future was gonna hold, I ended up not attending.

(Producer) Ready whenever you are, we'll follow you.

Okay.

[ GUITAR STRUMMING ] [ SINGING ] You've been drinking And I've been thinking [ TALKING ] So I took the route of performing my own music and just figuring out where do I fit into the creative arts.

[ SINGING ] The show must go on It's not working [ TALKING ] A lot of independent artists that go on these tours, they have to sleep in their van, they have to eat whatever they can grab on the road.

And for me, it's like I have to have a specific routine because if I'm not eating right, if I'm not sleeping right, then I'm not walking.

[ SINGING ] The show must go on [ TALKING ] Being able to maintain my health and my well-being was more important than having that opportunity because there was that fear that like, they wouldn't believe me or they wouldn't understand.

[ SINGING ] You lie where you lie [ TALKING ] So whenever I would have opportunities, I kind of would self-sabotage out of fear.

Like I would get opportunities, like maybe get an interview with a record label or an agent, you know, and I would just say, well, I don't think I'm gonna pursue that because I, first of all, didn't have a diagnosis.

So I had no explanation as to why I wouldn't be able to keep up with the requirements of a contract.

[ SINGING ] Oh 'cause you keep circling [ TALKING ] I had a friend who was a wheelchair user and I invited her to one of my performances and she made me aware that she couldn't go to that performance because the venue didn't accommodate wheelchairs.

I didn't know much about ADA or how that worked, but I just thought, oh, well, ADA was supposed to fix all that, right?

And she explained to me, yes, but it takes time for everybody to catch up and private businesses weren't required to fix everything right away.

They're more just required to provide accommodations without a new burden.

So not only was I upset because I couldn't get my friend to this performance, but also as a performer, like would have in the future as my disease progresses, then I can't get to my own performance.

That became like a realization for me.

[ GUITAR STRUMS ] So I said, well, what can I do in the coming years to just help with the situation?

Like how could I make people aware?

Because I even wasn't aware and I had a disability.

So I was like, even my own inherent ableism was coming out, you know, that I was like, what?

You can't get in?

Like how did I not notice that, right?

If I wasn't aware of it with a disability, then imagine how many other people are like, not aware that their business cannot accommodate a person with a wheelchair.

[ OVER MICROPHONE ] It is super important to me that we talked about housing and healthcare.

(Joanna) I'm trying to round out my awareness myself because I'm asked to consult a lot and I don't want to represent other groups that I have no experience about.

[ OVER MICROPHONE ] The opportunities to find housing.

(Joanna) It's everything from like ramps to elevators to design planning.

They plan an event and they aren't thinking about how is somebody with a wheelchair gonna park or where are they gonna enter?

You might have a totally wheelchair accessible brick and mortar, but then you put this like big giant planter at the top of the steps where somebody would need the railing and then they have to go around it once they get to the very top of the steps.

Those are the kinds of things that I've encountered.

When I got the call, I was like, this is awesome.

I already knew it.

I already practiced it.

I had already had a demo.

They had a disability pride celebration there.

To be able to do the national anthem was really cool.

Even though it was disability pride, I was still like hesitant to ask for special accommodations because I'm like, well, what if they say, well, we can't do that and so we're gonna get someone else kind of thing?

Like there's always that fear.

I'm excited.

I have to pee and they're like, oh, well, you can't, you have to go all the way back up because we only have a staff bathroom down here.

Like, okay, can I use it?

They're like [ SHAKES HEAD NO ] I'm like don't do this to me.

I wasn't a great advocate for myself.

I'm always a better advocate for others than I am for myself.

It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of people with disabilities.

[ SINGING ] Oh, say can you see [ TALKING ] Like I have my own level of ableism because I'm thinking about access.

I'm thinking about physical barriers, but you have people with visual impairments that need more lighting and you have people that have a hearing impairment and so they might need ASL.

[ SINGING ] And the rocket's red glare [ TALKING ] You have people who need a quiet space.

You have families who need an adult changing table.

You have so many levels of need in the disability community and it's hard to kind of keep the awareness of all those things and think of all the potentials at once.

[ SINGING ] Oh, the land of the free [ TALKING ] Well, I don't wanna just focus on the things that affect me.

I wanna be able to see a bigger picture and have empathy for other situations is the takeaway for me.

[ SINGING ] The brave [ ANNOUNCER ] Thank you to Tracy Marie and the Bedford High School ASL Performance Group for that performance of our National Anthem.

[ AIR WHOOSHING ] That wraps up this week's edition of State of the Arts.

Thanks as always for joining us here on AZPM.

Until next week, I'm Mary Paul.

♪ UPBEAT DREAMY MUSIC ♪