The following is an original production of AZPM News.

(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, step into Tucson's underground art scene, literally.

(Sage) Why art is a great question that makes me want to ask back like why anything?

(Tom) See how one community is finding meaningful connection in a busy world.

(Carolina) So the music they bring, the culture, just being around them, it brings a lot of memories back.

(Tom) Learn about a hardy desert plant with a delicate flower and sweet scent.

(Alex) It's not commonly seen despite being native and perfectly well adapted to our region.

(Tom) And a new tabletop game from Arizona goes global.

(Andre) The passion from watching the games and even playing the games, it still translates to these small boards.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

And first up, we are going to take you into Tucson's underground art scene.

For real.

Subspace is an artist studio space located in the basement level of the historic Steinfeld Warehouse.

And it's become a haven for experimental art.

[ WIND BLOWING ] ♪ HYPNOTIC SYNTHS RISE ♪ (Tom) Art is everywhere, it's everything.

I think that a lot of people don't recognize that everything that we experience, everything that we engage with had art as a part of it.

It comes from that.

(Sage) The best way to describe me as an artist is multimedia.

(Shaun) When people ask me what I do, I usually say I'm an illustrator.

(Ash) I'm a multidisciplinary artist.

♪ HYPNOTIC SYNTHS FADE ♪ [ MOULDING CLAY ] (Sage) Lately, I've been focusing more on sculpture and I've been really getting into like polymer clay, full body costumes.

When it comes to puppetry, I like to keep it a little simple and just work with cardboard cutouts.

It's kind of fun to take low-tech things that can still tell a story or you kind of forget that it's just cardboard.

[ METAL SCRAPING ] (Shaun) I do a combination of traditional work and digital work.

Big poster-sized drawings.

I've also done drawings for books.

I've done some book covers and do sticker sheets.

I started doing printmaking, so I make my own t-shirts now.

Been trying to make my own screen prints and woodblock prints.

♪ PIANO & STRINGS RISE ♪ (Ash) I do oil painting.

I dabble in acrylics, ink, and watercolor.

I also do a lot of digital painting.

And I'm planning on getting into a little bit of 3D work and crochet by the end of the year.

Since I'm multidisciplinary, the process varies from project to project.

[ LAUGHS ] [ BRUSHES ON PALETTE ] Right now I have a show that I'm planning for in September and it's going to explore how tech intersects with artwork.

AI right now and how it's just kind of regurgitated and stolen ideas from actual living, breathing artists.

And I want to approach that and kind of discuss it with my artwork.

♪ PIANO & STRINGS CONTINUE ♪ (Tom) I paint, I draw, and I make sculpture.

I also work with fibers and textiles sometimes.

I used to work professionally in sewing.

So I do a lot of mold making and casting as like primary process I use for sculpture.

Paint with acrylics, draw often with ink and pen.

I often will work out ideas digitally on an iPad, a very process oriented artist.

When I make sculpture, it tends to be casted work.

So I'll sculpt in often oil clay.

I'll make a plaster mold or silicone mold depending on what the final product needs to be.

And then I cast with various materials, plaster, latex, sometimes resins.

♪ PIANO & STRINGS FADE ♪ (Sage) Why art is a great question that makes me want to ask back like why anything?

Because at the end of the day, I think for me personally, that's a question that I ask all the time.

Why am I doing this?

I start to think about what society wants us to do with our hobbies and what society wants us to do with our creations, which is monetize them.

And that can sort of give you pause to, well, why am I making this?

I'm not selling it.

Why am I making this?

Like who's gonna want this?

And I think I've had to unlearn some of that.

[ BRUSHES ON PALETTE ] (Ash) Art is a way for me to place myself in time.

There's a song that I really like by Aesop Rock called "Rings" where he talks about his relationship with art.

And he creates this allegory of being like a tree and the rings of a tree.

And I feel like that's very fitting for me.

You can tell in periods of stress or trauma, there's like big gaps in what I work on.

And in periods of creativity where I'm just knocking things out of the park.

♪ TRIUMPHANT SYNTHS ♪ (Shaun) I feel like I'm only starting to like really delve into putting more of like myself into my work.

Trying to explore different thoughts and feelings I have about things I've experienced in my life personally, things that I value.

The downside of like having been a commercial pop artist for so long is that like, I am really kind of like only now learning like the vocabulary, I guess, for how to express myself like on a much more personal level.

♪ SYNTHS FADE ♪ [ WATER RUNNING ] (Tom) Art is not just a way for me to express myself, but it's a way for me to kind of understand and work out my thoughts on my lived experience, a way for me to kind of engage my subconscious and a form of escapism.

Then provides a more tangible object for me to analyze more of what my feelings and emotions are.

In today's age, it can be very difficult to maintain a good work-life balance and make genuine connections.

And that's why a pair of cousins started Tucson Primas.

It's a social club dedicated to creating a space for young Latina women to meet and foster new friendships.

♪ UPBEAT GUITAR ♪ (Karen) I think when you start being an adult, it's like all of these things get dumped on you.

All of a sudden you don't see your friends every day.

You have actual responsibilities outside of just homework, finances, getting exposed to like big-world problems, sometimes in workplaces.

It's not that easy to connect with your co-workers and then you start isolating yourself.

When you have a healthy social life and people to support you, whenever you do feel down or just to go out and distract your mind, it's that work-life balance that people are lacking.

Tucson Primas is a new community here in Tucson, primarily focused on targeting young Latina women.

Our goal is to build community through fun recreational events, really focused on wellness and friendship.

So me and Paola were really close growing up.

We're actual cousins.

And then when she reached adulthood and I was in high school, high school we kind of drifted apart.

And then when we reconnected both as adults, we realized that we were going through a lot of similar things alone.

One thing that I remember feeling is we both had these challenges and we felt that they were so individual to us and it wasn't until we shared it with each other that we realized we were going through the same thing.

And maybe those challenges wouldn't have been so hard had we been closer together.

Just starting our wellness and all of these changes that we wanted in our lives together helped us get out of really dark places.

Paola just realized like, what if we share this with other girls?

Because so many girls are searching for community.

And so we wanted to share that closeness that we have as primas for other girls as well.

(Paola) Yeah, I think the ultimate purpose was also, Karen and I had built such a strong system of support and encouragement amongst the two of us.

So that's something that we really wanted to share as many young Latinas in Tucson, especially those that have had similar challenges.

(Karen) We do a variety of events.

We've done pilates classes.

We just did a Hotworx event yesterday.

We really do a lot of wellness events because that's a lot of the things that the primas said was their like New Year's resolution was doing a lot of wellness We also do a lot of crafts.

So we did jewelry box painting and Galentine's.

December was full of crafts too, like stocking decorating, cookie decorating.

But we really pick our activities thoughtfully to make sure that it facilitates socializing.

Cause a lot of the times our community started from zero.

The girls didn't know each other at all.

They were joining these events completely by their own.

So we wanted to facilitate that friendship for them.

They're just the sweetest girls.

They are super detailed, super thoughtful in everything that they do.

You can see the effort that they put into organizing these events.

And I just think it's so beautiful.

It's so appreciated.

It's made a difference because just it connects with our culture.

Like you could already tell that most of the girls here speak English and then Spanish.

So it's Spanglish, but it's just the music.

It brings me back to just my childhood memories with my parents.

So the music they bring, the culture, just just being around them.

It just, it brings a lot of memories back.

(Karen) Something that Paola always says is that primas are your first friends.

(Paola) We just love spending time together.

I think she's my best friend.

And that friendship is something that we want to share with other women.

Southern Arizona is home to a huge amount of biodiversity.

And there are many plants that are native to the Sonoran desert.

So why would you grow something or plant something that can grow just about anywhere?

Well, next we'll show you a hardy plant with a delicate flower and a fun name.

♪ RELAXING AMBIENT MUSIC ♪ Hi, I'm Alex Arnold.

I'm a horticulturalist here at the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum.

And here I'm sitting next to one of my favorite plants, the Huachuca Mountain Rock Trumpet or Mandevilla brachysiphon.

This is a great plant that a lot of people overlook in terms of landscaping potential here in Tucson.

It's truly native to our region.

If you look at its range, it lives from central Sonora, just up till north of Tucson a little bit, mostly growing in the foothills of our Sky Islands.

So it's a Sky Island native.

It is hardy, it's very pretty, and it's a great pollinator plant.

One of the most attractive features of this plant is it's scent it is a very sweet, almost jasmine-like scent, which not only is attractive to people, but is attractive to moths, in particular this Sphinx Moth, which are its main pollinator.

The white flowers stay open all night and close in the mid-morning hours.

As you can see, this plant is a low-growing plant.

I'm sitting in a terraced garden bed here, but this more or less replicates where you'd see it in nature, on the rocky slopes of a wash, often in limestone soil, well-draining.

So it does really well in a terraced garden scenario.

It has a tendency to grow from the crown with stolons, so it will spread and fill out a pocket.

Around me, we have a handful of plants that are sort of filling in the spaces between the cactus and other species.

This is a really hardy plant.

In Tucson, on irrigation, a couple times a week, it's going to thrive.

Here on grounds, we have it both in the shade and in the sun.

Dappled sunlight and well-draining soil will go a long way towards making this successful in most Tucson backyard scenarios.

If you're looking for something that will fit alongside your pathway in your backyard or between your larger shrubs, something that works as a ground cover, this is a perfect plant.

It is unique.

It's not commonly seen, despite being native and perfectly well-adapted to our region.

It is time to learn about Biñho, a finger soccer game.

Our reporter, producer Thatcher Warrick Hess is going to teach me and all of us, Biñho, you're pretty good at this.

Yeah, I am pretty good.

What is it?

Yeah, essentially, this is a finger soccer game.

We got a marbel, elastic bands here.

It's getting a lot of popularity as it was created in Phoenix and I've been really interested to talk to the creators of the game.

But essentially, you just try to score after flicking the marbel.

So now it's your turn here.

My turn?

Yeah.

Can I use this end of my finger?

You could.

No!

Not too good.

It takes some finesse, it takes some skill.

It sure does.

Kinda looks like a gumball.

I got a long way to go.

Thatcher's gonna teach me.

While he does, check out some folks who really know how to Biñho.

♪ STACCATO STRINGS ♪ (Luca) The rules are pretty simple, pretty straightforward, but as a game, it's harder than it looks to actually master.

I was a big fan of Foosball growing up.

I'm from Italia and they love playing it there, but this is sort of like a simplified version of it.

Even kids can play it, you get a kid playing on it, it's hard to pull them off the board.

♪ UPLIFTING STRINGS AND SYNTHS ♪ (Akbar) My name is Akbar Faqeeri and I am a soccer trainer here in Tucson and I've been doing it since 2019.

I found out that I had torn my ACL and meniscus.

I've never had an injury like this before.

So the moment that happened, I was like crushed and I almost knew what it was.

This is day one.

(Woman) Day one, Operation Incoming.

(Akbar) So I was on the couch, just a vegetable laying down.

Improving.

Day two, able to actually sit.

Still in pain.

Well, the thing is Biñho came like out of nowhere and it happened when I couldn't play soccer.

So I think that did make it a lot more fun because that was like the first introduction back to soccer was with my finger.

(Nick) You can casually play it at home, But then the competitive side, people get really into it.

They fly from all over the country to go to these different major tournaments we have and these players are getting really good too.

I'm Nick Witherill and I'm the founder and CEO of Biñho board.

I didn't know much about soccer.

Once I started playing FIFA with my friends, I got really into it, learned all about the game.

I started following a lot of Instagram accounts from all over the world just learning about it.

And I saw these games in South and Central America where they had a coin on like wood and they would try to push it into like a negative space area.

And so I thought like that concept was really cool.

And I was like, there's gotta be a soccer version of that on the market with grass, you know, net goals, you know, high quality to match the beautiful game.

And there just wasn't anything out there on the market.

So on a whim, I just hammered together my first board.

Just went to Home Depot.

Then I go to the turf section and just have them cut off a big section of it.

I can cut that with scissors though.

So I would cut that up individually.

Got some rubber bands from like Staples, Office Max, roofing nails from Home Depot.

That—the bag right there is just a marble bag from, I got it at some toy shop in Old Town Scottsdale.

(Luca) I was really surprised that, you know, it had been created in Phoenix, in Arizona.

It's a game that's gone nationwide.

(Akbar) The moment I found out this, the guy who created it was in Phoenix, I like started telling all my friends that, like a prideful thing.

We're like, 'yeah, this game, guy created in our state,' you know, it's crazy.

Now I see it everywhere.

So I heard about it from my friends just talking about it.

But I had no idea what it was, what it looked like, how you played.

And the first time was at Zerai's.

And as soon as we played, we played like eight games straight over there.

[ CROWD CHEERING ] (Luca) But it's been just really fun to meet the community.

I met a bunch of people here at Zerai's as well.

They decided they're gonna make a design for every single country that's qualified for the World Cup, regardless of how small or big they are.

So they made a board for all 48 countries.

(Tony) Getting to design, whether it's one team or 48 teams, it doesn't matter to me.

I look at it as an opportunity to express myself and to showcase a DNA that, you know, people generally won't see.

♪ CHEERY GUITAR AND PIANO ♪ (Nick) Completely modular too.

But you can also change your colors to whatever you want too.

So if you wanted different color bands, different color goals, player pieces, different balls, you can have complete creative control as a consumer.

So our slogan, Tony coined back in the day, was bigger than a board game.

And the rules are a big part of that.

Those have been really well thought out over time and meant to make the game as fair as possible.

And so, you know, there's no double touch in the ball.

You can't shoot it out of bounds.

You can't touch your own goal when you're shooting.

Once you play with the rules and really learn them, you know, the people that take the time to learn the rules end up having, it just elevates the experience a ton.

(Andre) All right, we're gonna get going.

We're gonna get going.

Everyone welcome to the first ever Tucson Biñho tournament.

So who's super brand new?

I don't mind 20 players.

Who's super brand new to playing Biñho tonight?

The passion from watching the games and even playing the games, it still translates to these small boards, you know?

It's table soccer, you know?

I mean, I'd rather host these things rather than play.

Yeah.

Your player, yeah, number wise, your player 11.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- All right, you ready?

(Luca) But for the most part, it's like I'm feeling just like I do at the other tournaments.

You know, we got the boards all set up.

They have the table, the point system going, the time games, and you know, it's running pretty smoothly.

A couple months before the World Cup and my dad bought a Biñho so we could like play around during the World Cup.

My finger hurt a lot, cause I like flicked it really hard, but after a while I got used to it.

(Akbar) You know how a soccer takes about 90 minutes and the scores will be like two-one, one-one, zero-zero.

I think one thing is fun is that you could always have that shot and get that goal and it triggers like the goal feeling that you either see in the game or when you're playing.

(Sofia) Kind of just try to play my best.

I think I did pretty well.

It was a little bit stressful sometimes cause I'm very competitive.

(Luca) She's so short, like, you know, young that she can barely like see over the table, but she's like playing good games and you got all ages, you know, and just constantly like growing, you know, and the more you do these kinds of events, the more exposure, the more, you know, enthusiasm people have and just keeps growing and you get, you know, foster and develop a really cool community around us.

[ CROWD CHEERING ] (Luca) 60 people watching my game, so my heart was pounding and super exciting, you know, but yeah, that was, it's just a super fun atmosphere, super, super good vibes.

Yeah, yeah, of course, it was the first ever Biñho tournament in Tucson with the card, so it's like a little memento.

(Tony) At the end of the day, I just want people to experience the game-play, because that is why we make these boards, it's really, really fun.

Anyone can play, there's an unlimited amounts of shots you can do, and there's no better feeling than scoring a goal, I'll tell you that.

(Nick) In a time like, you know, you see the news and whatnot, a lot of the divisiveness, and we just want that opportunity in people's lives to meet somebody maybe you wouldn't have normally talked to, or connect with somebody and hear their story.

That's what I love most about the legacy element of Biñho is that we're just connecting people.

♪ SOFT MUSIC FADES OUT ♪ In August, 2026, Arizona Public Media and Tucson Spotlight worked with the Tucson Jewish Community Centers Day Program, Taglit B'Yachad, to host a storytelling workshop and live event right here at the Baker Center for Public Media.

The collaboration highlighted the experiences of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The goal was to build stronger relationships with the IDD community and share stories in their own words.

In the workshop, participants chose to talk about a time that they were brave.

Here's Tyler Martin with her story.

On the way to the hospital, I felt every emotion at once.

My mom and dad were driving me there.

I was nervous.

Don't know where we're going.

I wasn't alone.

I had diaper puppy with me, for comfort.

Diaper puppy was a gift from a friend.

Even though I was nervous, having a stuffed dog to hug made me feel better.

Before the surgery, things felt strange.

[I] felt when my heart [was] pushing out a little bit— separate from me.

My body was growing.

My heart wasn't growing with it.

Doctors had to fix that.

They gave me anesthesia, made me sleep, made me feel a little loopy.

I finally woke up.

First thing I remember, I was thirsty.

Telling my mom, I want water.

I felt brave, but mostly I felt supported.

My family was right there, [They] filled my room, [with] so much love.

I looked at the corner of my bed, so many gifts.

People sent cards too.

My mom sat with me, she read the nice words out loud.

[To] help myself get through [I] listened to Disney songs, [the] whole "Pocahontas" soundtrack, "The Little Mermaid," "Mulan."

Touching my chest, [the] first time after, felt weird.

Because of the bandages and stitches, [I] decided to nickname the scar, my Zipper.

It runs down my chest.

It feels just like the zipper used to zip up a jacket.

Now my heart feels just like it's supposed to feel.

If I had to give advice to anybody else, [going to] the hospital for surgery.

I will tell them to not be nervous, to bring a stuffed animal [for] comfort.

It doesn't matter, big or little.

My family helps me to be brave, having them there [makes] all the difference.

This public storytelling event was supported by the Reynolds Journalism Institute in partnership with WordSlaw.

You can find out more about the collaboration and see all the stories on our website, azpm.org.

All right, still getting our Biñho on.

Oh, nice.

A little better, thanks.

Good finesse.

Not there yet.

How long did it take you?

A couple months.

Master Biñho, a couple of months.

Oh, nice.

He set me up.

Well, you don't want to wait around for that scores, I lose, we'll keep trying.

And thank you for joining us on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, and we'll see you again next week.

Okay, let's try again.

Let's try again.