That's "Kerr" like "Care."

We're honored to have the John Waddell bronze of Louise Lincoln Kerr, naturally, but it's not the best likeness. This is according to Kay Coze, who moved into "The Shacks" property here in 1966 or so. When asked to describe the physical environment of the Kerr property Kay's first word was "Dusty!" with a laugh. After a music concert there would be a lot of car traffic with people leaving, a gigantic cloud of dust, and Louise herself would be out there hosing it down.

This page is prompted by unhappy news. This Kerr Cultural Center is in danger of being pushed over and sold off by its owner. You expect that kind of behavior from cold-eyed private developers from out of town. It's more surprising behavior coming from Arizona State University, that's "care" as in "care about your committments", but, you know, ASU tore down another extraordinary mid-Century landmark bank earlier in 2007, allegedly violating state law in the process.

It would be unwise and self-defeating for ASU to sacrifice these two rather fragile ordinary-looking buildings.

Kay remembers Louise as a magnificent woman, a kind person, strikingly beautiful. This "art colony" of a series of adobe duplexes was not highly organized, but it did provide shelter, let's say sanctuary, for a motley collection of musicians, professors, artists and architects.

(More to come.)