These ceramic walnuts are designed and hand crafted by Jan Talmadge Davids, recipient of the 2025 Arizona Artist Awards. The 2025 Arizona Artist Awards exhibition will be on view at the Phoenix Art Museum from July 29, 2025 to January 24, 2027. These ceramic works are cast from Arizona Black Walnuts collected in Southern Arizona. A portion of proceeds from this (art)ifact supports organizations working to protect and restore the San Pedro River. Jan Talmadge Davids works in clay and mixed media to explore landscapes of her childhood and their local ecologies and to articulate ideas of place-making. Through installation and material sensitivities, she invites the viewer to engage in the ideas of fragility and vulnerability. Talmadge Davids was born in Tucson, Arizona, spending her youth in the southeastern part of the state. She attended the University of Arizona, California State University at Long Beach, and then came from Los Angeles to pursue her MFA at the Herberger School of Art and Design, where she found the opportunity to reconcile her past with her present, which is embedded in the desert landscape. Her work has been shown at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery; The Carolyn Campanga Klefeeld Contemporary Art Museum in Long Beach, CA; Tempe Center for the Arts; eye lounge; The Tucson Museum of Art; and Art d’Core Gala.
