Arizona Artist Colony
Tracy Taft, who spearheaded the project and secured the funding, explained. The Curley School was built in the center of Ajo's handsome town square in 1919 in a striking Spanish Colonial Revival style, with a grand building with a bell-tower on top anchoring the complex. It grew to eight buildings on a seven-acre campus before the whole thing was shut down and decommissioned when the town's copper mine closed in the mid-'80s and the local economy plummeted. The property was vacant and crumbling before Taft and the International Sonoran Desert Alliance secured tens of millions of dollars of grant money and began to rebuild the complex, which re-opened last May.
The old school building was transformed into loft apartments that qualified artists rent at subsidized prices in order to do their work. There are sculptors, photographers, painters and mixed-media artists on property, all living and working in gorgeous new spaces with soaring ceilings and hardwood floors. The old cafeteria has been turned into a business center, and there is a gallery on the premises that is used as an exhibition space. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, and plans are underway for more work/living spaces and exhibition areas.
It's well worth a visit, but I'm warning you that a tour of the Curley School will quickly have you thinking about pulling out your old paintbrushes, selling the house and moving to Ajo, especially if you go between now and April when the desert is warm and inviting.