By Nate Byerley Catalyst

Send comments to: catalyst@wildcat.arizona.edu

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Datura Gallery owner Steve Eye assembles a rock sculpture in front of the downtown art space. On Oct. 24, Datura will host "Multiple Dimension Activiation," a non-juried exhibition open to the community.

"Datura" is the name of a peculiar flower that has evolved to bloom at night, that can grow in radioactive soil and has been used as a psychoactive drug and a neurotoxin by people all over the world. "Datura" is also the name one of Tucson's most intriguing studios, which is also used as a performance space and as a venue to showcase local artists.

Starting about May each year, Datura, which grows in Tucson like a weed, begins to shimmer as the sun sets, enticing local pollinators to make a visit. Similarly, Datura (the gallery), opens itself three times a year to the Tucson populace, "to honor and help those people who create, and to celebrate our lives as creators," explained Steve Eye, one of the coordinators of the Oct. 24 exhibit, called "Multiple Dimension Activation."

"A shaman friend of mine told me, after we decided on the name for the studio, something special about the word 'datura,'" Eye explained. "He told me that datura is about getting over your fear."

Eye has been, in a sense, the Achilles' heel of the Tucson grassroots art and music scene, having struggled repeatedly with the Apollonian assaults of the Tucson Fire Marshal and the Dionysian derelicts that are better known under the name "gutter punks."

In 1987, the building that now houses Datura was purchased from the Department of Transportation as land earmarked for a trans-Tucson highway. The highway was never completed, and the buildings were auctioned off to the public. But his 11 years with the Datura building, almost half of that spent managing the Downntown Performance Center as well, have been a constant battle with recalcitrant neighbors and restrictive fire codes.

Since abandoning the DPC endeavor three years ago, Eye spent some time regaining his footing and has since focused the bulk of his time and energy into Datura.

"The word 'art' has turned more people off to the act of creation than on," Eye said, likening his notions of creation to a newfound love for his human and natural surroundings. "The system has found all these ways of keeping us disconnected from our power, and our power is our connection to the universe."

The notion of connection is fundamental to Datura's upcoming exhibit. Anyone is welcome to submit pieces for the show. Submissions should be dropped off at the gallery from Oct. 18 through 23. "People ask me how much stuff will be included," Eye explained, "and I tell them we'll just keep putting them up, as much as we can."

At the last display in May of this year, 84 local artisans showed their work. This month's event will include a potluck dinner, dance performances, music, the enigmatic "escape art" and a final celebration dance complete with live disc jockeys.

Eye is hoping that submissions will represent a more international community.

"This is a call to people's hearts," said Eye. "The way we are thinking of art here is that everyone's heart is like a flame, and when we get everyone's work up on the wall, all these little flames that are burning unite together to create this raging inferno," he explained.

It took thousands of years for the Datura flower to make the adaptive changes that has allowed it to flourish in a hostile setting. Datura, the art space, may be have achieved something of the same thing within only 10 years.