Armchair Travelogues 🧭 : Arizona Artscapes 🖼️ : FOUND:RE Hotel!

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The first time I wrote about the art gallery in this trendy, inviting hotel was during October, 2022. Naturally, I’d been eager to get back here for quite awhile and February was a good month to check out its latest offerings again. Another thing I like about FOUND:RE Hotel is the very close proximity to the Olney Gallery at Trinity Episcopal Church and the Fair Trade Cafe. I also appreciate how spacious the facilities are here and how they harmonize well with the hotel lobby, art spaces, the bar, and market.

Among the many things I was pleased to see on this visit were the mosaics in glass by Karla Watson. She is another artist previously unknown to me, but know that I’ll look forward to seeing more of her creations based on the samplings shown below.

This Karla Watson creation is titled “I See You” (2025) a glass mosaic on Kerdi Board which is a waterproof polystyrene foam not only good for packaging, but serves well as the foundation for artworks too.

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This one, also by Karla Watson is called “I’ve Got My Ball!” (2025) and is also a glass mosaic placed on Kerdi Board.
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Watson is a Phoenix, Arizona based artist with a focus on glass mosaics and animal themes. Another artist I liked from the FOUND:RE exhibits is Jill Crowley who specializes in paintings of oils and acrylics. Like Karla Watson she also draws on themes of nature with an emphasis on animals. Crowley’s website states that she always strives for a balance between “chaos and control” and her paintings combine elements of the abstract and surreal emphasized below in “Heavy Is The Crown” (2025).

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Crowley, Watson, and numerous other artists are featured in the exhibition “Where The Wild Things Stay” hosted by the FOUND:RE Hotel which began on January 12th and continues through July 16th. Anyone who loves art and animal themes should definitely check this out! To add a dash of whimsy to this post, I’m including “The Phoenix Cool Cats” (2025) in acrylic and oil from Christen Carns (below).

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Another one that I thought was humorous is from Isadora Hale, called “When Jackalopes Fly” (2024) shown below is acrylic on canvas featuring a mythical creature known as Jackalope which is a jackrabbit with the antlers of a deer. The legend started in 1932 when two brothers from Wyoming attached small antlers to a rabbit as a taxidermy gag. However, some people still think Jackalopes actually exist and they’re just very hard to spot on the Great Plains or in the Sonoran Desert. Alas, they only exist on postcards or in cheesy tourist attractions!