City Hall tree lighting to include art, music and history

In a celebration of the holidays and a preamble of the swearing-in of four elected officials, Maricopa City Hall will have its annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony Dec. 6 at 6 p.m.

Santa Claus will help Mayor Christian Price light the City Hall tree in a gathering that includes hot chocolate and cookies. The Sequoia Pathway Choir will perform.

City Hall is located at 39700 W. Civic Center Plaza.

At the event, Maricopa Historical Society unveils its new grant-funded exhibit, which tracks the history of the community in photographs and other elements. There are representations of Maricopa’s three locations and four names: Maricopa Wells, Maricopaville, Maricopa Junction and Maricopa.

Meanwhile, the Maricopa Arts Council will open its fourth Artists’ Gallery, capping more than one year of group shows on the walls of City Hall. The works of eight Maricopa visual artists – Cat Ackerson, Jennifer Hawkins, Susan Cameron, Kaui Wilson, Herman Neuberger, Keith Briggs, Gary Zaimont and Valentine Ackerson – have been selected according to the theme “Winter in Full Color.”

The works are a bit larger in scale than the previous Galleries, the largest being seven feet wide, and each interprets winter subjectively – through animal studies, nature scenes, or vistas from in and around the Southwest. Several of the pieces use innovative techniques, providing a dual or even triple perspective by creating the impression of “viewing through a lattice.”

The first three galleries were a joint project of Maricopa Arts Council, Maricopa Center for Entrepreneurship and some key personnel from Art on the Veranda’s planning committee. With the opening of this fourth Gallery, MAC concludes its demonstration year, establishing how these group displays can be assembled, reviewed and installed successfully.

The tree-lighting ceremony will be followed by the regular meeting of the Maricopa City Council, when those elected this fall will be sworn in. That includes the mayor as well as Marvin Brown, Nancy Smith and Julia Gusse. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.