A Trio Of Tucson Painters Revisit Their Love Of The Land. By Margaret Regan NANCY TOKAR MILLER relishes the curves of Moorish arches and the blinding, bleaching light of southern Spain. Bruce McGrew conjures up the dark windswept skies of the remote reaches of Scotland as well as the forested thickets on nearby Mount Lemmon. Jim Waid gets his inspiration right here at home, in the vibrant shapes and colors of the teeming plant life on the Sonoran Desert floor. The three Tucson painters, each led by a passion for place, are exhibiting their works in three separate shows around town. All earned master's degrees years ago at the University of Arizona, McGrew in 1964, and Tokar Miller and Waid in 1971. In the years since, they've joined the ranks of the best-known and best-beloved painters in Tucson, each of them evolving a characteristic and immediately recognizable style. What's interesting is that while landscape is the starting point for all of their works, these sort-of elders of the Tucson art scene treat it in such distinct ways. The deft semi-abstractions of world traveler Tokar Miller, on view at Etherton Gallery, have more to do with memory and light than recording the nuts and bolts of what she has seen, though she's the only one of the trio who's interested in architecture in the landscape. "Finding equivalents through paint for the memories of especially evocative and moving places," she explains in an artist's statement, "has been my working method through two decades and several cultures." On a recent trip to Spain, she became fascinated by the arches of the Alhambra in Granada, and she's painted them over and over in all colors and all lights. "Puertas de Andalucia" is a light-saturated diptych of two Moorish arches, in acrylics on canvas, with one side gleaming in all yellows, the other in reds and oranges. Smaller paint sketches play with the alluring pointed arch shape again and again, each one a study in the psychological effects of color and changing light. If the arches suggest the metaphorical possibilities of the open door, her paintings of walled gardens tie in to a long art tradition of the enclosed garden as a symbol for interior spaces. "Pools of the Summer Villa" and "Night Music" are gorgeous works in blues and greens of a garden pool by day and by night. Tokar Miller's rendering of water is, as always, luminous. In previous shows, Tokar Miller exhibited imagery inspired by Asia (there are a few Asian pieces in this show too), with lots of fluid seascapes. Her technique of "staining" the canvas with thin glazes of oil and then adding thicker, calligraphic gestures with the brush owed a lot to the sensibility of Asian watercolor. It's particularly suited for watery subjects, but she's made it work even in the new works about heat. Jim Waid, exhibiting at the Temple Gallery, is the opposite of Tokar Miller in many ways. Where her paints are thin, his are thick and buttery. Where her compositions are spare and simple, his vibrate with all the roiling fertility of plant life. Where hers are sometimes somber and thoughtful, his are almost always joyful and exuberant. On this outing, Waid, who used to teach art at Pima Community College, uses a new medium, pastel on monotype, that seems expressly made for his characteristic works that "orchestrate the space between representation and abstraction." The under layer is a one-of-a kind print of paint, and the over layer consists of quick strokes of the pastel chalks. A suite of these little gems--"Sonoran Study," numbers one through six--all have beautiful, abstracted plant shapes in wild colors like violet, yellow and cerulean. Everything is outlined in bold black. Somehow, the delicious layering of paint and pastel only reinforces the idea that nature is richer and deeper than we usually think of it. McGrew, whose show continues through March 2 at Davis Dominguez Gallery in the foothills, is the most realistic of the trio. Most of the veteran UA art prof's luminous watercolors and oils on canvas are carefully titled after the place that inspired them: "Oban, Scotland," "Skye, Scotland," "Peppersauce" and so on. And the paintings seem to capture a precise moment in the life of the landscape. In "Skye, Scotland," for instance, a mixed media work that looks like a combination of oils and watercolors, a deep blue-gray storm rolls in over some jagged charcoal mountains, while a burst of clear white light intervenes on the horizon. McGrew is an acknowledged master of watercolor, but he pushes this difficult medium beyond the sedate boundaries that too often limit its possibilities. Realist he might be, but McGrew also delights in bold, barely controlled shapes that hint at Expressionism. And he endows his landscapes with a kind of glowing inner light that give them, like Tokar Miller's, a hint of metaphor. Paintings by Nancy Tokar Miller and Simon Donovan and drawings by Fred Rhoads are on display through March 30 at Etherton Gallery, 135 S. Sixth Ave. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 7 p.m. Thursday, and Downtown Saturday Nights. For information call 624-7370. Monotypes and pastels by Jim Waid continue through March 20 upstairs at The Temple Of Music And Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and prior to ATC performances. For information call 884-8210. A show of paintings by Bruce McGrew and drawings and sculpture by Judith Stewart closes Saturday, March 2, at Davis Dominguez Gallery, 6812 N. Oracle Road. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. For information call 297-1427.

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