COMMUNITY
Behind rolled doors BY DAVID IVERSEN
ANDY FOHR The Lakes at Rancho El Dorado
simple as a fleeting comment by his daughter or wife. “I see something that’s kind of interesting,” he said, and he’s filled with inspiration to paint. “I see Iggy Pop on TV and think, I gotta do that.” His garage features portraits of those memories put to canvas: Some of the biggest are music legends like Lou Reed, Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan. Sheryl Crow is especially prominent. Her painting stands out, Fohr said, “because her mouth is a heart.” Even his musical tastes, spanning from the Beatles to Bonnie Raitt, influence the brushstrokes. “There’s an energy,” he explained. “You find it in the brushstrokes and the colors.” Fohr’s art is intensely personal. “For me to paint somebody, I have to have some kind of connection. It’s meant to be a celebration of everything that they’ve done,” he said.
His process is resourceful, using cardboard, craft paints and discount canvases. “Half of this stuff is just on a piece of cardboard,” he said. Though he hasn’t sold his work widely, family and friends display his paintings proudly. “That makes me feel good,” he said. Friends have some, and “probably a couple enemies too.” These days, Fohr splits his creativity between
painting and music, recording original songs every week in a friend’s home studio, using whatever they have available to lay down tracks. “We usually do everything
Andy Fohr’s garage is a kaleidoscope of color and sound. It’s lined wall to wall with portraits of rock icons, wrestlers and personal memories. The paintings catch Mick Jagger and Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top fame) staring back at the viewer. Fohr paints guitars and nightscapes and abstract street scenes. His space has become an unlikely art studio. It is home to his nearly 2,000 original paintings, a number that is growing. “I probably brought a thousand paintings with me,” said Fohr, who moved to Maricopa in 2015 from Illinois. “There’s probably at least a thousand just on paper.” A longtime painter and music lover, Fohr finds daily inspiration in what he hears, sees and feels. It could be as
O NE OF MY GO-TO JOKES, ONE that always gets a polite chuckle, is to tell first-time visitors to my Maricopa home: “It’s the tan house on the right.” I imagine them squinting down the street, trying to decode which tan house I could possibly mean. The joke is, of course, they’re all tan. They’re all more or less the same shape, the same design, with only HOA-approved hues and landscaping. That’s the quiet comedy of Maricopa: a sea of beige sameness where architectural déjà vu is a way of life. But then a garage door opens. And suddenly, it’s like a curtain lifting on a stage. Inside? Chaos or craft, gym or jungle, workshop or wonderland. That’s where the personality lives. So, while the front of the house may whisper conformity, these garages scream originality. Here are six such garages, each a peek behind the curtain and into the wonderfully unexpected lives of your neighbors: their half-finished projects, their lifelong passions or an ode to their successes.
between like noon and 4 p.m.,” he laughed, “with a sock on the mic.” You’ll often find Fohr
painting with his garage door open, music spilling out. He’s eager to meet his neighbors. “If you walk by, say hi,” he said.
JASON MARTIN Desert Passage
through Saturdays and serves up to 30 clients a week, is more than just a barbershop. It also hosts gatherings for a nonprofit called the Veterans in Need Project. The space offers a safe environment for veterans coping with PTSD and other challenges. Licensed by the state barber board and allowed by the neighborhood HOA, the garage barbershop has become a word-of- mouth fixture in Maricopa’s veteran community. Martin also runs MaricopaVets.org,
a resource hub for local veterans offering services, support and donation opportunities. “I created this as a way to keep working, stay around veterans and avoid the pressure of a brick-and-mortar shop,” Martin said.
Navy veteran Jason Martin turned his home garage into a fully licensed barbershop and community space aimed at supporting fellow members of the military community. What began as a simple barber chair purchased on Amazon has, over five years, evolved into a unique space where
For more information, scan the QR code.
vets can get haircuts, connect and unwind.
The garage business, which operates Thursdays
InMaricopa.com | June 2025
June 2025 | InMaricopa.com
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