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A Nine-Day ART FESTIVAL Celebrates the History and Architecture of TUBAC

WITH HIS 3X BEAVER BOWLER HAT, FRINGED coat and heavy beard, Mike Mulholland of Salt Lake City looks very much at home among the hand-tooled leather bags, purses and moccasins he hawks at the annual Tubac Arts Festival. In fact, one might mis-take him for a Rip Van Winkle-like holdover from this historic ham-let's 18th-century roots. It's a toss-up whether the setting, the residents or the merchants are more picturesque. But Mulholland would probably take the prize for "most colorful character." The 4-inch claws on his necklace belonged to a bear that got hit by a train in Michigan. His jaunty hatband sports silver conchas from his father's mule bridle, and the slices of cedar of Lebanon cones came from his mother's sewing basket.

During the nine-day show, the little artist's village (only three blocks long and three blocks wide) of fewer than 1,200 residents accommodates nearly 160,000 visitors. Modern freeways take us about 45 miles south of Tucson, but entering Tubac, we find a vintage Southwest-an amalgam of cultures, history and creativity. Mexico lies a mere 20 miles south, and snow caps the mountains that abut three sides of this high-desert community. The flags of five govern-ments that have ruled the 250-year-old settlement-Spain, Mexico, the Confederate States of America, Arizona and the United States -fly, representing a diverse past; one in which the town was abandoned and reclaimed seven times.

On Burruel Street, a life-size wooden carving of a white-bearded miner named Lefty catches our attention. "It's a hobby that just sorta took over," says Colorado artist Gordon Possien. He's been carving Lefty's ancestors with a chain saw for 23 years, and traveling to Tubac for about 12 years. There's a mild disturbance up ahead, and the throngs part like the Red Sea. "Look! A roadrunner!" a lady from Iowa stage-whispers. Obviously this is the bird's territory. He meanders across the road,