Walking both walks
Tirzah Camacho emerges onto local art scene

Tirzah Camacho poses with her artwork at her in-home studio south of Durango early this week./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

by Jules Masterjohn

Nearly every artist wants an audience for her or his creative work. This is not an easily satisfied desire, however, for the art world is a competitive one. Even in Durango, where there are fewer than eight fine art galleries, it takes not only talent and good work, but also determination and self-confidence to get one?s art represented by a local gallery. Fortunately, other venues are plentiful in Durango, like coffee houses and restaurants, that can serve as stepping stones for artists who are young or ?emerging.? The walls of these establishments can be coveted display spaces for artists new to getting their work into the public eye. One industrious Durango artist, Tirzah Camacho, gets her paintings out there regularly. Currently, one of her paintings can be seen at the annual Members? Exhibit at the Durango Arts Center as well as on the walls of Zia Taqueria on North Main, where 12 of her new works are hanging.

Her sometimes edgy, often symbolic paintings are a good fit in Zia?s eclectic interior. The decor combines the industrial elements of angle iron and metal tubing with softer natural materials like the wood used in the long benches, chairs and partition walls. This environment mimics a similar tendency within Camacho?s paintings, which embrace diverse styles, depicting outlined images of recognizable objects overlain onto surfaces of freeform, expressive color.

Camacho?s approach to painting is one of layering: backgrounds of color act as foundations for the unfolding of her visual narratives created through the juxtaposition of line drawings of crosses, ladders, designs from Southwest pottery painting, birds, handprints and anatomical heart forms. Patterning plays a decorative role, perhaps to soothe the viewer as one tries hard to decipher the meaning in her paintings, which beg interpretation. Her stories are mysterious to this viewer, as if she is speaking a secret, personal language. I wonder to whom she is speaking? A juror from a recent show in which Camacho received an award served up some insight with the observation, ?Camacho is having conversations with herself.? Though her meanings may be illusive, her paintings are visually interesting, intellectually compelling, well-crafted compositions that unfold in layers, like an intricate plot.

Her paintings have been recognized in juried exhibits at the Durango Arts Center twice during the last year. Two different jurors, both arts professionals from outside the region, awarded Camacho cash prizes for her paintings. A graduate from Fort Lewis College, she is driven and talented, and has set her sights on being represented by major contemporary art galleries around the region. I recently spoke with Camacho about her paintings and her single-mindedness about making art.

JM: At Zia, there seems to be three distinct bodies of work presented. I am most familiar with the Boarding School genre, where you juxtapose images in which you appear to be telling stories. Tell me a bit about your creative process and to whom you are speaking with these paintings?

Camacho: I hate to sound selfish, but the meaning in my narrative work is almost always only for me. If I?m emotional about a specific subject, like the history and social repercussions of Indian boarding schools, my own bi-racial rearing, or the way Native culture is evolving, I have to try and teach myself to accept these facts emotionally. I have to physically work the issues from my mind, through my psyche and my heart, onto canvas, where I can let them go. Similarly with the new ?Matters of the Heart? series, people respond to them so strongly and are eager to know what my intention is and what is the message.

Tirzah Camacho's "Going With Your Gut" is an example of her work which is now on display at the Durango Arts Center and Zia Taqueria./Photo by Todd Newcomer.

JM: So, what is the significance of the images in the ?Matters of the Heart? series? In these paintings you are depicting the heart as an anatomical form with subtle visual references to the heart symbol, the human form and ceramic vessels.

Camacho: I started this series about six months ago due to my own woes regarding love and youthful ideals about marriage and the like. As I was making the pieces an emotional pattern emerged.With every piece I felt more and more happy and had a better sense of resolve about my romantic situation; I couldn?t stop making them. The responses from viewers and patrons were what overwhelmed me, they identify with the forms on so many different levels. Every day I was hearing, ?Why are you painting these? I was just diagnosed with a serious heart condition and I love these paintings ? my father just passed during open-heart surgery ? I?m getting married in a week, my wife-to-be would love this ? ? and so on. The paintings became less about me, and more about the humanness of us all. We all hurt, we all love, we all understand in our own way.

JM: Does your unusual mix of ethnicities ? part Polish, part Native American ? influence how you see and interpret the world?

Camacho: The influences on my worldview are grand. Being a ?half-breed,? or my new favorite, a ?hybrid,? is interesting. I ?walk both walks,? as some put it. I can?t imagine ever being a full Caucasian or a full-blooded Native person. I see it as a blessing that has afforded me social and spiritual skills that carry over into my everyday work and demeanor. I want to always represent myself as a conscious and educated person both culturally and within mainstream society.

JM: You are a teacher as well as an artist. How do these two roles inform each other?

Camacho: Being able to step into a position where I have the influence to help diminish insecurities regarding artists and their work is so powerful. I think all artists hit that point somewhere in their lives where they need validation; teaching provides that. Similarly, my students monitor my growth and provide me with fresh and uninhibited opinions. It?s magical.

Tirzah Camacho?s paintings are currently on display at Zia Taqueria located at 3101 Main Ave. in Durango.