Category: Student Story

Creating art is helping Erika Tenorio honor the University of Arizona student’s Nicaraguan-Mexican Indigenous heritage and grandmother, who died from COVID a year ago.

Not only is the two-spirit senior working on a printmaking project this semester titled “Linda Nicaragua, Mi Nicaraguita,” but one of Tenorio’s designs was chosen by the university’s Indigenous Cats Association to mark Indigenous People’s Day in October 2022.

Tenorio, who is double-majoring in Studio Art Illustration and Latin American Studies while minoring in American Indian Studies, was an inaugural scholar for the LAS department’s first-ever Central American Certificate Program.

In July 2021, Tenorio created a “caballa bayo,” a traditional Nicaraguan ceramic item, used to keep food on top of a dish warm. For the student’s paternal grandmother, it was the last image of Tenorio’s artwork she saw before dying two months later.

“My grandma said, ‘It’s beautiful to see you creating artworks about where you come from, whether it’s from this side of the family or your maternal family. It warms my heart – you are our family’s matriarch storyteller and will continue on the traditions,’” Tenorio said.

Tenorio’s father fled Nicaragua in the 1980s to escape fighting tied to the Contra War. Tenorio’s indigenous heritage draws from three communities: Chorotega (Nicaragua), paternal; and Tohono O’odham (Mexico) and Yaqui or Yo’eme (Mexico), maternal.

Born in Tucson, Tenorio saw few Nicaraguans or Central Americans while growing up in Arizona.

“Living in a predominant Mexican population, my father explained he had no choice but to assimilate to Mexican culture and Spanish when he arrived in the states because he stood out with his appearance and dialect,” Tenorio said. “In doing so, he forgot his Nicaraguan Spanish and culture for the most part.”

That’s one reason Tenorio is using artwork to “show the heritage I carry.”

For the independent study printmaking project, Tenorio is working with Professor Karen Zimmermann, assistant director of the School of Art, with possible topics of Indigenous history, identity, social politics and folklores.

“I’ll be carving my drawn images onto a linoleum block and carving it by hand, and finally moving the block onto the printmaking press,” Tenorio said. “The timing is tedious but very fun at the same time.”

As for her classes at the School of Art, “they are simply great,” Tenorio said. “I get to learn in different fields – design, typography, illustration, sculpture, ceramics, painting, figure drawing, etc. – and get to apply it to my artworks. Some professors have made me appreciate more of what I am capable of and … to think outside the box.”

Tenorio is proud of the winning design for Indigenous People’s Day, which will be included on T-shirts.

“I included a part of myself into the design,” said Tenorio, referring to a red, green, white and black flower at the top – a design used by the Chorotegas in Nicaragua. “This also shows that a Latino-Indigenous person such as myself exists and is capable of creating any representation works, whether its Central American, Mexican or Indigenous related.”

Tenorio joined the university’s Native Student Outreach Access and Resiliency (SOAR) program as a mentor – teaching Indigenous students from the Southwest about painting and sketching. Tenorio also helped other SOAR instructors gain a connection with Indigenous college students in Guadalajara, Mexico.

“With my community connections of the Tohono O’odham nation and Pascua Yaqui nation by my spouse and his family (O’odham), my family, friends and Indigenous communities on social media, it’s been healing to reconnect and actively help my family and Indigenous community in general,” Tenorio said, “and help those who are Indigenous outside of the global north and teach others that our relatives exist outside of the global north.”

After graduation, Tenorio hopes to keep making ceramics, which the Chorotegas are known for in Nicaragua.

Tenorio recently created a ceramic work of a mother and child, which “is about me and my son!”

“It’s almost identical,” Tenorio said, “to the one I made in sculpture of a mother holding her infant child – representing my father when he was an infant and my grandmother.”

That bronze sculpture now rests with Tenorio’s grandmother at her tomb in Nicaragua.

• Watch a video of Erika Tenorio for Native American Heritage Month,

TENORIO ADDRESSES COUNTY SUPERVISORS MEETING

Tenorio read the Land Acknowledgement on Nov. 15, 2022, at the Pima County Board of Supervisors Meeting.

“Koi muriό, S-ke:g taṣ, Tui taewai, Buenas, my name is Erika Tenorio, I am Central-American Mexican Indigenous and come from the Chorotega, Yaqui, and Tohono O’odham communities respectively. I’m an undergraduate senior studying at The University of Arizona where I’m double majoring in Studio Art Illustration, Latin American Studies, and minoring in American Indian Studies. Many of my works, both essays and artwork wise, revolve around my Central American, Mexican, Indigenous backgrounds; therefore the representations and acknowledgement is very important in a colonial diaspora. Kupa kastai, S-ap’o, Chiokoe uttesia, Gracias!”

As K. Lynn Robinson explores collective learning in her research, she’s convinced it can help change the art education profession in ways that better represent the nation’s diverse populations and communities.

For her efforts, the School of Art doctoral student has been named the recipient of the 2022-23 Dr. Maria Teresa Velez Diversity Leadership Scholarship. The award is given annually to a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona who’s committed to diversity and inclusion through teaching, research or outreach and service.

“My research is less about teacher development than it is about modeling new possibilities for all educators,” Robinson said. “We tend to look at education as the sole work of the teacher, but students learn in nearly all the spaces we find them in. Grandma’s house, at the community center, or in their dad’s garage. What if we gathered all these educators and gave them access to art materials and ways of doing?

“What if we encouraged them to work together and shared authority in the design of the lessons their children will engage within the classroom? We’d then have the village our ancestors spoke of, and we’d return to a collective learning environment more conducive to the diverse populations we serve.”

As a graduate research assistant, Robinson helped create an arts equity student fellowship for the College of Fine Arts and has been “key to the successes” of the university’s Equity in the Arts, said Dr. Amy Kraehe, associate vice president for the Arizona Arts’ program.

Robinson, also a graduate teaching assistant, calls the Art & Visual Culture Education program in the School of Art “one of a kind,” led by Drs. Kraehe, gloria j. Wilson, Ryan Shin and Carissa DiCindio and Robinson’s first-year mentor, Dr. Manisha Sharma.

“The art education field is over 70 percent white women, so joining a program that has such a diverse faculty spoke to my own experiences in the arts and education and the kind of practice I hope to have,” Robinson said. “Getting your Ph.D. is a certain kind of evil and really takes everything from you in the process, but (these professors) have given me such a fulfilling and multidimensional perspective on the power of the arts and how interwoven equity can be in its practice.”

Robinson received her B.A. in History & Peace, War and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.A. in Heritage Preservation/Public History from Georgia State University. While earning her master’s, she began consulting as an exhibit and program designer for small and large museums around Atlanta.

As for what to do with her Ph.D., Robinson is still working on her career plans.

“I’d love to teach ways the arts can be integrated into the curriculum for formal and informal education,” she said. “It’s a big passion of mine as I received this kind of teaching from my parents and schooling.

“I’d also love to continue into the arts business world and open my own gallery/community space in the communities that have been largely excluded from access to the arts. I want a space where people can talk the talk and walk the walk. Where art and education are accessible and transformative at all levels.”

For Robinson, art education has a “keen ability to work against the grain.”

“If we allow it, the methods of art education, in all of its reflexive beauty, can be elevated in such a way that it touches the deepest parts of our humanity — that urge to come together.”

ABOUT THE VELEZ DIVERSITY LEADERSHIP SCHOLARSHIP

• Named in honor of Dr. Maria Teresa Velez, associate dean, University of Arizona Graduate College, and her lifelong commitment to promoting graduate student diversity and inclusion.
• The award consists of $25,000, plus full base graduate tuition and student health insurance for a year.
• More information

As the University of Arizona School of Art celebrates the completion of a two-part major renovation project, Director Colin Blakely said the improvements are already showcasing the “amazing energy and work” of students and faculty.

During the second phase, the Visual Resource Center and Art & Visual Education classroom have been renovated along with the Sculpture wing and new administrative offices in the School of Art building.

A future phase could include renovation of the Visual Arts Graduate Research Laboratory to accommodate studio spaces for faculty and visiting artists, as well as the creation of a new collaborative learning space in support of larger general education classes taught by the school that serve a significant number of non-major students.

The first phase, finished in March, transformed the main lobby of the School of Art as well as the shared courtyard for the school and the art museum – both buildings date back to the 1950s – to create a welcoming patio and more open space.

“From day one, this new space has lived up to all we hoped it would be,” Blakely said. “It is a constant bustle of activity, bringing the amazing energy and work being done in the school front and center.”

The Lionel Rombach Gallery was moved from an interior location with no outside visibility to the front of the new space so that student art is now the first thing visitors see when entering the building. The main entrance was transformed to make the school more visible by changing the largely brick entrance to a glass entryway and moving the First-Year Experience studios to the front of the building.

The building also now features “hangout spaces” for students to relax, socialize and collaborate, including the new outdoor patio. The space was designed to be flexible enough to easily accommodate presentations, lectures and large events.

“Whether hosting an ABOR (Arizona Board of Regents) reception, a pop-up salon showcasing student work or simply serving as a space for informal congregation and collaboration, (the renovation) has increased the visibility of our work in critical ways,” Blakely said.

Construction began in summer 2021, thanks to a significant donation by Marcia Grand, for whom the Marcia Grand First Year Experience Annex is named for.

The project is part of the Arizona Arts Master Plan and the Arizona Advantage pillar of the University’s strategic plan, which calls on the University to “integrate the arts throughout the university experience and beyond.”

Andy Ober of University Communications contributed to this story.