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July 2016
Interview Chandika Tazouz Tucson, Arizona Interviewed by Diane C. Taylor |
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Chandika Tazouz: Portraitist of the World
by Diane C. Taylor
by Diane C. Taylor
Chandika Tazouz
Over the years I’ve run into Chandika Tazouz at WomanKraft, Cat Mountain Station and exhibits by the Tucson Mountains Artist Collective, of which we’re both members. You’ll recognize her immediately by her size – she’s one of the most petite women I’ve ever met. Recently we chatted about her art and how she got to where she’s at.
Chandika Tazouz: I haven’t been out much lately, because I hurt my back. I was invited by the law firm Mesch Clark Rothschild to show my work. I thought it was to be a group show, but it turned out that the curator wanted to show only people. To my surprise I was given a one-woman show, The Indigenous Peoples of the World. It took me some time to get photos of all the work for the four-color brochure the firm produces for each show. Altogether I have 83 pieces there, including several from my own collection and some new drawings I had been working on.
DCT: Yes, I was at the opening. I overheard someone, maybe one of the attorneys, who said he thought your show was the best they’d ever had.
CTazouz: Yes, he told me that also, and it was very encouraging to hear. I had a wonderful opening and a chance to talk to a lot of people. The response was very positive, and the show will be up until mid-September.
DCT: Chandika Tazouz is not exactly your usual American name…
CTazouz: My father was from Romania, my mother from Russia, near the Turkish border. They emigrated and met in Scotland, where I was born. The name Chandika was dreamed by an enlightened master in India called Poonjaji, who claimed it to be my real name. I didn’t legalize it, but I use it as my first name.
Chandika Tazouz: I haven’t been out much lately, because I hurt my back. I was invited by the law firm Mesch Clark Rothschild to show my work. I thought it was to be a group show, but it turned out that the curator wanted to show only people. To my surprise I was given a one-woman show, The Indigenous Peoples of the World. It took me some time to get photos of all the work for the four-color brochure the firm produces for each show. Altogether I have 83 pieces there, including several from my own collection and some new drawings I had been working on.
DCT: Yes, I was at the opening. I overheard someone, maybe one of the attorneys, who said he thought your show was the best they’d ever had.
CTazouz: Yes, he told me that also, and it was very encouraging to hear. I had a wonderful opening and a chance to talk to a lot of people. The response was very positive, and the show will be up until mid-September.
DCT: Chandika Tazouz is not exactly your usual American name…
CTazouz: My father was from Romania, my mother from Russia, near the Turkish border. They emigrated and met in Scotland, where I was born. The name Chandika was dreamed by an enlightened master in India called Poonjaji, who claimed it to be my real name. I didn’t legalize it, but I use it as my first name.
CTazouz_El Niño-handcolored printer
DCT: How did you get into art?
CTazouz: Art is the passion of my life. I started drawing when I was three. If I ran out of paper, I drew on the walls. My mother couldn’t keep them clean. I always drew faces -- I found them everywhere: in clouds, in trees. And I was a nature child, always outside, always in the forest near our house.
In Scotland foreigners were not welcome, so I never felt I belonged. When I was 12, we moved to London, a cosmopolitan city, so I felt more comfortable. I left school on my 14th birthday. I didn’t like school, probably because I was dyslexic. It was always clear to me that my destiny was in the arts. When I first left school, I took drama lessons, but I was painfully shy. Then I went to the best art school in London, for literally five minutes.
DCT: Why was that?
CTazouz: I went into the classroom where the teacher was instructing the students on how to draw a still life. I had developed my own way of drawing, so I left immediately.
CTazouz: Art is the passion of my life. I started drawing when I was three. If I ran out of paper, I drew on the walls. My mother couldn’t keep them clean. I always drew faces -- I found them everywhere: in clouds, in trees. And I was a nature child, always outside, always in the forest near our house.
In Scotland foreigners were not welcome, so I never felt I belonged. When I was 12, we moved to London, a cosmopolitan city, so I felt more comfortable. I left school on my 14th birthday. I didn’t like school, probably because I was dyslexic. It was always clear to me that my destiny was in the arts. When I first left school, I took drama lessons, but I was painfully shy. Then I went to the best art school in London, for literally five minutes.
DCT: Why was that?
CTazouz: I went into the classroom where the teacher was instructing the students on how to draw a still life. I had developed my own way of drawing, so I left immediately.
CTazouz_Seer_pencil
CT: And then?
CTazouz: I took several jobs. I wanted to learn to sew with a machine, so my first job was as a seamstress assistant. Then I was a window designer in a fashionable London dress store. At 17, when I left home, my favorite job was as a waitress in the first coffee shop to open in Chelsea, at that time London’s arts district. After getting married, I spent a couple of years in Ireland, where my first son was born. Two years later we emigrated to Canada, where my younger son was born. From there I moved to Laguna Beach, California, got a divorce and eventually ended up in Arizona.
DCT: But your art?
CTazouz: Art is the passion of my life. Being self-taught I studied the Old Masters at museums and drew all the time. My first husband was a super salesman 20 years my senior. He saw my talent and encouraged me, giving me self-confidence. After we moved to Canada, I started painting professionally. We house-sat for an artist where I had access to clay and oils. I made clay objects as well as painting and drawing.
In 1972 I moved to Sells, Arizona, to live with the Tohono O’odham Nation. I wanted to be authentic in my representation of the Native Americans, and it was there I learned the true meaning of silence, along with patience and tolerance. For the first time in my life I felt like I had come “home”. I stayed for eight years. The second time I felt at home was later, in India, an extremely challenging country I’ve visited three times and dearly love.
CTazouz: I took several jobs. I wanted to learn to sew with a machine, so my first job was as a seamstress assistant. Then I was a window designer in a fashionable London dress store. At 17, when I left home, my favorite job was as a waitress in the first coffee shop to open in Chelsea, at that time London’s arts district. After getting married, I spent a couple of years in Ireland, where my first son was born. Two years later we emigrated to Canada, where my younger son was born. From there I moved to Laguna Beach, California, got a divorce and eventually ended up in Arizona.
DCT: But your art?
CTazouz: Art is the passion of my life. Being self-taught I studied the Old Masters at museums and drew all the time. My first husband was a super salesman 20 years my senior. He saw my talent and encouraged me, giving me self-confidence. After we moved to Canada, I started painting professionally. We house-sat for an artist where I had access to clay and oils. I made clay objects as well as painting and drawing.
In 1972 I moved to Sells, Arizona, to live with the Tohono O’odham Nation. I wanted to be authentic in my representation of the Native Americans, and it was there I learned the true meaning of silence, along with patience and tolerance. For the first time in my life I felt like I had come “home”. I stayed for eight years. The second time I felt at home was later, in India, an extremely challenging country I’ve visited three times and dearly love.
CTazouz_Still Close_oil
DCT: Your work covers a variety of ethnicities. How did that happen?
CTazouz: I have always had an affinity for indigenous people and, since I felt like an outsider growing up, I dislike any form of discrimination. My favorites were mostly people of Third-World countries who seemed to have a simpler and deeper understanding of life.
I used to live in a motor home. I spent the winters in Arizona. For the summers I drove to Alaska, selling my art to gift stores and galleries along the way and doing art fairs all over Alaska. After many years of this, a friend dared me to spend the winter in Alaska. It was magical, and I ended up spending two winters. I enjoyed the Inuits, Athabascans, Aleuts – real people who came out of hiding after the tourists left. I was on the brink of becoming famous, but on a visit to my son in Tucson, I met a musician/artist and ended up moving back to Arizona. We collaborated on a series of woodcuts and, thanks to him, I also did some wood engravings.
CTazouz: I have always had an affinity for indigenous people and, since I felt like an outsider growing up, I dislike any form of discrimination. My favorites were mostly people of Third-World countries who seemed to have a simpler and deeper understanding of life.
I used to live in a motor home. I spent the winters in Arizona. For the summers I drove to Alaska, selling my art to gift stores and galleries along the way and doing art fairs all over Alaska. After many years of this, a friend dared me to spend the winter in Alaska. It was magical, and I ended up spending two winters. I enjoyed the Inuits, Athabascans, Aleuts – real people who came out of hiding after the tourists left. I was on the brink of becoming famous, but on a visit to my son in Tucson, I met a musician/artist and ended up moving back to Arizona. We collaborated on a series of woodcuts and, thanks to him, I also did some wood engravings.
CTazouz_Reflections_ stone lithography
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DCT: What mediums do you work in?
CTazouz: In many different ones, but my favorites are charcoal and stone lithography. I also like working in oil, pen and ink and pencil. When I make prints in black and white, I follow the European tradition of making 200 or fewer. I hand-color them with colored pencil, so no two are exactly alike. DCT: What is stone lithography? CTazouz: This is the oldest form of printmaking, where everything is hand-done including tearing the paper. The technique uses huge slabs of Bavarian limestone. You draw on the stone with litho crayon. Then the stone is treated with gum Arabic, etching the image onto the surface of the stone, which is then inked. It takes two men to make each print, because the stones are quite heavy and they have to go through a large, hand-pulled press. You work light to dark -- the opposite of charcoal, which is dark to light. |
 CTazouz_Sari Sunrise_charcoal
DCT: And pencil?
CTazouz: I recently started experimenting with graphite pencils, a slower process and also light to dark. This requires great patience, a quality I didn’t have in my youth. DCT: I’ve seen landscapes, or perhaps better, “townscapes” that you’ve done. CTazouz: About 10 years ago, I started painting animals and did a series of historic drawings of downtown Tucson in the 1800s, as well as some desert scenes of the villages on the reservation. Now I’m in the process of going back to my first love of painting impressionistic, less realistic pieces. |
CTazouz_Prankster_pencil
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CTazouz_Cheek to Cheek_charcoal, sepia oil wash
DCT: What’s in the future for you?
CTazouz: I’d really like to go back on the road again, possibly spend a summer in Alaska to see if I can start where I left off years ago and perhaps get into some galleries again. I would also like to spend more time with the Tohono O’odham on the reservation. I’ll need a space to park a small RV and do my art when I’m here, preferably on the west side.
For now, the show at Mesch Clark Rothschild (259 N. Meyer, Tucson) will hang until mid-September and can be seen during office hours. I also have prints of the historic pieces in the Tucson Mountains Artist Collective show at Northwestern Mutual (1760 E. River Road, Suite 247) until July 15. I expect to participate in the Art Trails open studio tour this fall at my home / studio in the Tucson Mountains.
To see more of Chandika Tazouz ’s art, check out her website: tazouzart.com.
CTazouz: I’d really like to go back on the road again, possibly spend a summer in Alaska to see if I can start where I left off years ago and perhaps get into some galleries again. I would also like to spend more time with the Tohono O’odham on the reservation. I’ll need a space to park a small RV and do my art when I’m here, preferably on the west side.
For now, the show at Mesch Clark Rothschild (259 N. Meyer, Tucson) will hang until mid-September and can be seen during office hours. I also have prints of the historic pieces in the Tucson Mountains Artist Collective show at Northwestern Mutual (1760 E. River Road, Suite 247) until July 15. I expect to participate in the Art Trails open studio tour this fall at my home / studio in the Tucson Mountains.
To see more of Chandika Tazouz ’s art, check out her website: tazouzart.com.