governor's award goes to tammy garcia
05.15.2008
Speaking of lifetime achievement awards, it’s rare for someone as young as Tammy Garcia to be honored alongside artists whose body of work spans an entire lifetime. But the 2008 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, typically granted to mature artists with several decades of accomplishments to point to, includes 39-year-old Tammy among its recipients. This puts her in the company of such illustrious former awardees as Georgia O’Keeffe, Bill Mauldin, Joy Harjo, Pablita Velarde, and Cipriano Vigil.
Nominations for the honor are gathered each year from arts groups and interested local parties, then are reviewed by a committee of the New Mexico Arts Commission, which in turn sends it recommendations to the full Commission and the Governor for a final culling.
Tammy is the youngest artist ever to receive the award, but the committee found that her accomplishments in introducing contemporary design to ceramics, jewelry, pottery, and sculpture were “unparalleled, bringing wide recognition to the state of New Mexico…she creates pottery and sculpture that are simply breathtaking, and her talent seems to have no limit.”
