“El Vaquero Muerto” (“the dead cowboy”) considers himself a “ramblin’ man."
Born and raised in Tempe, Ariz., Marco Antonio Turrubiartes began selling his works in downtown Phoenix circa 2005. His artistic education was a combination of formal and informal training. He joined the Army Reserve as a graphic artist and took classes at Mesa Community College. But it wasn’t until he was jailed for two years—his “Federal Art Study Grant,” as he calls it—that he began to improve as an artist.
"Rockabilly Girl." Photo courtesy of Marco Antonio Turrubiartes.“The biggest thing I learned was patience,” he says. “It was where I first realized that any work worth a damn took time and effort.”
His paintings and leather works are available on his website and several local venues. “Art Murmur” sat down with "The Dead Cowboy":
Art Murmur: Why do you call yourself “El Vaquero Muerto”, and why does the subject of Dia de Los Muertos [“Day of the Dead”] interest you?
El Vaquero Muerto: My father grew up in Guadalupe, Ariz., and my grandmother lived there until she died. I remember going to her house as a kid and seeing all of the Mexican imports and altars in the neighbor's yards. My grandmother was Christian—not Catholic—so the iconography of all the saints and the Lady Guadalupe and all of the Mexican folk practices were strange and wonderful mysteries to me.
As I got older, I developed an affinity—as many little boys do—for skulls. But as I got older and began to understand aesthetic, I really hated the "evil skulls" that were so prevalent. I loved the whimsical nature of the Dia de los Muertos folk art. They were almost more full of life than real people were.
I had been living out of Arizona for over a year, and I [was] actually missing it. I started thinking about how I'd always hated the spaghetti westerns my father watched religiously when I was a kid. But I didn't really hate them anymore. I actually realized I loved them.
Dia de los Muertos had been an obsession for quite awhile, so I began drawing skeleton cowboys and desert nights. That's when I decided that I would call myself El Vaquero Muerto— “the dead cowboy” in Spanish—and take on a new artistic theme. I've been doing it ever since.
AM: Some of your pieces make references to famous images like Rosie The Riveter and the Gadsden Flag. What drove you to create your own renditions of them?
EVM: I love the symbols, heroes and monsters of our culture and different meanings they can take when put in a new perspective. I created the "We Can Do It" (Rosie the Riveter) and "Don't Tread on Me" (Gadsden Flag) pieces for a “Freedom or Death” art showing I did in Mesa.
AM: What would your life be like if you hadn't become an artist?
"Catrina Mask." Photo courtesy of Marco Antonio Turrubiartes.Turrubiartes’ work is available at Lawn Gnome during First Fridays in downtown Phoenix, Missconstrued Boutique in Phoenix, Rocket Resale in Tempe, and Eclectic Monkey Emporium in Mesa. You can also “like” him on Facebook.
To view some of my artwork, feel free to visit mabmeddowsmercury.deviantart.com. You can also tweet me at @DamianoAlec or email me at Alec.Damiano@asu.edu.
