Jose Montoya, Artist, Activist , Musician, Sacramento Poet

Reposted: Original Article By Bill Lindelof and Stephen Magagnini Published: Thursday, Sep. 26, 2013 - 6:09 pm

Jose Montoya, Sacramento poet, and artist

 

Jose Montoya, a nationally known artist, poet, and musician, has died. Montoya, an art professor at Sacramento State for 27 years, was a co-founder of the Royal Chicano Air Force, an influential Chicano political artists group. Montoya died Wednesday at the age of 81.

Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna, whose father, the late Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr. knew Montoya well, said that the Sacramento community had lost a gentle soul with an extraordinarily creative mind.

 

“He was someone who could use spoken word to conjure poignant imagery and promote a healthy contemplative state,” said Serna. “His poems gave us pause to reconsider our individual and cultural condition.”

Montoya was born in Escobosa, New Mexico, and grew up in central California. He worked with labor leader Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

He was Sacramento’s third poet laureate, named to the post by the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission in 2002. He is the author of collections of poetry such as the acclaimed “In Formation: 20 Years of Joda.”

In interviews, Montoya said he learned arts from his mother, whose own artistic endeavors involved decorating church interiors. He also was the founder of Sacramento State’s Barrio Arts program.

Jose Montoya, one of the original members of the Royal Chicano Air Force, retouches the mural he and several other artists painted in 1977 at Southside Park. Montoya and the artists have been working on the mural, which has been vandalized, for more than two weeks. Monday, August 20, 2001, Sacramento, Calif.


THE SACRAMENTO BEE

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