As 2024 closes, we would like to pay tribute to a person who impacted us at Toh-Atin and many of our clients and friends.
On Dec. 8, Tyrone Yazzie passed at a hospital in Colorado Springs. It was the end of a difficult journey for him. Ty was born near Kayenta, Arizona, and suffered some abuse as a child. Jan and Snick Lee, an Anglo couple who ran a trading post in Kayenta, adopted him. He moved with them to Mancos and enrolled in Fort Lewis College after graduating high school.
He started working for us at the gallery in 1999 while attending school. Ty was a good student, always pleasant and was a joy to be around. He loved working at the gallery and worked hard to become knowledgeable about the artists and the work we carried. He was devoted to his adopted grandmother, Jan’s mom, and when she became ill, he quit working to care for her at her home in Mancos.
When she passed, he returned to school and continued to work at the gallery. After graduation, he continued to be a key person for us. Our mom had an old railroad caboose that had been renovated into a “mini house” that my parents used to rent to college students. Ty moved in and house-sat Mom’s place when she was gone. He later moved into one of her apartments.
On the surface, Ty had a good life going. He had a nice apartment, a good job, a car and an IRA. But there was a dark side to his life that he hid well for years. He had an encounter with the law that was based on his relationship with alcohol and ended up in prison for a short time. When he was due to be paroled, his parole officer called and asked if we would consider hiring him back, which we did.
Unfortunately, it was the beginning of a long slide that lasted for years. Tyrone did several short stints in jail. He went through treatment and AA, but he was just not capable of beating the addiction. Everyone who ever spent time around Ty liked him. His broad smile and enthusiasm were infectious. Finally, we had to tell him he could no longer work at the gallery until he was able to quit his relationship with alcohol. I hoped that might be the bottom for him, and he might pull out of it.
It didn’t work out that way. He eventually lost several other jobs and ended up living on the streets. One of us would see him at least once a week. He was always pleasant and asked about our families and the business. He was beaten up. He slept under stairways and panhandled. But he never lost an interest in other people. When our mother died, I saw him on the street, and he gave me a strong hug with tears in his eyes.
“Tyrone,” I said, “Let me put you in treatment and see if you can quit this time. We all love you, but you have got to do this for yourself.”
He smiled his great wide smile and said, “Jackson, you know I can’t quit drinking. I’m not going to lie to you. I love you guys, too.”
A few months ago, an ambulance picked him up on the street and took him to Mercy Hospital. When I went to see him, he had wires and tubes all over him, and they were giving him dialysis. He smiled, asked how my kids and grandkids were, and wanted to know how everything was going at the gallery. We discussed his family in Kayenta and his time in Mancos and at FLC. I left town the next day and thought that was probably the last time I would see him.
But he was released and visited a friend on the Front Range and his sister in Kayenta before returning to Durango to live in the streets. “I like it here,” he told me. “I have friends here.”
This time, when the ambulance picked him up, they had to fly him to a hospital in Colorado Springs, where he finished his trip on Earth.
Tyrone Yazzie was a kind soul who chose the life he lived. While it is easy to be critical of people with addictions, it is harder to be kind and not judge. Unfortunately, most of us have had people in our lives who could not escape the devil inside them. Ultimately, as hard as it is, you must accept that it was Tyrone’s choice.
We miss him and honor the person he was on the inside. And we hope he has found his peace.
This tribute was included in Jackson Clark’s Dec. 28 enewsletter about personalities in the Indigenous art world in the Four Corners. Clark is a partner in Toh-Atin Gallery in Durango.
