Written By Tya Alisa Anthony

“Day in the Life” by Tya Alisa Anthony—interdisciplinary artist, educator, curator, and community advocate based in Denver:

🕰️ Morning Routine

  • 6:30 AM – Wake & Centering
    She likely starts with mindfulness or journaling—grounding herself before diving into her work as she balances personal practice and community responsibilities  .

  • 7:30 AM – Studio Prep
    Arrives at her RedLine Contemporary Art Center studio. Begins assembling mixed media—sorting archival photos, botanical clippings, and paint for her collage/Tarot pieces  .

🎨 Midday: Studio & Practice

  • 10:00 AM – Artmaking Session
    Deep in process: layering images, painting details in gold, developing the next collage from her Rooted Shadows Tarot or Organic Tarot series  .

  • 12:30 PM – Community Engagement
    Leads or plans an outreach program—workshops or educational series at RedLine—helping others explore identity through visual art  .

☕ Afternoon: Collaboration & Curation

  • 2:00 PM – Curatorial Planning / Meetings
    Co-ordinates gallery exhibitions, mentors emerging artists, and collaborates on events—perhaps preparing for shows like Threaded or Descansa En El Poder  .

  • 3:30 PM – Research & Reflection
    Spends time reviewing archives—historical images, legal documents, botanical symbolism—to feed into her socially-aware work on race, equity, and ancestry 

🌆 Evening: Outreach & Reflection

  • 5:30 PM – Public Art/Performance
    Could be hosting a workshop (like collage-making in Lafayette), attending community events, or presenting artist talks (e.g. CU Boulder) .

  • 7:00 PM – Documentation & Writing
    Updates her website journal, writes for Hyperallergic or Contemporary Thought Magazine, documents events, and archives progress.

  • 8:30 PM – Wind‑Down
    Unwinds with family, reads, does botanical walks or personal visual reflections—recharging ideas for the next day.

🎯 What Makes It Unique

  • Multidisciplinary Flow – Visits between visual artmaking, curation, education, and community empowerment.

  • Rooted in Ritual & Archives – Combines research into history, archival photography, family narratives, and botanical symbolism to create culturally resonant works  .

  • Community at Core – Her roles (Director of Education & Community at RedLine, founder of Mahogany Vū) show a strong dedication to empowering BIPOC artists and fostering dialogue  .

🌟 Want to Do This Challenge?

Feel free to model your day around my approach:

  • Morning: creative grounding + conceptual planning

  • Midday: active artmaking

  • Afternoon: community work, curatorial or collaborative tasks

  • Evening: documentation, outreach, reflection

You can share your own routine, what rituals you create, what archives or imagery you explore, and how you connect your art to community and identity.

Happy to help you structure or reflect on your experience—just let me know!

What’s for dinner? Lamb!

Tya Alisa Anthony

Tya Alisa Anthony is an American artist, photographer, writer, and independent curator whose work explores memory, mythology, ancestry, and the quiet ways people leave themselves behind in the objects they touch. For more than twenty years, her practice has existed at the intersection of visual research, education, and cultural storytelling, investigating resilience through the body, the landscape, historical archives, and the natural world.

Working across photography, collage, cyanotype, botanical collections, handmade books, and mixed media, Anthony approaches each body of work as an evolving archive rather than a finished statement. She is drawn to weathered photographs, heirlooms, medicinal plants, folklore, ritual objects, forgotten architecture, and the symbolic language that connects cultures across time. Her work asks how identity is preserved, transformed, and remembered.

Alongside her studio practice, Anthony has spent more than two decades building educational programs, exhibitions, and community-centered initiatives that expand access to the arts. Her leadership has helped shape institutions, mentor emerging artists, develop sustainable systems, and create spaces where creativity becomes a lifelong practice rather than a privilege.

Anthony’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Octopus Collection. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is held in numerous private collections.

She is currently creating Organic Tarot, a 78-card hand-collaged tarot deck and accompanying memoir that intertwines mythology, autobiography, botanical symbolism, and the archetypal journey of transformation. The project reflects the central thread running throughout her career: that art is not simply something we make—it is a way of understanding ourselves, preserving what matters, and leaving a map for those who come after us.

http://www.tyaanthony.com
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