Newsroom

By Betsy Friauf

Library staff member Tammy Gomez has been making performance-art history for decades. Now she’s helping preserve Fort Worth’s history.

Gomez is among 12 of the city’s influential Latinas whose oral histories have been preserved in a project you can see and hear in March at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.

“Mujeres Poderosas: The Legacy of Strong Latinas in Fort Worth” combines audio from the histories with photos by Pulitzer Prize winner Beatriz Terrazas. The museum exhibit runs from March 4 through March 31. A reception open to the public will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.  Thursday, March 3, at the museum.

Gomez is a poet, playwright and performance artist whose work pushes the boundaries of traditional literature and expression.

“My hope is to inspire individuals to have a change of heart, and only art can include the emotional component that moves people,” she said.

She does not own a car. She bicycles to her part-time job at the UNT Health Science Center, where she is a circulation desk assistant in the Lewis Medical Science Library. She bicycles most places she needs to go. Her groundbreaking play She: Bike/Spoke/Love features actors riding bikes onstage. A homage to the Open Streets movement that advocates bicycle transportation, She: Bike/Spoke/Love premiered at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center in 2007.

Gomez is also an award-winning poet who studied under eminent writers including Allen Ginsberg. Working with the Aberg Center for Literacy in Dallas, she is helping to plan a visit by U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera in May.

• Share
• Tweet