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Ruby Chacón is a US born Chicana painter, muralist, and chalk artist actively involved in representing social, cultural, and political work histories of various ethnic groups in society, beginning in the late 1990s. Her contempoary and colorful art resembles the art forms of Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, Diego Rivera, David Alfredo Siqueiros, and others.
Chacón is passionate about representing a sense of belonging in culture and society. The need to voice her overlooked family and community story are what inspire Chacón's work. Chacón was born to Virgina (Montaño) and Antonio Maria Chacón in a family of six siblings in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her paternal great grandparents (Manzanarez) were Tewa Pueblo Indian, and maternal great grandparents (Sandoval) were Apache who passed away when her grandfather was born. Her grandfather Jacobo was adopted into a Mexican American (Montaño) family in Chimayo, New Mexico. Most of the themes she reflects in her paintings were informed by stories told by her paternal grandfather Cosme Chacón. Her grandfather had walked to Monticello, Utah, as a boy with his father and built the second cabin in that area. Although not formally educated, he was a poet at heart, as well as a comedic performer, and a sheepherder by trade. Some family friends and members compared Cosme to the Bob Hope of Monticello because people gathered to visit and laugh with him in order to forget their problems of poverty and social injustice. Cosme learned English and Dine through his ability to mimic language. His great grandfather had spoken several native languages as well and passed his skill and love of languages to Cosme. When Ruby's father moved further north, to Salt Lake, it disconnected the family from their history. Ruby and her siblings are the first generation to become monolingual, English dominant, which then became detrimental to their dignified cultural identity. Even though her family knew English, success in accessing educational and other public institutions was challenging.
In her journey Chacón came to value formal and eveyday education. In spite of being discouraged from educators and blatantly told by a school counselor that she would never graduate high school, Chacón soildly completed her secondary education. She later attended Santa Barbara Community College and Salt Lake Community College. In 1998, she went on to earn a Bachelors of Fine Art in painting and drawing from the University of Utah. She continued to learn more about art in her extensive travels to Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, New Mexico, California, and other places. After completing a mural about a Hindu Godess, Saraswati, Chacón was accepted by Rotary Group Study Exchange to travel in India for a month and learn from Indian artists in 2008.
In 2003 Chacón co-founded the Mestizo Institute of Culture & Arts, a non-profit organization, with Writer Terry Hurst. It serves as the first art institution representing Chicana/o, Latina/o, American Indian, and other underrepresented groups in the State of Utah. Currently, she is the in-house artist at the Mestizo Institute of Culture & Arts' Gallery that shares space with the Mestizo Coffeehouse.
Carrying the legacy of other Chicana/o artist, Chacón is known for incorporating themes of social justice and community dignity in her paintings, murals, and chalk art. In 2004 she completed a series of self-portraits displayed at the University of Utah representing herself as histortical figures such as La Malinche, La Espanola, La Mestiza, La Llorona, Chicana Brown Beret, Dolores Huerta, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Cihuacoatl and others. Other themes in her art include family, immigration, laborers, women, and multiculturalism. She has led and completed community art murals such as:
Cihuacoatl (located at 500 North 600 West, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Golden Rule: United Farm Workers and César Chávez (located 500 North 600 West, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Hope and Determination (located at 745 E 300 S, Salt Lake City, Utah)
I Belong, We Belong (located at Humanities Department, University of Utah)
Saraswati (located at Horizonte, 1300 S Main, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Trabajo y Sueños en todas las generaciones Mestizaje en Wyoming (located at University of Wyoming)
Mothers (located at 1400 S Redwood Road, Salt Lake City, Utah)
And Justice For All: 14th Amdenment (located at Summit County Courthouse, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Circle of Life, and Land, Water and Tradition (located at Whitehorse High School, Montezuma Creek, Utah)
Revitalizing Hope (located at 500 North 622 West, Salt Lake City, Utah)
Redemption (located at 622 West Girard, Salt Lake City, Utah)
and other 2009 upcoming murals (located at 300 North 1100 West, Salt Lake City, Utah)
