S FR E P O RTE R .CO M / ARTS
Shontez Morris leaves legacy of light BY ALEX DE VORE a l e x @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
M
y friends are likely tired of hearing the story after countless retellings this week, but it’s how I want to remember my friend Shontez “Taz” Morris: While driving along Marcy Street in downtown Santa Fe some months ago, a friend of mine remarked, “Ohmygod—it’s Taz!” Rolling down the window, we began shouting stuff about how we love her, and there, in the street, Shontez spent nearly a minute screaming compliments and practically dancing. In that moment, like so many others, Taz was pure kindness and light. I will miss her dearly. Morris died at 42 in the wee hours of Thursday, March 17 from complications related to asthma. According to Kate Kennedy, a longtime friend and co-worker at Security Asset Solutions, Morris wasn’t feeling well during a security shift at a Meow Wolf concert earlier in the night. Later, at home, Morris called 911 when she started having trouble breathing, but paramedics didn’t make it in time. Morris had largely recovered from a bout with COVID-19 a few months ago, yet her asthma had worsened afterward, Kennedy said. Morris grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn where, her brother Andrew Morris tells SFR, she attended the
Boys and Girls High School. She graduated in out her beautiful bright presence,” says Jared seems humanly possible. 1996, and loved the school, Andrew says, not- Antonio-Justo Trujillo of downtown gallery Her true artistry, then, might have been ing how he found a pristine book bag from the KEEP Contemporary, where Morris would in how she made the people around her feel. institution as he was clearing out his sister’s sometimes work security during events. Anyone who ever received a hug from Taz apartment this week. Even as a kid, he con- “Everyone loved her. I’ll miss her hugs and knows exactly what I mean, and many were tinues, Morris was a shining example of kind- her enthusiasm for the arts, but most of all I’ll the times I’d find a message online that read ness and positivity. miss my friend.” simply “Taz hugz!” Somehow, these always “We had our disagreements here came when I needed them most. and there, but we were always very “There was one specific incident close,” he says. “Even recently, we’d when my mom was hospitalized for still act like when we were 10 or 12 MS reasons, and Shontez beat me years old when we were together. I to the hospital,” Kennedy recalls. think that’s what I’ll miss most.” “And she sat in that waiting room. I Morris would briefly attend don’t know how long she was there, Virginia State University, but she’d but I know she didn’t leave until return home after a semester to bemy mom was discharged—and she come a state corrections officer in didn’t think anything of it. The way New York. That job ultimately left that she operated in the world was... her feeling unfulfilled, according to everybody was family unless proven Andrew, but the death of their uncle otherwise. The way that everybody and the subsequent discovery of an knew and loved her, she knew and entire book’s worth of fashion deloved everybody.” signs he never got to create sparked “I’m just glad she was able to a love of art in Taz that persisted uncome out here and be a positive intil her death. She moved to Atlanta fluence, a positive reflection,” brothto live with her aunt, Janice Fagan, er Andrew says. “I’m still so proud after that, where she worked private of her, and what’s keeping me sane security and became interested in is just knowing that she did some murals. Fagan tells SFR that’s where real great work out here. I’m just so You won’t have to go far to find a Santa Fean affected by the death Taz befriended Santa Fe artist/muproud of the life my sister lived.” of Shontez “Taz” Morris. sician Aaron Kalaii while working on one such mural, then relocated to Santa Fe in 2013. Morris was, of course, a creator herself—a CELEBRATING THE LIFE “It actually started in Atlanta,” Fagan painter, storyteller and freelance fried chickOF SHONTEZ MORRIS: notes, “but she relocated to Santa Fe because en cook; a curator who organized shows for Memorial Service: 1 pm Tuesday, the art community was easier for her to be- artists she loved and an artist who presided March 29. Free. Rivera Family Funeral Home, come a part of.” over exhibitions of her own work. Her ap417 E Rodeo Road, (505) 989-7032 For other Santa Feans who’ll miss Morris, pearance at Raashan Ahmad’s I Got a Story To Dance Party: 8 pm Tuesday, March 29. Free. this move was a godsend. Tell speaker series in 2020 remains a prime Meow Wolf, 1352 Rufina Circle, “Shontez was a gentle warrior and our example of the type of person she was, and (505) 395-6369 very own hugging saint,” says writer and reiki 2019’s Love Light and Awakening exhibit at A Gofundme campaign is raising funds for practitioner Tintawi Kaigziabiher. “Her med- Meow Wolf found Taz beaming with pride. funeral costs at gofundme.com/help-withicine was to show up and show love. Her pres- Morris also worked countless events around shontez-taz-morriss-final-expenses. Any ence was the ointment that healed our woes. town, sat on the board of Santa Fe’s Human extra money will go toward scholarships at Her vibration anointed each of us.” Rights Alliance and Leadership Santa Fe Brooklyn’s Boys and Girl’s High School and to the Santa Fe HRA and Leadership Santa Fe. “My events will never be the same with- and, somehow, touched more lives than even COURTESY MORRIS FAMILY
Queen Taz
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