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Timoteo Ikoshy Montoya was born in Corpus Christi,Texas in 1956. When he was nine his family moved to San Francisco, California. His artistic abilities have been with him since his youth. As he made his way through school, this creativity was encouraged by his family and instructors. He remembers, "When I was growing up in Texas and later in California, my older brother and I spent a lot of time drawing and creating. Our family didnıt spend time on emphasizing our "Indianess". The Indian people in our family was common knowledge just as it was with many Tejano families. It seemed that we were just trying to survive and make a place for ourselves just like the rest of America." He lived in the San Francisco bay area until his move up to Humboldt County where he attended College of the Redwoods. It was there he entered the Native American Studies Program and began his involvement with other native peoples in securing their culture and history. He remembers an elder Lakota brother referring to it as becoming a Born Aginı Savage. "It was at this time that I fully understood how much the Indian part of our family was a very important part of the foundation of my own life." He also began to paint using acrylics, his work making the most of ideas and inspiration from the native environment he was in. His art, from itıs inception, represents the evolution of immersion in native teachings as it traced itıs way through ceremonies and the everyday part of his own personal life. Ikoshy has never had any formal art training. " I was born with my artistic abilities and my elders, the sweat lodge and related ceremonies have been my art instructors", he states.
Ikoshy is an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas. He currently lives in the community of Yankee Hill, California with his wife, Nadine and two children, Raina and Teo. His art has been featured in documentary videos on Native America, in various periodicals, on book covers, CD jackets and cassettes.
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