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Tamiris Ruth Duke, 86, passed away on December 14, 2024 in Ruidoso, New Mexico. She was born on January 31, 1938 in Ely, Nevada to Glen and Ora (Gale) Southwick. She lived in Ely until age 8 when her father's job with the US Forest Service required them to move to Reno, Nevada. She attended Reno High School (class of 1955) and studied ballet before going off to college at Utah State University. Though she initially began college in the Home Economics department with an emphasis on Fashion Merchandising and Textile Design, she quickly decided to pursue her master's degree in Psychology instead, which she earned in 1960.
During her college years, she spent several summers in Los Angeles, California and fell in love with that city and its culture. Tamiris had learned shorthand and typing in high school so she was able to get secretarial jobs in LA during the summers there through Kelly Girls. Her extensive note cards in shorthand for her Master's thesis impressed her professors. She did baby-sitting jobs in high school to save the money she needed for her college tuition. Her dad wanted her to attend BYU, but a baby-sitting job for a couple who'd attended Utah State and their recommendation of that school convinced that was where she would go to college.
Following her graduation from Utah State, she drove with college friends to New York City and then spent the summer with her future husband, Don Duke, in Connecticut. She took the train to the American Psychological Convention in Chicago that year where she was offered her first job as a child psychologist with the Colorado State Health Department in Pueblo, Colorado. She loved her job but hated the Pueblo weather, so she moved to Los Angeles in 1962. Don Duke followed her to California and they were married on March 2, 1963.
Tamiris often reminisced about the home she and Don owned at 2024 Avon Street in the Echo Park / Elysian Heights area of LA. It was a Spanish style home built by an architect who ran out of money before it was finished, so Don and she finished it and began their family there. Son Timothy was born in July 1966 and twin daughters Lorraine and Loretta were born a little over a year later in October 1967. Tamiris said she loved being pregnant and even taught childbirth classes for other women through her obstetrician's office.
There were 52 steps from Avon Street to the front door which were daunting to her mother and dad when they came to visit their grand babies. During this time, Tamiris began pursuing her other career as an artist by attending the Otis Art Institute where she met her life-long friend and art mentor, Richard "Dick" Mock. Dick sometimes lived with the Duke family in the lower floor of the Avon Street house and helped with caring for the three young children. Her good friend, Deena Booth, was also a great help in caring for Tamiris’ kids. In an autobiography she wrote in 2015, Tamiris also credited Bentley Shad of the Otis Art Institute and Gordon Wagner of the Los Angeles City Art Program as having a long-lasting influence on her creative processes.
Later, in 1972 Don's job as a chemist forced them to move to Anaheim where they bought a home with a swimming pool and avocado trees. All the neighbor kids came to swim in the pool and Tamiris would swim herself before the kids came home from school. She said she never had to worry about the younger kids in the pool because the older kids looked out for them. They also had a pet goat there that Tamiris said would dance with her. She loved goats and always enjoyed watching them whenever she could.
Don and Tamiris separated and later divorced May 27, 1978. After her divorce, Tamiris quit her job as a data entry supervisor at IBM and started her own custom jewelry business. Tamiris moved to El Cajon, near San Diego from Anaheim in March of 1987, while Lorraine attended San Diego State University. Loretta and Tim both attended Tamiris’ Alma Mater with their grandparents’ blessings. Around that same time Tamiris changed her retail jewelry business to a mail-order wholesale supplier of various items for New Age bookstores around the country. While in San Diego she resumed Tai Chi lessons after a 10-year hiatus. In 1993 she closed her business and moved to Tularosa, NM. She began teaching Tai Chi for the New Mexico State University Continuing Education department in 1998.
As a person, Tamiris was a prolific artist. Her mediums were paint and fabric. She created many paintings and collages, all of them interesting and abstract. She believed that eyes and cameras were for capturing realism. Many walls are graced by her work. When she was working on a painting or collage, she said she would get into a trance-like state where she was merely putting down what the universe showed her.
Tamiris had several art shows at the Flickinger Theatre and Eagle Ranch in Alamogordo, New Mexico, as well as at the Zozo Gallery in Carrizozo. Her artworks have also been shown in several galleries in southern New Mexico and at the Santa Fe Museum of Fine Arts and the Carlsbad Museum of Fine Arts.
She was never afraid to completely start over if a painting didn't turn out the way she wanted it to look. She was always determined to create her artwork, no matter the personal inconvenience. When she became allergic to oil paints, she switched to watercolors and acrylic paints. When she later discovered she was allergic to the pigments in the water-based paints, she created beautiful fabric collages from scraps of fabrics sewn or glued together, often combined with feathers, shells and other found treasures.
When dementia interfered with her ability to create what she wanted, she still kept trying to make new artwork at a much simpler level. Pablo Picasso once said “When I was a child, I learned to paint as an adult. But when I got old, I learned to paint like a child.” During her final years, Tamiris’ artwork displayed a child-like simplicity that could still be beautiful.
Tamiris was also a helper and a seeker of enlightenment. These drew her into counseling which she never gave up even when she wasn’t doing it professionally. At the dawn of the age of Aquarius, she felt fortunate to be part of a group in Los Angeles first studying the benefits of meditation with Jack and Janette Gariss. She was featured prominently in a photo accompanying an article about the Gariss meditation group’s search for the alpha brain wave in the April 21, 1972 Life magazine. Later in life she became a hospice volunteer. Her circle of friends was very broad with a wide range of characters embracing even those she didn’t share the same ideals with. She cherished them all.
Tamiris had an amazing way of connecting with people: she would ask them for help with some project of hers and they would usually respond by being flattered that she consulted them and would become friends as the project moved on. Sometimes she’d just ask their opinion of one of her paintings: not if they liked it, but what else did it need? That’s how she developed so many good friendships over the years. Likewise, she was always willing to share her own opinions and wisdom with friends who consulted her. Because of her self-assured nature, she almost always had strong opinions about subjects that interested her.
As she embraced New Age concepts, Tamiris became interested in Astrology. She became adept at casting and reading astrological charts for her friends and family. Although a friend once gave her a computer program that would create the astrological chart for any birth date, time and location, Tamiris was always more comfortable working with her own charts and her trusty Ephemeris.
Tamiris met Will Volquardsen in September 2006 when he moved to Tularosa and joined her Tai Chi class. No one had ever called him “Will” before, but he liked it and adopted it as his preferred moniker. Will had lost a son to suicide and, after class, Tamiris applied her counseling skills to help him cope with that loss. They became friends and traveling companions, gradually evolving into a more serious relationship. Their personalities were complementary rather than similar: Tamiris’ motto was “Just do it!” while Will’s, a former draftsman, site planner and software engineer was “Let’s plan it first.” Still, they found a balance and loved each other completely and unconditionally.
When Tamiris switched to making fabric collages, she needed shadow box style frames that were deep enough to hold multiple layers of fabric. Her partner and friend, Will, developed a way of modifying standard picture frames from thrift stores into shadow box frames, which aided her efforts to convey depth and beauty in her collages.
Together they bought and remodeled two condos and two site-built homes and traveled to all of Tamiris’ children’s homes in the western United States. Tamiris was always a smart real estate investor. After the 2008 sub-prime mortgage debacle that collapsed the housing market, Tamiris bought HUD repos and depressed properties and turned them into profitable rentals with Will’s help. Tamiris and Will worked well together: Will would handle carpentry, electrical and plumbing issues while Tamiris did the painting and decorating. Tamiris would tell Will what she wanted and he would build it. Then she would paint and decorate what he’d built. It was a very satisfactory relationship and they had a lot of fun working together.
After Tamiris was diagnosed with dementia in 2019, they traveled less but enjoyed each other’s company more. They considered their relationship the best each had ever had and were “comfortable” in their mutual love. Will found great satisfaction in caring for Tamiris as the dementia gradually progressed to Alzheimer's. He enjoyed cooking dinners for her and fixing her hot cocoa and waffles every morning. When she was confused, they would take a drive by her old neighborhood in the 49 blocks of Tularosa. That always seemed to cheer her up and help her reconnect with her own identity.
Tamiris’ taste in music was strongly influenced by her interest in ballet during her elementary and high school years. She loved classical music, especially symphonies associated with the famous ballets. Once, in high school when most kids were listening to Elvis and Buddy Holly, Tamiris got several classical music records as Christmas gifts. Her best friend, Sally Springmeyer, said incredulously “You asked for these?” In later years Tamiris enjoyed the Beetles, the Doors, and Richard Marx. She and Will also enjoyed meditating to New Age music such as that broadcast on the radio program “Hearts of Space.”
Survivors include her life partner, Will Volquardsen of Tularosa, New Mexico; son, Timothy Duke (wife Jan) of Okeechobee, Florida, two daughters: Loretta Duke (partner Janeen) of Parkdale, Oregon, and Lorraine McWhorter (husband Jay) of Plano, Texas, brother Ed Southwick of Sandy, Utah, and grandson, Jeremy McWhorter of Austin, Texas. She was preceded in death by father, Glen Southwick (1997), mother, Ora Gale Southwick (1993) and ex-husband, Don Duke (2011).
A memorial service honoring Tamiris’ life will be held April 11, 2025: Eulogy at 10:45 AM and Memorial Mass at 11:00 AM at St. Francis de Paula Catholic Church in Tularosa, New Mexico. Family Reception following Mass at Will’s house: 8066 US Highway 54, Tularosa NM
