Tammy Mitzka-Crawford takes inspiration from her North Idaho backyard
Each of Tammy Mitzka-Crawford’s creations is taken from a memory, her own or one she’s painstakingly recreated out of the mind of a client. But to look at one of her pieces is to look out on a vista so true to the real thing, you’d think you could feel the spray of a waterfall or the breeze in the trees. The depth and texture imbued in each towering relief, like the one depicting a breathtaking mountainside view of evergreens, waterfalls and never-ending sky that sits behind the desk in Mitzka-Crawford’s home office, transforms a mundane wall into a window on the soul.
Mitzka-Crawford, working from her family’s home in Cocolalla, Idaho, takes inspiration from the nature that surrounds her to create stunning works of three-dimensional art designed to be statement pieces that capture memories for a lifetime. Her work is influenced by the flowers growing in her garden and sunsets over Lake Coeur d’Alene, and she feels lucky to live somewhere the inspiration will never run out.
“We have elk in our backyard and pick huckleberries just steps from our house in the summertime,” Mitzka-Crawford said. “This area where I live is just full of beautiful bits of nature. It’s a blessing to be able to just walk out and get inspired.”
Since she was old enough to hold a crayon, Mitzka-Crawford has been drawing trees. Her grandmother entered her into a local potato festival at age five, encouraging Mitzka-Crawford to utilize products of the natural world – in this case, potatoes – in her natural affinity for art. When she grew up, Mitzka-Crawford channeled that affinity into a career in the world of fashion.
But she never stopped creating art that spoke to her love for nature. Even while focused full-time on her fashion career and raising her young children, Mitzka-Crawford would offer art lessons or barter mural-painting services for her kids’ ballet lessons and braces. Art always offered an escape for her, a way to relieve the stress of her hectic life while improving the lives of others.
When, in 1987, Mitzka-Crawford was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and brain tumors, everything changed. Doctors told her she’d never make art again, thanks to nerve damage caused by her conditions, and simple daily tasks became insurmountable challenges. The final straw for Mitzka-Crawford was when a life insurance agent told her flatly she’d never be able to get a policy, as there was no way of knowing if she’d wake up tomorrow.
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“I felt like an experiment gone wrong,” Mitzka-Crawford said.
In order to keep going, Mitzka-Crawford knew she couldn’t keep doing what she was doing. It was time to rethink everything. So she, her husband and their children packed up their lives and moved from Eugene, Oregon, to rural, peaceful North Idaho. Surrounded by nature everywhere she looked, and with the fashion world no longer an option, Mitzka-Crawford decided to take the plunge into making art as a career. She knew the transition would be a tough one, but the choice was one that would allow her to live life on her own terms.
“You can’t afford negativity when you’re in that space,” Mitzka-Crawford said. “It was friends and family telling me I couldn’t do it because I didn’t have an art degree, or that I should get a real job. But this is what sustained me, what kept me feeling okay when the pain was unbearable.”
Now, as an established artist with a devoted clientele, Mitzka-Crawford says a side benefit of her work is that it’s a productive respite and a distraction from the physical pain she experiences. She’s often working at different stages on three to five pieces at any given time, because throwing herself into her work is the best way she knows to stay positive and surround herself with things she loves. And she revels in seeing clients light up when she unveils the finished piece, which feels like a form of medicine in itself.
Mitzka-Crawford said clients seek out her services, often on word-of-mouth recommendations alone, for a large piece to be installed in their homes. Typically, they want a representation of a view or place they’ve been, one that evokes a treasured memory. Mitzka-Crawford recalls a recent project where the client, an accomplished traveler and outdoorsman, was hoping to capture a hike he’d been on near Lake Pend Oreille. He remembered golden eagles soaring overhead, the perfect lighting of the sunrise, the lush blue-green tones of a waterfall.
Working from photos and the client’s detailed description, Mitzka-Crawford went home and sketched out the scene. The clients were involved every step of the way, from approving color schemes to using Mitzka-Crawford’s mock-ups to make sure the piece flowed with the room where it would soon live. Like all of her larger pieces, this work took weeks to build the layers of texture necessary to recreate her client’s memory, from the realistic waterfall to the individual feathers on the eagle.
“There’s always much more to the process than you or the client think there will be when you start off,” Mitzka-Crawford said. “If I’m doing the piece and something doesn’t look right, I’ll rethink and do it again, because it needs to look just right and real as possible. I need to love it, and I need the customer to love it too.”
It’s that positivity and beauty, cultivated through her art and shared with her clients and fans, that Mitzka-Crawford hopes to spread even further in the next stage of her career. Her first book, called The Power of Art and Nature, is coming out later this year. Mitzka-Crawford hopes to share what she’s learned by harnessing the environment around her to relieve her pain and guide her through hard times.
“I want to encourage people, to say it doesn’t matter what your illness is,” Mitzka-Crawford said. “I mean, this has been since 1987 that I’ve had brain tumors. I have headaches 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But if I sat and focused on my headaches, I would hurt. I probably wouldn’t be able to function. And when I go in the garden and put my hands in the dirt, or I work on my art, I’m able to take my mind off of that. I live day by day, because I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow.” N
By Riley Haun
Photography By Joel Riner
As Featured In: Summer/Fall 2022
