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Arden Tice Papers

 Collection
Identifier: MSS-458-BC

Scope and Content

Arden Tice's personal papers include correspondence and other materials pertaining to artists and writers of the Southwest, including Vivian Ayres, Robert Burlingame, Jerry and Sally Romotsky, Sandi Casillas, Judson Crews, Mildred Tolbert, Thurman Dillard, Wendell B. Anderson, and Dr. Wolfgang Cordon of Mexico. Tice's collection also includes family correspondence and other materials for her Hewitt ancestors in Oklahoma dating back to the 1880's. The bulk of the collection, however, covers Tice's own life between 1948 and 1987. Her experiences have been diverse and wide-ranging, geographically. The collection contains material on Alaska and Eskimos gathered when Tice was a teacher at Point Barrow (1951-53) and also research materials on the Tarahumara Indians gathered during a visit to Mexico in the late 1960's. Tice also gathered research materials on the Lancandon Indians of Central America for her interview with Dr. Cordon (Secret of the Forest) in 1964.

Dates

  • 1948-1987

Language of Materials

English.

Access Restrictions

Box 3 and Box 8 are restricted. Permission of author required for use until the year 2025.

Copy Restrictions

Limited duplication of CSWR material is allowed for research purposes. User is responsible for compliance with all copyright, privacy, and libel laws. Permission is required for publication or distribution.

Biography

Arden Tice was born in Lawton, Oklahoma. She attended the University of Texas, Austin, where she majored in English and Psychology, receiving a bachelor's degree in l951. She did graduate work at the University of Texas, Austin; the University of Houston; and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She received a master's degree in Clinical Psychology from Ohio St. Matthew University, Columbus, Ohio, in August 1971. She has published articles (The Texas Observer, edited by Ronnie Dugger, began publishing her in the 1950s). An article in The Texas Observer about a trip through the south with Vivian Ayres Allen in 1957 and her three children, Debbie Allen, Felicia Rashad and Tex, prompted the paper to run off 10,000 extra copies. Tice's article described their experiences as they traveled south at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. She continued to publish essays and poetry during the 1960s and 1970s. Her chapbooks are inventoried and can be found in her archives. In Time to Tango, co-authored by Nichols Sands (Vergin Press 2002), is the story of a love relationship impacted by post traumatic stress disorder (Web site www.intimeto tango.com). Scenes from the Live Poets Society, Vol. I & Vol. II, Santa Fe, '01 & &'03, contain her poems. Tice's articles and publications have appeared under various names - Arden Tice, Arden Macnab, Arden Eckles and Hava Arden.

Her professional life included teaching on all levels, particularly teaching of Native Americans, Eskimos and Hispanics. She served as a social worker in community action projects of the 1960s and established and administered drug programs in the 1970s. From 1974-1981, Tice was a full-time instructor of Psychology at El Paso Community College; she was a psychotherapist in private practice in El Paso, Texas (1978-1988) working with Dr. Harold Kolmer, psychiatrist, and Dr. Lanis L. Bosworth, psychologist.

Published articles by Tice are on travel, artists, social issues and the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico. She lived two years at Point Barrow, Alaska, before Alaska became a state, and traveled extensively in Mexico throughout the 1950s to the present. In 1986, Tice returned to New Mexico where she studied in the graduate creative writing program with Wolfe Mankowitz and Harvena Richter. She gave poetry readings at the University of California during Writers' Week, along with Judson Crews (spring 1986). She has presented writers' workshops, readings and painting exhibitions in the southwest. As director of Intercambio Cultural A Crossing the Borders of El Paso Juarez, she developed for the Mayor of El Paso, a series of free cultural events held in Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas.

During the &'60s and early &'70s, Tice was a busy and productive social activist. In Santa Fe, while working for the Juvenile Probation Department, she set up El Vicio, a methadone maintenance program. Later working in El Paso as Social Services Director of a juvenile delinquency project, she addressed problems of health, housing and food distribution. Her poems in Spanish were distributed for barrio protest marches. At one point, Tice taught psychology to the inmates at La Tuna Federal Penitentiary. She was the first woman to teach there.

With Belinda Subraman and S. Ramnath, two El Paso poets, she formed the first jazz poetry trio in El Paso (1991). The Read Camusians was a poetry/drama/jazz trio with a musical backup doing "sets on subjects varying from social concerns to erotica and humor. They presented a concert before 200 people at the University of Texas, El Paso, that included four poets and seven musicians. This was to celebrate the Tri-Centennial Library Association.

Tice's association with the artists and writers of the Southwest spans some 40 years and includes Vivian Ayres Allen, Robert Burlingame, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Jerry Romotsky (painter), Jim Jackson, Sandi Casillas, Judson Crews, Mildred Tolbert, Thurman Dillard (Santa Fe painter), Tommy Macaione (Santa Fe painter), Wendell B. Anderson, Dr. Wolfgang Cordan (from Mexico), Belinda Subraman (poet and publisher of Vergin Press and Gypsy Magazine), S. Ramnath (poet from India and husband of B. Subraman), Hal Bennett (novelist in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), Mark Weber, Helen Bonner, Susan Hauser (poet and essayist of Minnesota), and Irini Newman (a Greek poet). Tice and Robert Graves corresponded in the 1960s when she lived in Santa Fe.

Tice worked with Vietnam Veterans with post traumatic stress disorder from 1996 to 1998 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. From 1998 to 2000, she and Nichols Sands developed an ongoing writing program for veterans. She has been a member of Live Poets Society (started by Richard Brandt in 1991) since 1996 (see list of mem-bers on separate page). She is a member of the New Mexico Psychoanalytic Society.

Her life-long interests include working with people, poetry, psychoanalysis, play and the philosophy and practice of Buddhism. She has tried to live her life in accord with Freud's statement, "Work, love and play are the wellsprings of one's life. They should also govern it. Her private journals and photographs since the 1950s until the present are with Dr. Jo Ann B. Fineman, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Extent

10 boxes (8.2 cu. ft.)

Related Material

Judson C. Crews Papers University of New Mexico. Center for Southwest Research Mildred Tolbert Papers Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico Belinda Subraman Papers Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico

Separated Material

Two books have been cataloged separately: Secret of the Forest, by Wolfgang Cordon, and It Catches My Heart in its Hands, by Charles Bukowski. Check the Library catalog for locations.

Bibliography

Articles by Tice in connection with Education, Anthropology and Archeology:
Other publications by Tice:
  • "They Couldn't Read...and They Knew It," Texas Outlook, August 1957.
  • "Houston Teacher Tells of Pressures," The Texas Observer, November 1957.
  • "Journey through a Different Country," The Texas Observer, October 1958.
  • "New Mexican Profile: Arden MacNab," The New Mexican, July 1965.
  • "New Mexican Profile: Judson Crews," The New Mexican, June 1965.
  • "A Twelve-dollar Train Ride South of the Border," The New Mexican, August 1965.
  • "Goya Como Antecendente," El Fronterizo, Juarez, Mexico, 1965.
  • "Romotsky: The Artist as Social Provocateur," Forum, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, 1965.
  • "Tarahumara Indians Continue to Live as Though Still in Stone Age," The El Paso Times, El Paso, Texas, March 1969.
  • "Tarahumara: A Primitive Group Surviving Since Stone Age," The New Mexican, September 1969.
  • "Tarahumara Country's Barranca del Cobre Spectacular," The New Mexican, May 1970.
  • "Dialoguing with the Ditch," News Chronicle, Scott City, Kansas, July 1986.
  • "Looking for the Frontier," South Dakota Review, Winter 1986.
  • Mi Casa es Su Casa, El Paso, Texas, 1967 (poetry collection).
  • Take It and Fake the Rest, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1974 (poetry collection).
  • Wind In My Fist, Riverside, California: Dumont Press, 1990 (poetry collection).
  • The Augmented Moon, Carson, California: Dumont Press, 1991 (poetry collection).
  • Looking for the Frontier, El Paso, Texas: Vergin Press, 1992 (collected published articles).
  • A Naming of Women, Carson, California: Dumont Press, 1994.

Processing Information

Inquire with reference staff for access to unprocessed addition - 15 boxes, B3-13B. Two of these unprocessed boxes contain personal journals which can only be accessed with written permission of Arden Tice. Two years after her death, the journals may be opened for public access. Photographs are included in the unprocessed materials.
Title
Finding aid of the Arden Tice Papers, 1948-1987
Status
For Approval
Author
Processed by CSWR Staff
Date
©2000
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid is in English

Revision Statements

  • June 28, 2004: PUBLIC "-//University of New Mexico::Center for Southwest Research//TEXT (US::NmU::MSS 458 BC::Arden Tice Papers)//EN" "nmu1mss458bc.sgml" converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by v1to02.xsl (sy2003-10-15).

Repository Details

Part of the UNM Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections Repository

Contact:
University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research & Special Collections
University Libraries, MSC05 3020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque NM 87131
505-277-6451