Born and raised in Tucson, of Mescalero Apache/Mayo descent, Julia Arriola is an artist with eclectic ideas who draws on history for conceptual renderings that address past, present, and future with an Indigenous flair. Her father’s Air Force career led the family to California, Montana, and Texas, but Arriola always found a way to return to the Sonoran Desert of Tucson. After serving in the Navy and building a career in circuit manufacturing, Arriola pursued her arts education at the University of Arizona where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture & Metals, Master’s degrees in Sculpture and Landscape Architecture-Historic Landscapes, and a certificate in Historic Preservation. She worked as a curator at the Arizona Historical Society for twenty-one years before pursuing her artwork full-time. An avid lover of history equipped with the interpretive lens of a curator, Arriola creates artwork that is largely concerned with how historical narratives are developed and shaped over time. As she explains, “I love the marriage of art and history! The perfect combination for design, interpretation and creativity, a beautiful braid of endless possibilities.” Her interests, which span nineteenth-century Tucson, the history of clothing, multiculturalism, historic landscapes, and Steampunk aesthetics, can be found throughout her work.