Tucson artist, historian and business owner Andre Newman dies at 47

Newman, 47, was a loving father and partner and a performer who commanded a stage, whether singing karaoke or performing and teaching acroyoga.

Newman was a historian whose hard work brought to life stories about Black and Indigenous folks’ connection to the southwest.

He was a business owner with an infectious joy and energy.

Newman often parked his food truck, Purple Tree Organic Acai Blends, at the base of Tumamoc Hill, serving acai bowls, smoothies and juices for walkers descending the popular exercise destination.

“Andre is an artist and somebody that could make big visions happen,” said Serena Tang, his partner of 16 years and the mother of their daughter, Savan. “He just always thought big and was never intimidated to jump onto a project.”

Newman always found a genuine, human connection with those he encountered. So it came as no surprise when the news of his death over the weekend reverberated across Tucson.

The community’s outpouring of support for Newman has been heartbreaking and joyous, Tang said.

“The love and the loss just feels overwhelming,” she said. “I’m so grateful. So, so grateful.”

Natalie Brewster Nguyen, a close friend of Newman’s for 13 years, said she felt the warmth and love from the Tucson community and from further communities that were affected by Newman’s death. And she also felt an “avalanche of grief that kind of rocked the city.”

“There’s just so few people like Andre,” Nguyen said. “He was a really unique character in Tucson and played a very specific and vital role in making our communities feel the way they feel.”

‘An incredible father’

Wherever Newman went, it was likely his daughter was beside him.

When he worked on stories for Arizona Heritage tours, Savan, 13, played characters in reenactments.

When he opened the Purple Tree Organic food truck, Savan worked the register. Her parents called her “baby manager,” and Tang said the job was perfect for her personality.

“We called her baby manager because she was kind of bossy and would tell him what to do and tell him what he’s not doing right,” Tang said. “She just took over and loved the role. It was just amazing to see them working together all the time.”

Savan also grew up practicing acrobatics alongside her parents. At one point, Newman and Tang did a family circus with Savan.

“He was just the most supportive father,” Tang said. “He loved being a father so much.”

In recent months, since the pandemic started, Savan taught Newman how to play chess and they would play a game every night. Savan would almost always win, but he started getting a little better, Tang said.

“He’s an incredible father,” Tang said. “And the joy that he and my daughter shared was priceless.”

Newman’s closeness with Savan inspired Timoteio Padilla, a longtime friend. Newman showed Padilla the kind of father he wanted to be someday.

“I could just see how attentive he was with her and what a good dad he was and just that presence and the love and the care he had for her really, really stood out to me, I could really feel it” Padilla said.

Nguyen met Newman and Tang when Savan was months old, and Nguyen’s daughter was a year old. They became close friends, co-parenting as they brought their girls along to teach and perform acroyoga, often traveling. They did not want to compartmentalize their lives as parents and artists, so they included their daughters in all aspects of their life enthusiastically, Nguyen said.

“He just was so devoted to Savan, and devoted to her not just in a way that’s a doting father but devoted to really sharing so much of the world with her and so much of his world view and showing her all these bigger parts of the world,” Nguyen said.

That devotion and upbringing has made Savan a responsible, worldly and mature 13-year-old, she said.

“It’s really powerful and that’s his lasting mark,” Nguyen said.

Meaningful connections

When Nguyen and Newman talked about their projects, they constantly connected each other to new people and communities.

“I really feel like he was this Tucson partner of mine in that way where we would really build community and continue nurturing that and knitting it together, and that was so much a part of who he was,” Nguyen said. “We would sort of joke about how he was the man about town but he really was. He knew everybody, everywhere and he was super charismatic.”

Newman always made a big impression on people, she added.

Padilla said people who met Newman, even for a brief moment, really got to know him because of his ability to genuinely connect with people.

“That connection with people was meaningful and that connection to community was meaningful,” Padilla said. “And I think he took it seriously, but not in a conscious way. That’s just who he was.”

One of Newman’s favorite things to do was host karaoke parties, Tang said.

His love of music was a big part of Padilla’s immediate connection to Newman, Padilla said. When he saw the opportunity to perform, he would take it, jumping onstage and brightening up the place, he said.

“He was just in his element and I think he wanted to make people feel good,” Padilla said.

‘Always reinventing himself’

Nguyen said she enjoyed working in acrobatics with Newman, who was physically gifted and whose strength and athleticism seemed effortless.

Newman was ambitious in his ability to dive into many different projects, as an entrepreneur, a historian and an artist, she said.

“He was a person who was really willing to reinvent himself all the time,” she said.

The pandemic slowed things down for Newman, allowing him to lean into his fascination with Black history, Nguyen said.

Newman had been working on virtual history tours for a company he started, Arizona Heritage Tours, for a few years. That project was recently completed, and Tang said she got to see some of the end result of that work.

“That was just so amazing to see all of his work that he did on this project with Dr. Brian Carter at the U of A and Dr. Michael Engs who is his business partner at the Arizona Heritage Tours, to have them completed,” she said.

The project leads people through virtual 3D tours where Newman and others dressed up as and played the role of historic characters while teaching the Black and Indigenous history of the Southwest.

The tours tell “all kinds of amazing stories of the southwest that most people don’t get to hear about because they’re stories of people of color,” Tang said.

She said with every project he did, his knowledge and passion for his artwork inspired others to get involved.

His excitement about his projects was infectious, Nguyen said.

“He’s a really multifaceted individual who just has his creativity and his interests sparked by so many things,” Nguyen said.