Chrissie Dickerson Ramirez holds a memorial picture of her late husband, Macario.
An ofrenda devoted to Macario Ramirez’s reminiscence sits subsequent to the entrance counter on the gallery that bears his title: Casa Ramirez. Mates, household, and guests place flowers, pheasant feathers, and Aztec and Mayan artwork on the altar—tangible, vivid reminders of his boundless generosity, love, and prodigious contributions to the native Latin American neighborhood. The memorial has saved vigil over the area for the reason that cofounder’s passing 5 years in the past. In March 2026, although, it’ll oversee a brand new part within the gallery’s historical past.
That’s when the lease for the present area alongside nineteenth Road within the Heights expires. Chrissie Dickerson Ramirez plans to retire then, closing Casa Ramirez absolutely on her personal phrases. There aren’t any developer shenanigans, landlord chicanery, or slashed grants behind the loss. Solely a lady, who has already given a lot to the neighborhood, needing a while to refocus on different initiatives.
It’s a bittersweet conclusion, to make sure. Macario and Chrissie opened Casa Ramirez in 1985, as a labor of affection and a solution to share their ardour for Latin American—largely Mexican—artwork. Now, they go away behind a legacy of popularizing Día de Muertos within the Houston space and nurturing creative expertise from Mexico and the Southwestern United States.
“That’s one of many issues that Macario taught me to do: He was at all times trying
for fairness, at all times on the lookout for truthful illustration, at all times on the lookout for inclusion,”
Chrissie says.
Macario, initially from San Antonio, and Chrissie, from Dallas, initially launched their gallery on the troubled El Mercado del Sol, alongside Jensen Drive within the East Finish. For 3 years, they crammed the partitions and tables with works sourced from artists they met throughout their travels to Mexico, California, and different locales the place the Latin American diaspora makes its house. For Macario, it was about connecting along with his cultural heritage and sharing it with anybody else who expressed curiosity. “You may say [Macario] was an enormous Chicano, and [Casa Ramirez] gave him a chance [for] an activism base and a educating base,” Chrissie says. “He had as a lot as he might ask for, actually.”
After El Mercado del Sol’s closing, they reopened Casa Ramirez within the Galleria (it was known as South of the Border throughout that period). They even operated the gallery out of their very own house earlier than settling into their present area on nineteenth Road in 2004. The couple, who lived close by within the Heights, all of the sudden had shut to three,000 sq. toes at their disposal to host lectures, workshops, and readings, plus develop the variety of artists and craftspeople they may showcase. The area grew into simply as a lot of a gathering place and residential away from house for town’s Latin neighborhood because it was a venue for folks artwork.
Casa Ramirez might be closing its storefront, nevertheless it received’t depart from the Houston neighborhood totally.
“Strolling into Casa Ramirez simply brings you again to your youth,” says Houston photographer Agapito Sanchez Jr., who has labored with the gallery for over 30 years. “It’s so Mexican. They might at all times have cookies or a candy bread out, and it was the identical factor that my mom would do. It was really the identical cookie my mom would have out. So it was very acquainted to me, and it was like taking slightly day journey to the border.”
A significant mission for Macario was to ascertain Día de Muertos—a vacation honoring the deceased, with roots in Aztec rituals—as a family time period and extensively noticed celebration throughout Houston. Every year, the Ramirezes hosted workshops, encouraging guests to create deeply private ofrendas as memorials to misplaced family members. These occasions supplied each a artistic outlet for his or her grief and an schooling on every part Día de Muertos entails.
In one in every of her expeditions by his archives, Chrissie discovered a press launch courting again to the Nineteen Nineties. Macario penned it to clarify the vacation’s historical past and traditions, notably ofrendas, to most people. He encountered some pushback at first. Chrissie remembers Macario saying that some guests would run out of the store, mistaking the decor for trappings of Devil worship. “It [was] very unhappy, as a result of [Día de Muertos] is such a good looking customized of honoring ancestors, and right here in America, we don’t have many alternatives to do this proper regularly in such a constructive approach,” Chrissie says. “I really feel it’s bringing all the great issues ahead that you simply need to bear in mind, and if you happen to nonetheless have issues to reconcile, it’s a time to do this, too.”
Ignorant reactions weren’t the norm, nevertheless. For a lot of of Houston’s Latin American residents, Casa Ramirez supplied a much-needed atmosphere for feeling seen and supported, the place their historical past, tradition, and contributions had been all worthy of celebration. The Ramirezes didn’t pay lip service to the idea of business-as-family; they genuinely lived these professed values.
“I like working right here,” says Martha Almaguer, Casa Ramirez’s retailer supervisor, who has been with the gallery for round a decade. “That is my secure haven.”
Almaguer first met Macario and Chrissie throughout a buying journey with some associates and talked about her need to create an altar commemorating her late nephew; the house owners invited her to attend one in every of their ofrenda workshops. The Ramirezes supplied much-needed therapeutic, with recommendation and classes on a facet of Mexican tradition that Almaguer hadn’t skilled rising up. Later she’d go to Casa Ramirez along with her husband to make and promote crafts till his passing, almost 4 years in the past. His loss of life left her devastated, requiring time away from even essentially the most comforting job. “I didn’t work all of the 12 months afterward. Chrissie understood,” she says. The place was nonetheless ready for her when she felt able to return.
Almaguer credit Casa Ramirez for connecting her to her heritage and serving to her discover her artistic voice. At present, the gallery’s jewellery counter is crammed along with her colourful, lovingly crafted rosaries and earrings, and her adorned candles, plaques, and holy water bottles line the cabinets. Crosses handmade by her late husband nonetheless grasp on the partitions in each the gallery and the classroom.
Cabinets stuffed with Casa Ramirez’s signature folks artwork, together with items from supervisor Martha Almaguer.
Día de Muertos was what initially introduced Sanchez and his pictures to the gallery’s door, too. He first accompanied his spouse, who collects folks artwork associated to the vacation, round 30 years in the past. On the time, Casa Ramirez was situated within the area subsequent door to its present strip middle house on nineteenth Road, the one now occupied by Vinal Edge. Sanchez and his spouse bought to know the Ramirezes properly throughout their journeys to the gallery.
The {couples} would go on to journey to Oaxaca collectively, and, though his pictures usually facilities on musicians and medication (he additionally works as a photographer at Baylor School of Drugs), Sanchez started capturing the ofrendas made and displayed on the workshops. He says he by no means considered himself as an artist till he began exhibiting his work at Casa Ramirez,
however his involvement supplied “an avenue to actually open up my creative facet,” he says. “[Macario] was actually good at making you bear in mind…your tradition, and he made it OK to be Mexican,” he says.
The late cofounder additionally helped develop the profession of visible artist Laura Lopez Cano and her son Louis, following an opportunity assembly at an occasion within the George R. Brown Conference Heart. After transferring from Austin to Houston round 18 years in the past, Lopez Cano says the Ramirezes had been among the many first individuals she contacted. The couple instantly stepped as much as assist them settle into town and its artwork scene.
A lot of Lopez Cano’s work explores Latina femininity; at Casa Ramirez, she was gifted with entry to Macario’s archives and neighborhood connections, which in flip supplied her with much more inspiration. “He had this wealth of historical past that he handed all the way down to us,” Lopez Cano says. “I feel that a part of that may at all times be a part of us: what he taught us, what we realized from him, the best way he [and Chrissie] handled individuals.”
As March 2026 approaches, the query stays: Who will choose up the place Casa Ramirez leaves off? The gallery shouldn’t be on the market. Chrissie will shut it completely as soon as she retires, and there’s no definitive successor. What’s sure, although, is that the Ramirezes have supplied a basis for Mexican tradition, which continues to flourish in Houston regardless of xenophobic insurance policies.
There’s no denying that the gallery might be sorely missed, however shuttered doorways can by no means dam the rapids of historical past. With the variety of Latin American advocacy organizations standing up for the rights and dignity of the diaspora in Houston and past, it might even show the start of one thing new and delightful, aligned wholly with Macario’s long-standing imaginative and prescient.
With 4 many years of activism and repair behind her, Chrissie now plans to spend her retirement organizing and digitizing her husband’s collections—artwork, newspaper clippings, images, posters, magazines, books, private writings, advertising and marketing supplies, and essays written over time of Día de Muertos workshops. She goals of constructing a digital archive sometime, documenting the numerous gadgets her husband acquired. Such an enterprise would function essentially the most complete document of his life and works, showcasing the important place the gallery has held within the preservation and promotion of Mexican and Mexican American historical past, life, and tradition.
Chrissie muses that Casa Ramirez’s legacy will reside on by many fingers and hearts, not only one. She factors to College of Houston’s Arte Público Press and Tony Diaz of Nuestra Palabra for his or her notable work within the literary sector; Lizbeth Ortiz, a neighborhood artist who cofounded Frida Competition to commemorate the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo; and the current development of small
Mexican-owned outlets within the East Finish.
However, in reality, everybody the gallery touched holds part of it inside them. They carry the Ramirezes’ generosity of spirit, cultural pleasure, and warranted sense of justice wherever they go. Casa Ramirez, the store, might shutter, however Casa Ramirez—the historical past maker, the educator, the incubator—is in no hazard of dissipating into obscurity. On this, it isn’t actually dying; it’s merely present process metamorphosis.
“I do know I’ll miss the satan out of this place,” Chrissie says. “However I’m prepared to maneuver ahead, and I need to conclude the enterprise right here with as a lot historical past and respect and love and every part I can pull out of it.”
