A Brazilian by birth, Carmen has been a musician and a beader since age 5. She is a descendant of the Kambiwá and Tupinambá tribes, northern state of Pernambuco. She studied piano at the Music Conservatory in Recife and graduated in music performance at 17. She started beading at the foot of her grandmother Joaninha. It became her passion!

Carmen formed the popular band Zúm Zúm Zúm along with sculptor husband and native Arizonan Zarco Guerrero. She sings and plays guitar and accordion as the Guerrero Family Musicians. As an educator, she shares her indigenous roots through music and art in order to foster multicultural understanding. She is a teaching artist and works regularly at various valley schools. Currently she is the Arts Education director at El Rancho del Arte in downtown Mesa.

As a jewelry designer, she exhibits and sells her wearable artwork under her brand www.CarmenCreations.com.

As an artivist / arts advocate, she co-founded Xicanindio (now Xico, Inc.), Cultural Coalition, Inc. in 1996 www.culturalcoalition.com and the Arizona Latino Arts Center ALAC in 2007. The arts non profit Cultural Coalition’s mission is to connect communities and generations to ancestral knowledge and practices through artistic cultural preservation and programs that celebrate Chicano, Latiné, and Indigenous heritages.

In May 2012, she received the Patron of the Arts in Education Award from the Victoria Foundation. She is Former Board Chair of the i.d.e.a. Museum, served on the Board of the Mesa Arts Center, the Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens and presently serves as Treasurer of the S’edav Va’aki Museum Foundation Board in Phoenix. (formerly Pueblo Grande Museum)

As Founder and Executive Director of the Cultural Coalition, she produces the annual community festival such as: Mikiztli, the Dia de Los Muertos Phx Festival in Phoenix, The Mask Alive Festival in Mesa and Tempe’s El Puente Festival. Under her leadership, the Coalition has grown to partner with many other local arts organization and artists, in fulfilling its mission and expanding its audiences. As an artistic producer, she is committed and dedicated to issues of cultural literacy and social justice.