Building Something From the Ground Up

By the time she finished high school, Tina Ballew had already learned how to start over. Thirteen moves with new towns and new schools. New versions of what “home” might look like.

“I moved around a lot as a kid,” she said. “Kindergarten to high school.”

So, when she landed in Las Cruces years later and didn’t immediately see a place for herself professionally, the response wasn’t panic. It was instinct.

Time to start again and build something.

Ballew’s childhood was shaped by motion. Her father’s work as an electrician took the family across New Mexico and West Texas before they landed in Alamogordo.

“I’ve always been a really artistic person… very imaginative, figuring out how things work together and how they connect,” she said.

That instinct carried her to study graphic design and eventually to Alaska, where she worked for a media company and began expanding beyond design.

“My first job was in a media company that predominantly did video and photography, and I was a graphic designer there,” she said. “It kind of turned into whatever they needed.”

That approach, 'whatever they needed,’ became a pattern.

“It wasn’t always just 2D design stuff,” she said. “It was like, ‘Tina, we need your help on making a three-day event,’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay.’”

She learned to produce, organize and problem-solve in real time.

When she returned to southern New Mexico in 2012, drawn back in part by “the sunsets,” she arrived with skills but no clear lane, so she gave herself a year. Working at a grocery store, she committed to attending every networking event she could find.

“For one whole year… whether I was tired and I didn’t feel like going… I networked.”

She printed business cards, then showed up and introduced herself.

“You meet one person and then they introduce you to someone else,” she said. “And those clients… we’ve had relationships for 10, 12 years.”

Out of that effort came her first company, Blue Zia Creative Group, a design firm focused on nonprofits, filling a gap in the local market.

Growth came from saying yes. If a client needed something, Ballew found a way to make it happen. That mindset led to a collaboration with filmmaker Lucky Gonzalez, whose video production work complemented her design background.

“We were already working together,” she said. “Our clients knew they could go to him for video, he came to me for design.”

The merger formalized what had already become reality.

Today, that evolution lives under NMCO Studio, a studio built not around a single discipline, but around storytelling in whatever form it takes. At the center of that work is connection.

“When I connect with my clients, I’m meeting with a friend,” Ballew said. “They tell me their problems… and I kind of figure out, ‘Have you tried this?’”

It’s a collaborative approach that has led to long-term relationships and a client base often rooted in community work.

“I feel like I need to have a personal reaction to what they’re doing,” she said. “So I can better tell and share their story.”

Some of her most meaningful projects reflect that instinct.

There’s Desert Heroines, a portrait series honoring women in the community, many of them nonprofit leaders, through stylized, professional photography sessions.

“These women are not models,” Ballew said. “They would never expect to have a portraiture session like the way that we do it.”

The result is both artistic and archival, a way to capture impact in a lasting form.

Then there’s Through the Fire, a documentary project focused on New Mexicans who have faced adversity.

“We’re finding people who have gone through the fire and telling their stories,” she said. “I think people undervalue what their story can do for other people.”

That belief is personal.

“I also faced a lot of adversity growing up,” she said. “I don’t think I had a typical childhood.”

Inside the business, Ballew’s creative instinct is balanced by partnership.

“I’m very much the heart… these are the stories I want to tell,” she said. “He’s a little bit more business.”

That balance has helped the company grow while staying grounded. More recently, a merger with Wilson Binkley Advertising has introduced new ways of working.

“As a business owner I’ve been so used to doing it my way,” she said. “Now we’ve introduced another way. It’s a learning experience.”

Ask what comes next, and Ballew doesn’t offer a five-year plan.

“I think if you asked me that two years ago, I would have had a really good answer,” she said.

She’s already reached many of the goals she once set. Now, the focus is simpler.

“Tinkering,” she said. “Figuring out how we’re going to exist in the next month and the month after that.”

For Ballew, creativity isn’t linear. It’s instinctive.

“Inspiration strikes and you’re like, ‘Oh yes, that’s where we’re going,’” she said. “And then you just take that risk.”

For someone who grew up constantly starting over, that approach fits. You adapt. You build. You figure it out as you go.

And eventually, piece by piece, you create something that didn’t exist before.

Faces & Places 2026 is the inaugural edition of our new lifestyle magazine. Combined with the fall edition, titled Life is Good in Las Cruces, it is filled with feature content about the people, places, and events that make southern New Mexico special.