SageWoman

Cover of the current issue of SageWoman, titled "Sanctuary."

Lady of Protection by Tanya Torres, pencil on BFK Rives paper, approx. "7 x 6", 2011.

The end of 2012 has brought many joys! Today, I received copies of SageWoman Magazine containing my artwork and an article where I share one of my art and magic techniques. I have read SageWoman for more than 10 years and always wanted to send "something," but it was only last year that I was able to send a submission, when I had a bout of inspiration to publish my art and writing everywhere!

For the drawing, I was inspired by the proposed title "Protection," which then turned into "Sanctuary." The image relates to both titles since this woman is a representation of the person I used to meet in my meditations during the time I was receiving cancer treatment. She would infuse me with her green energy and take me to a "sanctuary," an enclosure where I would bathe in healing waters. Here she is sitting on the rock where she used to sit when she held my hands. I would be sitting right in front of her. Her hair and dress where rougher and wilder, but I like drawing leaves, and this is how she came out.

Visit SageWoman to learn more about this wonderful Goddess spirituality magazine!

Taíno Sun Muse

Taíno Sun Muse, acrylic on tile, "6 x 6", 2012.

I just wanted to share the Taíno Sun Muse, at home now with Ana Alicea, the person who inspired me to keep making all these tiles with her continued support. Thank you Ana!

Exhibition this Friday

Muse by Tanya Torres
 Acrylic on canvas with bindi and gold colored foil edge, 2012.

I'm participating in this exhibition that opens this Friday. The idea is that each artist will create artwork of any kind measuring 10" x 10" and that it will also be highly affordable for any normal person that comes to see the show and likes a piece. So I am letting you know ahead of time that I took this idea very seriously and created this Muse in a similar technique as the paintings on tile, which will be available for $100. You may contact Omo Misha at Arts Horizons LeRoy Neiman Art Center, 212.862.2787 

Reproductions and Greeting Cards available in my Etsy Shops:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyaetorres
http://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowButterflyShop

Les Reves Femmes Agenda and Breaking Ground

I was so excited when I opened a package from France and found my work published in the lunar agenda 2013 by Rêve de Femmes. It includes 3 of my artworks, but my favorite is that they chose Mary Magdalene of the Burning Heart for the month of July as in July 21, day of St. Mary Magdalene. I must have looked like a little kid opening my Christmas gift! It is so beautiful I am afraid to touch it!

The same week I received the book Breaking Ground.

This is the work of Myrna Nieves, who worked in this anthology of women writers in New York for the last 10 years. It includes a magnificent number of written pieces by women who have lived in New York for more than 10 years and developed their career as writers in the city. I am honored be published among some of the finest writers in New York. Published by Editorial Campana, the anthology is available at La Casa Azul Bookstore and Amazon.com, among many other places.

My heart is as burning as that of the Mary Magdalene, and I am very, extremely grateful for these wonderful gifts of life!

Save the Date: Saturday, November 17, 2012

Click on the image to see the text bigger.

Don't miss it! Artist and artisans come from all over the US and Puerto Rico. And come by my table and say hi!

Art Bag

Goddess Bag

I've been wanting to make a batch of "art bags" for a couple of years. The time has come! This is my favorite so far! In preparation for the Comité Noviembre Art and Crafts Fair, Nov. 17, 2012, beginning at 11 a.m. at Hostos Community College. My favorite event of the year!

The drawing. Might come up again somewhere else...

Guess the Recipe Installed

Guess the Recipe series
installed at the East Harlem Bilingual Head Start, Site 1.
The formerly dark corner became a counseling corner
for the children that attend the Head Start.

The walls were painted with a design, that stayed in the background.
I thought it was good with the art.

Rita Prats, the director of the head start, and I.

See the pieces here: http://tanyatorres.blogspot.com/2012/09/guess-recipe-art.html

Sunrise

Sunrise, Mosaic Tile Mural by Tanya Torres, 2010
at the East Harlem Bilingual Head Start, Site 1

With Rita Prats, the director of the East Harlem Bilingual Head Start.

I completed this mural back in 2010, but had never taken photos of it. Last week I was able to finally get a couple of them when I went to see Rita Prats about the recent addition to their walls, the Guess the Recipe project.

Four Little Archangels

Archangel Michael of the Blue Flame by Tanya Torres, acrylic on tile, 6" x 6", 2012. Available.

Archangel Raphael of the Green Flame by Tanya Torres, acrylic on tile, 6" x 6", 2012. Available.

Archangel Uriel of the Red Flame by Tanya Torres, acrylic on tile, 6" x 6", 2012.Available.

Archangel Gabriel of the Orange Flame by Tanya Torres, acrylic on tile, 6" x 6", 2012. Sold.

Guess the Recipe Art

Banana Cow by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Beware of the Sleeping Mango by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Blueberry Giggle Jiggles Jelly Fish by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Butterflying Apple Salad by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Cheese Doggie by Tanya Torres

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Pineapple Princess Mermaid, the Beautiful by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Pumpkin, the October 31º Cat by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

The Birthday Birdies Singing Happy Birthday by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Avocado Lion and the-Miniature Safari Mango by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Temperamental Orange Popsicles by Tanya Torres 

Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Watermelon Whale Meets the Banana Sharks by Tanya Torres
Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Pupusa Turtle by Tanya Torres
Oil on canvas/Digital painting, 2012.

Smile if you think they are fun! 

These are the pieces I recently created for the East Harlem Bilingual Head Start, illustrating healthy recipes for children to make with their parents.  

Rita Prats, the director of The East Harlem Bilingual Head Start has taken upon herself the mission of educating children and parents in creating good eating habits, and making wise decisions when it comes to food. Well, it does not have to be boring, right? 

Inspired by Ana María, the assistant director, who asked me if I could make food animals, I created these digital paintings, beginning with the basic shapes and compositions painted on canvas, and then photographing and completing them digitally. The teachers wrote the recipes and Judimar Negrón translated them. Each one contains the ingredients for a recipe. Can you guess?

Fun and Healthy Recipes for Children Recetas sanas y divertidas para niños by the staff of the East Harlem Bilingual Head Start Translated by Judimar Negron • Illustrated by Tanya Torres | Make Your Own Book

[In Spanish] Arte y afirmaciones para amar tu cuerpo

Menstruación por Tanya Torres

Te invito a visitar una página creada por Corazón Tierra en la que se inspira en varias de mis pinturas para crear afirmaciones para amar tu cuerpo y nutrir tu diosa interior. ¡Gracias Corazón por tu palabras!

Arte y afirmaciones para amar tu cuerpo

por Corazón Tierra

    

Placenta Supports Obstetrical Emergencies

I recently received a request from Dr. Oscar Martínez Pérez, at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, in Madrid, requesting permission to use my piece Placenta in the website he and his colleagues are publishing to help Third World doctors treat women when they have postpartum hemorrhages. Thanks to the Internet and often also my store in Etsy.com (which works as a portfolio as well as a store) I have been able to make my postpartum images available to this project and several other maternity-related projects in different countries. This one was particularly special to me because I had recently read an article about a garment that helps treat this condition to save hundreds of women's lives in Africa. And also because just last month I had the honor of seeing baby Nico's birth at my beloved friend's home, Raquel Z. Rivera.

As an artist, I often ask myself how I can contribute to make a better world. I really treasure these opportunities and am always willing to collaborate in projects that use art as a means to help, inform, educate or bring hope and relief to other human beings. If you ever need to contact me with such a request, please email me through the links in this site.

Artist in East Harlem

The East Harlem Business Capital Corporation and After Dark CATV put together a really nice page about artistic persons in my neighborhood. I'm included! Take a look: A Brief Gallery...

(I need to clarify that according to the text I am self taught, which every artist is, although I do have an M.F.A. from the City College of New York, which might qualify as being artistically educated. My eternal gratitude to Prof. Michi Itami for all her help in obaining this degree and the scholarship to pursue it without worries back in 1993.)

Cacibayagua in a Music Video by Saxophonist Luis Rosa

Cacibayagua, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

One of the most beautiful things about the Internet is the opportunity to collaborate with people you don't even know nor would hope to meet in normal circumstances. This morning I received a wonderful email from a musician in Ohio asking me if he could use the piece Cacibayagua in his video. Of course! Nothing gives me more pleasure than the opportunity to collaborate with other artists, each person doing what we love. Here it is: Luis Rosa performing a composition by Felipe Fournier titled Atabex; Luis Rosa - Arrangement & Performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo5miBiLXOg

Article in El Visitante (Puerto Rico)

Whispers of Heaven by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

An article about my work and life appeared in El Visitante, a Catholic newspaper in Puerto Rico. The weblink without images is here: El arte convertido en oración by Verónica Cruz Pillich.

Art by Tanya Torres at Women's Press

My art was recently featured in Women's Press, with Mary Magdalene of the Flaming Heart on the cover. Take a look!

Earth and Sea Goddesses

Diosa de la Tierra

Diosa del Mar

Earth Goddess and Sea Goddess by Tanya Torres

Acrylic and water soluble crayon on canvas

12" x 9"

2012

Reproductions and Greeting Cards available in my Etsy Shops: 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyaetorres
http://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowButterflyShop

Cacibayagua

Cacibayagua por Tanya Torres

Cacibayagua por Tanya Torres, oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

"From Cacibayagua came the majority of the people who settled the island." Fray Ramón Pané 

The very first poem of Marianela's book Diosas de la Yuca, contains this quote. 

I thought the cave Cacibayagua, from which the original taínos of La Española, sister island of Puerto Rico, are said to have come, might be a place of earth and river water from whose veins flows life.

I was sitting in a church, listening to a group of monks sing. A group of nuns were sitting next to me praying and adoring the Eucharist. While meditating, I saw in my mind some paintings like this one, but much bigger, and depicting the whole body full of flowers and creatures and plant life. Although they look nothing like the Virgin Mary, I know she is present in them.

Don't most of the miraculous images of the Virgin Mary appear by water? Isn't she the Star of the Sea, Stella Maris? Don't people go to her shrine in Lourdes to bathe in the blessed water of her grotto and heal? Water, cave, virgin goddess, like the ancient Goddess.

As writer Marion Zimmer Bradley would have said, "all goddesses and all gods are as one." The Taíno had their own. My european ancestors had theirs. I honor them all.

***

I hope the images of Heaven and Earth will help bring more peace, love and joy into our world through a different viison of the old ideas that grow out of the human heart, and are ever present in our perception of the world as human beings.

Reproductions available in my Etsy Shop

Atabey Gives Birth to the Coquí

Atabey da a luz al Coquí por Tanya Torres

Atabey Gives Birth to the Coquí by Tanya Torres, Oil on Canvas, 20" x 16", 2012. 

I wanted to paint Atabey, Taíno mother of all creatures, earth goddess, mother of the god, giving birth to the coquí, the most representative creature of the island of Puerto Rico.

But she began looking like the Ánima Sola or Lonely Soul, a Catholic image brought from Europe that has evolved in America to become syncretized with some of the native and African religions. She has become a sort of goddess of love spells.

My Atabey passionately loves the earth, life, birth. In Taíno mythology, she gave birth to the "main god" Yukiyú or Yucahu. And so, she is the Mother of God, and the mother of all creatures. How might a goddess give birth? A fire that does not burn, a light that does not blind, but imparts life.

Her little child still sings for us every evening, reminding us of who lives within our own heart.

Common Coquí © Public Domain

Reproductions and Greeting Cards available in my Etsy Shops: http://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyaetorres http://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowButterflyShop

Inriri

Inriri por Tanya Torres

Inriri by Tanya Torres, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.
 

"They searched for a bird called inriri (woodpecker), and before was called  inriri cahuvayal, which lives in the trees, in our language it is called pico. Those persons without male or female sex were taken, their feet and hands tied, and the mentioned bird was tied to their body; the pico, believing that the people were tree trunks, began its accustomed work, pecking and making a hole where you can ordinarily find the nature of women."  Fray Ramón Pané

And so I found that the Taínos, the original inhabitants of the island of Puerto Rico, had spoken to tell me how the nature of women was created.

Mary Magdalene of the Burning Heart

María Magdalena del corazón ardiente por Tanya Torres

Mary Magdalene of the Flaming Heart by Tanya Torres, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

It took me a long time to finish this painting, which I published as a work in progress last year for Mary Magdalene's Day, and completed some months ago. It was a starting point for the paintings I wanted to do for Prague. I see it as the center, or centering, piece of the series, somewhere between Heaven and Earth, holding in her hands the burning heart of wisdom.

Mary Magdalene taught me (the readings, the thoughts, the synthesis extracted from all the wanderings) that the heart is the center of wisdom, of truth. Not the actual heart, but the spiritual heart. When we accept its wisdom, our whole being becomes harmonized and synchronized with the rest of the body as well as other beings.

Science  has found that the heart orders other body systems to act, just like the brain does. But it feeds on love. If there is no love, it becomes out of sync and causes everything else to do the same. At least that is what a Dr. Patrick Drouot, a professor in La Sorbonne, as well as other scientists say. I guess this is what Mary Magdalene has been trying to tell me all along!

With this knowledge of the heart, Earth begins.

***

Mary Magdalene of the Flaming Heart  is sold as well as Mother and Child. Thank you M.S. and S.T. for your support of my work!

Reproductions and Greeting Cards available in my Etsy Shops: 
Greeting Card: https://www.etsy.com/listing/102962322/mary-magdalene-of-the-burning-heart
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyaetorres
http://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowButterflyShop

Yulian, Guardian Angel

Yulian, Ángel de la Guarda por Tanya Torres

Yulian, Guardian Angel by Tanya Torres, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

Some of my friends already know that back in November, I began writing for About.com, a company of The New York Times, for their new site in Spanish. I am always writing, so I decided to write more formally, but the only topic that interested me was Ángeles y milagros, angels and miracles. I don't have any formal education in these themes, but I had studied so much while painting Mary Magdalene, that I decided to try and apply. The angels liked me, which means I am now a guide and write at 2 a.m. about inspiring topics that I hope will bring smiles, hope and knowledge to whoever reads my articles. So far so good. It is inspiring and it informs my art. Especially when I practice what I preach...
I was writing about "El Ángel de la Guarda" or Guardian Angel when

Whispers of Heaven

Susurros del Cielo por Tanya Torres

Whispers of Heaven by Tanya Torres, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

"Love surrounds us, holds us, makes us free to love and be loved..." 

Fr. Frank Sabatté's words seemed to define my view of God, and inspired the drawing for this painting. I was creating Life, Art and Letters at the time, with the poems and other writing I found in my friends' websites (with their written permission, of course!) Father Frank is an artist and Catholic priest I met a couple years ago whose view on spiritual matters was surprisingly similar, if not identical, to what Raquel and I were formulating with our Mary Magdalene works.

How does Love look? The words "Love surrounds us, holds us, makes us free to love and be loved..." made me think of doves whispering truths, or kissing one's hair and face as a blessing. This is the kind of love that unites all creatures, all creation.

The birds are freedom, the face is the human being, the colors are the light and warmth of Heaven. It is the right of every human being to be free, but for most of us, a terribly difficult task. Part of the quest is to listen to the messages of the Spirit, and accept the guidance of Love above all matters.

Reproductions and Greeting Cards available in my Etsy Shops: 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tanyaetorres
http://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowButterflyShop

Mother and Child

Madre e hijo por Tanya Torres

Mother and Child by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas, 12" x 9", 2012.

I had previously posted this painting, but part of the purpose of publishing them here is to organize my thoughts about them in order to be able to talk about each. I simply think much more efficiently when I write!

This was actually the second painting I finished, and which I did before the Tree and the Heart. The story of this painting is that, as I was watching a video of a bunch of priests fighting with brooms in Jerusalem, an image of the Virgin Mary with the Holy Child caught my eye. I looked it up and remained with the impression until I was able to begin drawing it. Here is the original drawing:

Powerful Hand of the Tree of Life

Mano Poderosa del Árbol de la Vida por Tanya Torres

Powerful Hand of the Tree of Life by Tanya Torres, Oil on canvas, 20" x 16", 2012.

I don't think I ever noticed a Mano Poderosa icon before visiting El Museo del Barrio some time after arriving in New york City in 1985. Like many other religious images, it seems for be popular depending on the region and the tendencies of the people who live there. It is in fact the type of Cristian icon that has become syncretized with the African and Indigenous religions of America. That is probably why I never saw it before.

Sacred Heart of the Earth

Sagrado Corazón de la Tierra por Tanya Torres

Sacred Heart of the Earth, 20" x 16", oil on canvas, 2012.

Religious symbols offer a sort of anchor for prayer, meditation and thought, but once you have left them behind, their meaning tends to evolve beyond recognition. New ideas take their place of holiness. New visions emerge from the depths of your soul. Only the truth that has always been remains and reemerges into a different, or not so different, vision.