A Traveling Studio of the Imagination

The Dark Magdalene: Garden by Tanya Torres
2018

This extra long year began when Hurricane María caught me in Puerto Rico. Then, back in NYC, my family's life was turned upside down when we had to leave our apartment in a rush, due to the City requiring us to make some changes to the structure of our building. This year long (and ongoing) ordeal gave me an idea: to buy my father's house in Puerto Rico and set up my studio there. What began as a nightmare, turned into a dream come true, and I was able to recover and rethink my life and my structures while experiencing the peace of the place where I spent most of my childhood (not in that house, but in that land...)

But real life was calling, and while it was hard to leave my little house, I had to come back to New York to my commitments, to my husband and son, and to my mother in law, Ramona, who called me every Friday to tell me I was missed here. She was so kind and so subtle, that she convinced me to change my ticket to come in earlier than I had planned.

Old, falling apart, scary

Fortunately, I had enough time to do 2 things: finish rebuilding the kitchen in my little house, and recover inside. It was the best medicine a soul could get, to be surrounded by nature and good memories, with a place to do art with enough time and enough silence. My morning company were a next door horse and the chicken that laid an egg each day. But in the evenings I met my mother or my best friend Waldemar, or his friends who always seemed to have a birthday to celebrate. In the meantime, I wasn't thinking or being anxious about the future. I rested.

New, please concentrate
on the nice tiles and the pears in wine
and not in the mess...

When the time came to pack, I realized that whatever I put in my suitcase would become my studio. My studio, which at one time was one whole storefront, then a little room in the basement, and then, in a great aggressive move, the top apartment of my building: my favorite place in the house that has ruled over my life for the last 20 years. I say this without regrets, knowing that it has given me much. But when I lost that studio, I lost a part of me, and since 2014, my studio has traveled up and down my building, to Puerto Rico and back, and is now reduced to a small table and a few art bins in my mother in law's apartment. And still...

Yesterday I was able to paint 7 small paintings in that tiny space.

Because my studio is the Traveling Studio of the Imagination.

Miramelindas by Tanya Torres, 2018.
Acrylics, matte acrylics, Pearlescent inks, Sharpie.

It goes with me, inside, and no longer needs to be a wide physical space. It officially exists in my house in Puerto Rico, and I will be back one day soon, to be there and paint there. But while I'm HERE it travels with me, inside and outside, in a big suitcase full of:

1. Acrylic paints: with 8 colors of Utrecht Fluid Acrylics that I discovered recently and love so much because of the contrast they create with their matte finish against the FW Pearlescent Acrylic inks and Porcelain gold outliners that I love.
2. A total of 5 brushes for acrylics. I use watercolor brushes for everything. And I love the natural, high quality hair of top of the line brushes. I splurge in brushes.
3. About 25 acrylic ink jars.
4. A bunch of acrylic tubes, that I don't use a lot but like to have with me.
5. A big acid-free PVA glue.
6. An electric pencil sharpener and a set of pencils. Also a lot of Ebony pencils. And ballpoint pens and regular pencils. A set of Micron pens and some extra Micron pens in red and terra-cotta. And about 30 back Sharpies.
7. About 25 tubes of oil paint and about 20 brushes (that I can't use because ventilation in not so good where I am right now.)
8. Jewelry making tools and some supplies. I am trying to give up the addiction to jewelry making.
9. A sketch book (left the others in Puerto Rico)
10. About 20 canvases (most of them small)
11. Two plastic cups with water and a ceramic cup I stole from my mother in law's kitchen to use as brush holder. I left my moroccan cup in Puerto Rico because that's where I want it to belong...
12. A new portable lamp I bought because light here is soooo bad. I left my fancy lamp in Puerto Rico because it was kind of heavy and that's where I want to use it.
13. Metallic pigments and other miscellaneous stuff.
14. Yellow Saral transfer paper.
15. Wax paper.
16. Small folding table.
17. Art bin with tiles, student brushes, and a full workshop for The New York Botanical Garden this Friday. (Using Sharpies...)
18. About 25 jars of Porcelain tile paint. I use the same brushes as I use for acrylic painting.
19. Whenever I need something else, I order from Blick or take the bus to 125th street in Harlem and stop by the store. I love Blick. They are not paying me to say this! I love them because they ship to Puerto Rico at a very fair price. It is a problem getting things shipped to Puerto Rico and art supplies are hard to find there.
20. A trained and disciplined mind to work as soon as I sit down.

This is my Traveling Studio of the Imagination. It is a no-excuses, go-with-the-flow, start-where-you are kind of studio. And when I need real space and solitude: I will get on a plane and arrive where my roots remain planted.

How much do we really need?