The Studio Is Where the Soul Is

I can live without a home and a bedroom a kitchen and a bathroom, but not without a studio. That is my literal and current truth.

For one month now I have been traveling 2 hours a day, back and forth from Washington Heights where my mother in law lives to East Harlem where my husband and I bought a building 20 years ago. Where our son was born and grew. Where all my most productive years have happened, and all my studios in that time have been.

This is not a tragic story, just something that happens to building owners sometimes. The oldest building's certificate of occupancy does not match the current structure (the building was sold to us with a different description,) so we have to make it match according to the two city agencies involved. A long and expensive process, but unavoidable.

The good news is we are alive and healthy and hopeful that we will be able to make the necessary changes so that our building can be our home again or at least our business again.

The one thing that has made the process bearable is being able to keep my studio space. I will have to pack it too at some point this year, and I am not looking forward to that. But I have no choice.

Among other things, this process has taught me how little I really need. I miss having my own place, but I don't miss having an apartment full of stuff. I am fine with living off a suitcase and suspect that when I am finally able to unpack the 100 boxes we had to pack, there will be a lot of donations taking place. And that is liberating.

But the one thing I cannot live without is my workspace. That is the place where I think, breath, exist at my most real. And when I lose that, I need to have a plan in place because my mind might not be able to take it ;)

So to begin the year strong and to have a reason to move forward, I am spending as long as necessary planning a great year. I am building myself a map that will show me where to go and what to do when I feel lost.

I have been living my dream for so many years that facing the possibility of having to find a "real job" is very scary and frustrating. So by having a plan for art, a survival plan to stay afloat, I hope to be able to save the "job" I have been doing for so long even if I have to take a different road for a while.

While I am not looking forward to taking the bus tomorrow with the snowstorm that is going on outside, I am looking forward to making this a great year for my work. That is my greatest intention and I will be working non-stop to make it my reality.

When I don't have a studio: I can do these tiny abstract paintings made with love, peace and joy to carry close to your heart. This one has amethyst beads and an adjustable leather necklace.

Have you seen my Magical Medallions? See some examples here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154858033932181.1073741854.689597180&type=1&l=e4156189a8

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.

Eros and Psyche

It's been years since I learned about Eros and Psyche, so long ago I can't remember why I became interested in the topic. I'm sure it had something to do with a longing for the idea that they represent, the union of love and the soul.

When we think of Eros, we mostly relate this character of Greek mythology with erotic love, and he certainly has something to do with it, but it is also significant that in the end of his story, he is not alone, but joined by Psyche, the soul. One is not complete without the other.

Just like each of our own souls when they are silenced by the logic of the mind, Psyche had lack of faith and because of that, lost her beloved. But once she realized her loss, she did all she could to win him back and had to pass immense tests of strength in order to reach him. In the end, she becomes immortal, because of love.

I began this watercolor years ago, together with others that remain unfinished and a series of canvases inspired by Indian miniatures illustrating the Kama Sutra, which I keep but never have painted. This year, I decided it is time to take Eros out of the drawers of forgetfulness, which is why I am publishing this watercolor so we can all get inspired to let our own Eros and Psyche find each other in our own heart.

***

This watercolor is available as well as prints and cards of this and other images of Eros and Psyche when you visit this blog's special shop page: http://tanyatorres.blogspot.com/p/shop.html

and take a look at the image of MM and JC, do you notice? I did not realize it when I composed Surrender... but the placement of the figures is almost the same!

Song of the Magdalene: Mary Magdalene of the Tears

Mary Magdalene of the Tears, Oil on canvas board, 7" x 9", 2010

Beloved disciple,

your tears arrived,

when you embraced,

your vision,

weaving the warp and weft,

where we now rest,

in the perpetual lace

of Resurrection.

(Verses from the poem Tears of Freedom)

In Spanish, there is a very popular expression: "Crying like a Magdalene." I don't know if the same is true for other languages and cultures, but for Puerto Ricans, the Magdalene is always the image of crying in desperation. This Magdalene, the last one I completed (for now!), is the only one I painted with tears as an iconographical reference. But once again, I am substituting the traditional meaning and offering a new interpretation. In this painting the tears are not a reference to pain, but to freedom.

Mary Magdalene must have experienced an immense amount of pain. She chose to face it. She stayed by the Cross as her Beloved died a terrible death. She did not run away before or after, but lived through it. Those of us who know pain of any kind, physical or emotional, know that once we live through it, something happens. Nothing is the same as it was before, there is a calm, a silence of a meditative and clear nature. A silence that lets us hear its lesson.

Pain is a great teacher. Once we meet pain, we will forever be aware of the suffering of others. What we could not imagine possible in terms of suffering, we realize as true after knowing pain. Empathy and compassion can blossom out of this experience, and a new kind of strength as well. It is as if pain can have the power weaken our bodies, while also containing the possibility of adding muscle to our souls.

I, like many people, have experienced both physical and emotional pain. The physical pain of cancer is excruciating. It creates an impenetrable layer of fear that can soon make you wish death. It is clear and loud, like a bomb. Emotional pain can be the opposite. It is so quiet and ineffable that we can't notice it as it takes over our life and then crawls all over us like a slimy snail. Both can take us into the most immense loneliness, and both can kill us, or liberate us.

Why can pain liberate us? Because when we face it, we make the decision to be free. Even if we cannot get rid of the pain, we can be free to start finding a new way to live, a new way to see. There are terrible things in the world, and I cannot console or offer any words of comfort to the victims of all the terrible errors of humanity, or to the victims of illness or even of pure chance. All I can say, from my very limited perspective, is that when people embrace their experience of pain, they make a difference in the lives of those who are just beginning to live it, and as a result, their own lives acquire purpose. Of all the things I read about cancer during the moments when I first had to face it, only the stories of survivors stayed with me. That was all I had, and that was all I held on to. The Magdalene had more than I did at the time. She had her faith in the Resurrection.

Whether we understand the Resurrection as a literal or interpretative event, faith remains the base of its redeeming power. Faith is the notion that we can be reborn out of a life-changing experience. Mary Magdalene was reborn through her tears of pain, the same tears that brought her liberation from being a woman to being a human being in its full expression. Her tears formed the veil she penetrated in order to see the true nature of her teacher, and in order to see her own true nature. It was through her faith in her vision of the Resurrection that she brought the news to the world that we were more than just our flesh, that we were beyond sin. If we accepted the redeeming nature of death and rebirth, we would be born into a new being free from the archaic notion of sin, free from judgement, free from the restraints we had invented in response to fear. She brought faith in answer to fear, rebirth in answer to death.

So from now on, when we go to a museum or a church and see a crying Magdalene, we can choose to remember that the purpose of the Crucifixion was the Resurrection, and that the tears we see washed her eyes of the illusion of death in order to see life. Her vision, of life reborn, of life never dead, can be the warp and weft on which we can place our faith to believe that out of our pain, a new life can be born.

***

Tanya

Prayerfully painting for more love, for more peace, for more faith, for our world to be reborn.

http://www.tanyatorres.com