Return

For so long I haven’t been able to write, or draw, or do much painting. It all started when the house that my husband and I bought in 1997 started having problems. Then a lot of struggle. And a lot of decisions that, looking backwards, were bad decisions. Decisions of attachment. 

In the end, and after about 7 years, we stepped out and sold. All those years, I was itinerant. I lived in different places, back in the building, out again. Until I finally arrived at a place that is now home. I never thought I would live anywhere else but my house in East Harlem, where so many dreams became a reality, where my son grew up, where I grew up as an artist. But such is life, as they say.

The worst part was that all along, except for the time I spent in Puerto Rico in the beginning, I have been working full time and full strength. I return home every day exhausted and depleted, and even though it was necessary, I struggled a great deal to accept that, at least for a while, I would be a regular person with a regular job, with little time for art or poetry or friendship. I still haven’t accepted it.

I felt really disappointed in myself and my lack of energy. I felt like I was failing in my commitment to my artwork, and I chose to hide and be quiet for a while since I could not find my words.

It’s not that I was completely away. I made many watercolors while on zoom meetings in the pandemic. 

I participated in a MOMA project with the Rafael Tufiño Printmaking Workshop, and exhibited with the 7 Women in Movement. 

I taught a year-long workshop and took a trip to Puerto Rico with my students.

 I continued the Mary Magdalene Celebration, each year.

 I even created a poster for the Museo del Barrio. 

And also had the opportunity to participate in the Campechada in my town, San German, Puerto Rico.

I probably did a few other things, but was too sad and distracted to even post here. Whenever I sat down to write, I had no words. 

Then one day I started working on myself. It took a while to get myself back. I listened to a lot of podcasts and advice, I meditated non-stop (or tried) and started working on believing that I can reclaim my ideal life and my art. 

Little by little, things started happening, magic restarted. The building sold. I found an apartment to buy, an apartment very close to my mom’s and full of light all day. It took a few months to rebuild and furnish, and then a few months to feel at home. I started writing in the morning before going to work. Sometimes I could only write a sentence or two. I drew sigils with my wishes. I imagined things just like when I was 17 years old and wanted to escape New York. And finally, I started painting.

Mary Magdalene: The Flower of Life, by Tanya Torres, Oil on Canvas, 18”h x 24”w”, 2024.

By the end of 2024 and the first day of 2025, I have 2 new paintings and one in progress. I have a new book in progress. I feel like projects and life are finally within reach. 

I have promised my self the following:

Excellent food and nutrition: Nourished

Exercise and flexibility: Strong

Meditation and prayer: Elevated

Art every day: Creative

Business dream into reality: Disciplined

 

For this I created an impossible checklist: (Today, so far…)

✅ Writing 

☐Meditating
☐Breathing
✅ Healthy food
✅ Drawing
☐Painting
✅ ✅ Blog 

☐Yoga
☐Walking
☐Products
✅ Contact a friend
☐Planning
✅ Gratitude

This is the plan. Which translates into living every day the way I want to live every day, even if I still have a job and haven’t quite liberated myself from the aftershocks of the art-life-shaking events.

I have so much work to do, it’s scary. But the alternative is staying in place, in a place that while significant and of service to humanity, is not what my soul wants. 

I have had the opportunity to learn so many things about myself during this period. And the main thing that stands out is that I am unable to give up my life-long vision, a vision I realized and lost, but that refuses to leave my heart.

The time is now.

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?

Hoy, artista: The End of a Decade

Cesarea at Dawn (2002) by Tanya Torres.

As Art History clearly tells us, I may not be the only artist who is a slave to emotions. One of the emotions or propensities that I suffer from is perfectionism. This has caused a great deal of anxiety in my life through the years.

As a student I believed the world would end if I didn't get a 4.0 average. In order for the world not to end, I studied very hard and did all my papers, attended every class, memorized every painting for the art history classes with title, artist and year. I had a great memory and a great discipline. And I tried to treat art the same way, but it didn't quite work.

My mind was occupied at all times, without rest. And art requires time, thinking, contemplation. I had a Chinese classmate in my M.F.A. program who used to spend most of her time in bed. She "couldn't work." But I remember her M.F.A. exhibition. It was entering another world. It's been more than 20 years and I still remember the feeling of stepping inside this world she created. An apparent last minute creation. But in truth, she allowed herself to lie in bed and think. And she was creating beyond reality.

As for me, I transferred these obsessions to my editing work. I worked and worked and for a few years after I graduated from my M.F.A., I spent up to 16 hours a day working. Not making art. It was a worthwhile investment, and I don't regret it. But I must now use the resources I created through that sacrifice.

Then I got sick and my first impulse was to paint. In bright colors, and voluptuous bodies. Lots of life, and regeneration. And I think it helped. But for some reason, that discipline that I had for school and editorial work was always difficult to achieve with art. That's because I approach the work in the same way as a manuscript. I sit down and start.

But when emotion takes over, I forget. I don't know how to start. Until I remember that sitting down and doing it will heal my treacherous mind. I sit down and start. And in 1 hour I will have recovered from any depression, negativity or fear. The world is shiny again. I am enlightened. But after a time I will be back to the same place.

The last 2 years have been tough in this sense. I had to move my studio to my home and this mean I am visually distracted by clutter, family, cats... I also got myself involved in too many commitments to people. Although I have done a lot of great and worthwhile things, I have not been well and my art production has suffered. It's time to stop.

This Saturday will be the last Mary Magdalene Celebration of the decade. It is a promise of art, song and dance. I have put a lot of time, effort and resources into it. And I have gathered a large group of artists to join by exhibiting and performing. It is a big thing that in a way has become a sign to myself, the meaning of the action/event itself: now that you have done this, it is time to shed that last layer of do it all, and go on to the next level.

The next level is finding my way back to that place I found around 2007-12, which was a blissful and artful period. I wrote my best poetry. I created easily and effortlessly. I am happy with that work. And stay there.

The next stage includes creating a proper studio space in another property away from the distractions of the city. It comes with a better distribution of energy.

It is the end of a decade of singing to the Magdalene, but it is not the end of the decade for me yet. I still have 3 more years until 50 ;)  And when i get there I want to be able to look back and breath: "I have conquered my self-discipline, and my artwork flows without end." It will.

Hoy artista: A New Year

Hand-painted jewelry by Tanya Torres (2016)

The year began with a warning: Stop!

I had not been sick in ages. Except for a day of allergy once in a while when I am very tired or stressed. But as the New Year approached, I felt an inner compulsion to plan, to get on top of things and to get ready. And then I got so sick I've been in bed for a couple of days and I lost my voice almost completely.

With my intellectual mind, I know it is a virus I caught at one of the many events and parties I reluctantly went to at the end of 2016. With my magical mind I feel that I am saying something to myself.

The past year was good, at least if I look at it in terms of checkmarks.

I did all the usual events.

I created a great event, the Mary Magdalene Celebration.

I created a fashion line.

I published a book.

I participated in several exhibitions.

I opened a store, a real life store!

I helped create a Saturday program at the Puerto Rican Cultural Heritage House.

I helped my friend create websites and exhibitions and realize dreams.

I'm sure there's more. But even though I feel these have been great accomplishments and I have enjoyed them, I need to stop the frenzy. Because that is how that voice inside my head sounds, as if I am running out of time. There's always this fear that if I don't do enough and I don't use my time wisely then when I die I won't have finished my mission. It's irrational, but always there. And it needs to stop, because missions are not accomplished with busywork but with great work, and great work requires uninterrupted thought and concentration. And because I waste a lot of time not having a clear head!

In order to get my mind working within that wavelength...

I have been planning a long trip, a time free of the commitments of the world I live in right now.

A long trip. A trip to think, forget, and to remember, to reconstruct.

So that's what I am doing this year, even if it will not be as long as I wanted it to be, or the exact trip I wanted.

The trip I wanted sounds really boring to most people. I wanted to rent a house in Albuquerque, and set up a studio in a room of the house, and just work, go for walks with Raquel, go to Sunday dinner at Linda's house, and at the end of 6 months, find myself wanting to come back to NYC with my mind renewed and my objectives and desires clear. My worst fear was that I would not want to come back.

But since I am not going by myself, I will have to compromise and go to Spain for 2 months and just travel around old cities, eat all kinds of delicious foods, draw, take photos, and write, which is something I have not been able to do lately since my mind is in "shutdown" most of the time and that's why I need a trip. (This blog post is a sort of "permission to write post," to get me started...)

That trip is probably going to be from March until May. On March 4th, I have an event with Xiomara Evans and Marni Rice at La Maison d'Art. Then we leave! After that, back to NYC, where I have a date set for this year's Mary Magdalene Celebration on July 22 at PS 109/El Barrio Art Space and La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña.

After that, I don't know. I hope the trip will help me decide what changes I need to make, what to keep and what to let go.