New Paintings of Mary Magdalene

Yesterday, our Mary Magdalene Celebration was beautiful. Here are the new paintings, presented on the altar at the mass at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, and later placed at the promesa altar.

Mary Magdalene, Our Lady of Flowers by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas board, 10" x 8", 2013

Mary Magdalene and the Miracle of the Red Egg, by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas board, 10" x 8", 2013.

Mary Magdalene, Our Lady of Sunflowers, by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas board, 10" x 8", 2013.

Mary Magdalene, Our Lady of Fire, by Tanya Torres, oil on canvas board, 10" x 8", 2013.

Altar at the celebration, ready for the songs of the promesa, with traditional wooden saint made by artisan Marta Iris Rodríguez Olmeda

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

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

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

Prague Paintings (Just a peek!)

Mother and Child (Madre e hijo) by Tanya Torres
Oil on Canvas, 9" x 12"
2012

I April, I will be traveling to Prague for an exhibition at the Prague Congress Center. This is one of the paintings I have created for this wonderful opportunity to travel with and exhibit my art. More to come!