Elvira Garcia Practices the Art of Spiritual Transformation

“doorway into eternity”

Elvira Garcia holds her Guardian Angel

A red door frame sculpture stands in Elvira Garcia’s Nambe garden. She calls it “a doorway into eternity.” Standing in the Garcia’s driveway, looking through the door frame, the Sangre de Cristos blossom into view like cloud covered jewels. On the ground, at the foot of the sculpture, Garcia and her husband, Jerry, have scattered holy dirt from the Santuario de Chimayo.

As you step on the holy dirt and walk through the empty frame, there is a feeling that, as the poet William Blake said, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”

Sculptor, painter and poet, Garcia’s art grew from her need to find her center after the tragic death of her son, Anhel, in a 1998 automobile accident.

“I would say my art was a form of prayer,” Garcia said. “Before Anhel’s death, I hadn’t done much art. I never thought of myself as an artist.”

She said she always thought of her son as “a spirited horse,” and her first painting after his death was a white horse, rearing up on its back legs atop a mesa with thunder clouds in the background.

A self-taught artist, she was surprised and delighted by her initial excursions into painting, but she said she would go to bed at night afraid she’d wake up in the morning unable to paint.

A white buffalo painting followed her spirit horse and with continued success her confidence grew, as did her creativity.

Her creative experiments in drawing and painting led her to come up with the idea to make cruzitas out of Plexiglas, she said.

First, she cuts the Plexiglas about 12 inches tall, and then draws and paints a santo on heavy gauge watercolor paper in the shape of the Plexiglas cross. When she finishes painting the santo, she glues it to the cross and puts a backing on it.

“Although I enjoyed creating the cruzitas, I felt there was something else I wanted to do,” she said. “So, I decided to make retablos.”

Not only does she paint the retablos, she also selects and cuts her boards-usually sugar pine or poplar.

Her retablos, painted in bright acrylics, portray a variety of saints, including San Isidro, Our Lady of Guadalupe, San Francisco and San Pasqual.

Many of her paintings of saints are in contemporary settings. When she paints San Isidro, the patron saint of farmers, she has him wearing modern overalls and a plaid shirt.

Although Garcia’s not after recognition, her retablos, all of which have a miniature painting on the back, which she said is her trademark, have won several awards.

Her retablo of “La Sagrada de Familia” won a third place price in traditional forms at the Espanola Valley Arts Festival. Her cruzitas have also been represented in the juried Master Works of New Mexico show in Albuquerque.

There’s also a Garcia retablo of Santo Nino de Atocha, which she donated, hanging in the Santuario de Chimayo.

As she talks about her art, she returns again and again to the theme of spiritual awakening and how through art she found her center.

“When I’m doing retablos, I feel Anhel there with me,” she said. “The dead don’t die. They are always in your heart and memory.”

Asked what advice she could give to people who have lost their loved ones, she said, “Don’t keep your sorrow inside. And although it’s difficult, don’t forget to smile and laugh because life is precious.”

People are afraid to talk to their friends after they’ve lost a child, she said.

“I wanted to hear stories about Anhel,” she said. “He was something on this earth. I want to remember him and I want people to remember him.”

Her grand-daughter, Santana, a cute little 9-year-old, refers to Anhel as Uncle Memory, she said.

“After Anhel’s death, Santana asked me, ‘When is Uncle Memory’s birthday,’”  “I told her, August 2, and she said ‘Let’s bake a cake for him and celebrate.’”

I told Santana I always wanted to celebrate his birthday but I never have because I didn’t want people to think I’m crazy.

“When I told her this,” she replied, ‘Gummie, you tell them, You want a piece of me, when they tell you you’re crazy.’”

Garcia laughed telling the story, and said, thanks to Santana’s suggestion they will celebrate Anhel’s birthday.

The wisdom of a child, family, grief, love and art, have accompanied and buoyed Garcia on her pilgrimage into spirit and soul.

She said she likes to sit in her yard in the evening with her husband, Jerry, and look out through the “doorway into eternity,” listening to the birds, watching the Sangres turn red as long shadows slide up the side of the mountains.

“Nambe is a special place,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. This is my home. I am, and always will be, a Nambesena”