#sparkchamber 030920 — Rita Torres

Is Mother’s day in March or in May? Oh, everyone knows it’s every day! We give a big bear-hug #sparkchamber welcome to mother, artist, and retired waitress Rita Torres. Her story is told lovingly by the older of her two sons.

My mother, now 78 years old, has been making art her whole life. If there’s anything that defines her, aside from the utterly selfless [neurotic!] devotion to her children, it’s artmaking. She began as an oil painter, but for the past couple of decades her interest has expanded to other media, often combining them. The older she gets, the more bounteous her output. She’s downright prolific, making several pieces a week. Her walls and shelves are filled with her work, she gives away a lot of pieces, and occasionally she sells some.

Not known for her patience, she plows through each project, often just so she can get to the next one. Her restless spirit manifests itself in wild experimentation — photos become sculptures, paintings get holes cut in them or embroidered, shadowbox picture frames are turned into tables. Nothing is conventional. These ideas never stop; in fact, the actual subject matter of each piece is secondary to the style of execution. And nearly everything in her world gets embellished with paint, sequins, glitter, stitching and more — shoes, walls, mirrors, even her carpet! On my last visit she talked about bedazzling her car with rhinestones!

Growing up, her artmaking was a big influence on me. I remember as a little kid how our small Brooklyn apartment smelled of oil paint and cigarettes. I remember how I eagerly sought and employed her drawing tips. When I was 9, I loved how, after our family car got sideswiped, instead of having the dented door fixed, my mom painted a giant band-aid over the dent. After moving to Florida when I was 11, we got into every ’70s arts and craft fad — decoupage, macramé, sandpainting, Shrinky Dinks — and always, always drawing. No wonder I grew up to be a graphic designer!

Like a lot of folks her age, my mom is a bit of a luddite. She never used a computer and generally has a disdain for technology. She has an iPad that she uses for playing games and FaceTiming her grandkids, but isn’t interested [at least not yet] in using it to explore the internet, take photos, make art, or even type emails. For that reason, I asked her the questions aloud on a FaceTime call and transcribed the exchange afterward. Just like my mom is in real life, her responses are direct and unedited. [My words are in italics.]

1.] Where do ideas come from?

Okay, I thought about this one and, actually, from someplace that I really don’t know. I wake up with an idea. And it’s completely original. It just is there. Sometimes I would get an idea off of somebody else’s work, and I would get my idea from that. But my own original ideas — they just come. Like over-and-under [a reference to work she makes that uses different layers of painting or photos for a 3-D effect] and just making art come alive.

2.] What is the itch you are scratching?

Psoriasis [laughs]. The itch that I’m scratching is to make art come alive. That it’s just not flat on the canvas. Something you can see 3-D, something you can touch and feel. 

I think about an “itch you are scratching” is that there’s something that makes you want to make art. Something compelling you to make art —

I want it to come alive.

Okay, so it doesn’t have to do with something personal —

No.

— like if you didn’t make art you would go crazy —

Yes, that too. If there was no art I would go absolutely nuts. If I don’t have a project or two that I’m doing, then I get depressed. It’s one of my depression triggers.

3.] Early bird or night owl, tortoise or hare?

Early bird. Tortoise or hare? Hare. I don’t like things that are slow.

It seems like you once like you want to get something started, you’re not patient

I want to get it finished. I want to see the finished product. And that’s why my work is sometimes sloppy. But I need to see what it looks like finished.

Or sometimes you have so many ideas that you want to get it over with so you can start the next one

Absolutely true.

4.] How do you know when you are done?

I thought of a funny one — when the toilet paper roll is empty [laughs]. How do I know when I’m done? When I … I guess when I make my point. When I got my point across.

To who?

To myself.