"Red Violin"
“When I began painting I also began to appreciate and enjoy my ‘female-ness’ for the first time. To see how beautiful and mysterious all women truly are, and heal the scar of shame I carried for so long.”
—Irene Carranza |
 "Soledad" |
 "Para Mi Anhelo" |
Art That Looks Back and Through
To hear Irene Carranza speak, it's easy to believe this is a woman who was born for success — self-assured, easy smiling. Her somber, beautiful art has made her one of Southern California 's most sought-after painters. Robert Pincus, art critic for the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, says Carranza's work conveys “an emotional core” that is “not just about design and color – it is sophisticated and populist” at the same time. With prices for her paintings ranging from $1,800 to $15,000, it would be natural to assume life has been generous to this Latina artist. It would be wrong. |
 Irene Carranza |
She not only took a circuitous path to painting — twice circumstances forcing her to drop her dream — but some close to her stood as formidable obstacles. Carranza had always been the artist in her family, painting, drawing, coloring. So when she got a scholarship to go to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1978, she felt she had it made. But her dreams were shattered quickly: At age 20, she was 10 years younger and less experienced than most students at the art center. She felt she was not at their level. She started doubting herself.
Then one of Carranza's professors told her that illustration, her major, wasn't for her. “Maybe he really didn't say that,” she explains, “but what I heard was, ‘You can't draw. You should change your major.' ” She was devastated. Worse, there was no one she could talk to about it. She shifted to graphic design and advertising. By 1981, she left the center.
Carranza next turned to World Vision International, a Christian relief organization. There she became an art director, sought refuge in religion and married this “guy who came along.” Within a couple of years, she started having children. She thought she would please her family — she was the eldest of eight children. Her mom and dad were from Mexico .
All the while depression got hold of her. She was pleasing no one, least of all herself. She considered that her kids, her husband, her house chores and her church took precedence over what she says “seemed a selfish goal” — wanting to be a painter.
That changed in 1986, when she left World Vision and resumed her art training at a community college. Yet, her children needed her time. A professor said she would have to make a choice. Again, Carranza opted to drop art.
“If I don't give up, that means no more family life,” she says, adding, “it was too big a sacrifice.”
It didn't prevent the heartache and disillusionment to come. She separated from her husband in 1993 and later abandoned what she describes as an “unhealthy church” after a pastor made inappropriate advances.
It became her turn. First, she was counseled by a couple from Tehachapi, north of Los Angeles . She regained her self-confidence and learned about her inner voice. She tried to save her marriage, but eventually, she said, “I had to let go of that.” For a time, it meant that her husband had custody of their four children. But it was then, in 1997, that she first drew attention as a serious artist.
“I also found myself alone for the first time in my entire life that year, embarking on this mysterious venture of creating art to support myself,” says Carranza.
Her painting, “ Soledad ,” of a woman, alone, sitting on the brown earth with a maguey plant behind her — her profile looking up, hopeful and expectant — grew out of that time.
“When I began painting I also began to appreciate and enjoy my ‘female-ness' for the first time,” she says, “to see how beautiful and mysterious all women truly are, and heal the scar of shame I carried for so long.”
Today, at 47, Irene Carranza, her children at her side, ranks among the top Latina visual artists and strikes an uplifting tone, saying, “I have found what it feels like to be free, wild, carefree, joyful and have forever buried the burden of suffering, hatred, fear … that had prevented me from seeing the beauty of life everywhere and in everyone.”
And she seems lighthearted as she says she can't explain her fascination with one of her favorite subjects, women's backs: “Maybe it's not about me this time!”
Carranza's newest art gallery, CenterLight Gallery, which she co-owns with fellow artist and poet María Repke, will be opening near the end of this year in La Jolla . Her first gallery, also CenterLight, is in Los Angeles .
If commercialism were ever a concern, she is at peace with it now, as accessible to single moms who might choose one of her $400 to $1,200 archival prints as to celebrity collectors.
“I really don't care either way what the artworld thinks,” she says, “if my art is really masterful it will withstand time.”
Fernando Romero , based in San Diego, has written extensively about artists, among them painter José Luis Cuevas, guitarist Carlos Santana and percussionist Tito Puente.
Su Conexión
For Irene Carranza's artwork and her galleries, go to: www.centerlightgallery.com and www.irenecarranza.com
