Elaine Soto Celebrates the Divine Feminine

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Elaine Soto with one of her Black Madonna pieces

LOS LUNAS, NM (12/07/2011)(readMedia)-- "Where is the rest of him?"

That was a question a very shy Elaine Soto was asked by her drawing instructor. Soto was a business major, and in her senior year of college she decided to take an art course. Among other subjects, the class had to draw nude figures, and Soto wasn't quite sure what to do with the bottom half of her subject the day they were to draw a nude male model.

She is not so shy now, and she knows how to answer that question today. But that whim led to a lifelong love of art. Those fortunate enough to visit the UNM-Valencia Fine Arts Gallery through the end of the fall semester will have the opportunity to see some of Soto's work on one of her favorite subjects, the Black Madonna.

Several of Soto's pieces, most of them utilizing encaustic painting, are on display in a solo exhibit entitled "Divine Feminine." The gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

That first art course also directed Soto's career down a completely different path as she did not pursue any advanced degrees in business. Her next move was into education.

"I went to Harvard and got a master's in education," Soto said. While at Harvard, she continued to paint on her own.

From there she was accepted to the clinical psychology program at New York University. She completed both a master's and a doctoral program; that took six years. While working on her degrees at NYU, she started taking painting classes at The Puerto Rican Workshop.

"I remember I was doing an internship at a psychiatric hospital," Soto said. "I would come home wiped out, but I took silkscreen and photography classes any way."

By the time she finished her doctorate, Soto said "I knew I wanted to do more art." Art had become an obsession, but she was tired of obtaining degrees. She was interested in taking art courses at the School of Visual Arts in New York, but she didn't want to pursue another degree.

"I asked them, 'Do I need to go through another program?'" Soto said. They told her to just take some classes, and she pursued painting at the school.

Born and raised in New York, Soto taught at universities in the area, took up a passion for writing, developed a psychiatric practice and worked as an artist in residence. Her first residency was with the El Museo Del Barrio, Caring Program where she worked with both children and their parents. Her second residency was with The Puerto Rican Workshop (Taller Boricua).

In 2002, she fell in love with New Mexico when she attended her first National Latino Writers Conference. She moved to Albuquerque in 2004 after a three-year stint in Colorado. Now she works for the University of New Mexico in the Counseling Assistance and Referral Services (CARS) program.

Soto sees faculty and staff in individual and couples counseling, does EMDR and conducts expressive art workshops.

"Expressive workshops that I created in New York in the barrio I now do here in New Mexico," Soto said. She incorporates writing, painting, guided meditation and other techniques to help participants work through issues, and each workshop has its unique qualities.

Besides her exploration of the divine feminine and the Black Madonna, Soto has been exploring writing in a specific poetic form known as the pantoum where the stanzas become interlocking as dictated by a rhyme scheme that is repeated in each stanza.

But Soto's favorite subject, she said, has been researching and painting Black Madonnas. That is something she has been doing since 1992.

Soto states in her artist's statement for the show that her interest in the Black Madonna was sparked by a question. She exhibited a ceramic relief structure of Our Lady of Montserrat, a Black Madonna from Puerto Rico and Spain, at an exhibit some years ago. Someone asked her why the Madonna was black?

"I thought the Madonna was black because she was painted to look like the people who worshipped her," Soto stated. But in her research, Soto discovered that Black Madonnas did not appear black in color in France, Italy and Spain. Black Madonnas are not specifically about color, but rather are "considered miracle workers and are located in power spots" throughout the world.

There often is a connection with ancient matriarchal cultures and the association of black color is often a connection with earth mothers in agrarian societies and to the Goddess Isis.

Soto's work is rich with color and bold strokes. She depicts the divine feminine with imagery that demands respect and has power.

"They depict what has been missing in our cultures regarding women and particularly women of color," Soto said. "That is that women are valuable and capable of being divine, and that women of color are also valuable and capable of being divine."

Besides her encaustic pieces, Soto provides her viewers with a linocut print. There is also a bronze statue that celebrates the beauty and power of motherhood. Soto incorporates a statement in an encaustic piece of a golden madonna entitled "Le Puy" that sums it up best about the divine femine: "I love you as you are."

The gallery is open Monday through Friday. Enjoy the beauty and the power of the divine feminine.