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Well, who said she wasn’t already there….. I’m actually talking about Yemaya, my painting, who seems to take a life all her own and for this reason, I’ll use the pronoun “she” to refer to her (another pronoun).

Anyhow, Yemaya seems to be my most popular painting.  People write me about how she looks like something they dreamed about, or with any other number of reasons that attract them to this portrait.  In the 7 years since I created her (7 is Yemaya’s number by the way) she loves to pick up and travel and meet people and bless them with her cleansing waters.

Yemaya was conceived underwater at a site known as “The Indians”, a cluster of large rocks that peek out from the crystal blue waters somewhere between the so-called "British" Virgin Islands. It was my first underwater experience and I nearly fainted at the gorgeous colors of the fish and coral. In appreciation I decided to thank Yemaya, Goddess of the seas, Patrona de las madres y todas mujeres, by painting her as the beautiful brown woman that she is. She debuted in an exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art on the campus of Cornell University in 2000, as part of a site-specific installation I created. 

She then traveled to Philadelphia for another exhibit there and was seen at some other local exhibits in NYC. In 2003 she was also part of another exhibit at a conference at NYU. 

In 2004 Yemaya traveled to a place I never thought she’d go, Fort Wayne, Indiana.  At an exhibition there, she scared a white woman.  Most people were loving her, but this one woman was embarrassed and ran away. You see she had been staring at Yemaya and the altar before her while sipping some water.  I watched her then perform some strange juggling act as she tried to save her cup of water from falling over, but inevitably it did.  The water fell over in a wave, washing down on all the seashells on Yemaya’s altar. It wasn’t until the woman turned around and quickly darted out of the gallery that I noticed her large, pregnant belly.  I guess having never really come face to face with Yemaya before, she didn’t understand that her spilled water was an offering in exchange for a blessing she never knew Yemaya had already given her. 

Then that fall Yemaya traveled to West Bubba Pennsylvania for an exhibit at Penn State.  I’m not sure she really like it there though. You see, she arrived there without me.  It was kinda  cool cuz for the first time someone had offered to do the labor for me, hang my art, create the installation according to my directions.  But it seemed like whoever did it didn’t really understand or appreciate Yemaya cuz they got it all twisted.  Yemaya although the goddess of the sea, represented by its beautiful blue, instead was given a yellow candle.  Somehow they didn’t get that it belongs to Ochun right next to her, her sister.  I guess Ochun’s yellow fabric wasn’t a big enough clue.  They even put Santa Barbara (Chango) on Ochun's altar, huge mistake! It was a mess. (See below) Luckily I arrived there in time to fix it all up, just before the opening reception. 

Yemaya was most delighted when she traveled home to Austin, Texas. ¿Que si que? You heard. Who ever knew that Austin had a community of Yoruba people from Nigeria.  Yemaya didn’t actually cross the Atlantic back home, but somehow got a taste of home at the Center for African and African-American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin.  She was so happy. They knew how to treat her there. They bought her melao de caña, candles in pretty blue glasses and even flowers! To show how happy she was, she spilled the bucket filled with water and her flowers, washing the floor before her altar. Her Texas altar turned out to be the loveliest ever.  I sat in the audience during the conference and watched her exude warmth as young students spoke in Yoruba and the Yoruba elders in the audience wondered how that Yemaya came to Texas via Brooklyn, via Puerto Rico, via the Atlantic, via Yorubaland, Ijesha and the sacred city of Ile-Ife.

Last month they wrote me from Puerto Rico to request a particular painting for an exhibit for the Caribbean Cultural Center’s symposium on African Spiritualities to be held there from July 11-July14.  I don’t think Yemaya was having it.  It was her 7^th anniversary, this 7^th year of the millennium.  If I was going to Puerto Rico to celebrate my 7^th wedding anniversary and it was her who traveled with us during our honeymoon in the Virgin Islands, well she wasn’t gonna be left out of this party.  I had already told them they could have the painting they requested, but the following week I got another email from Puerto Rico saying that they changed their minds and wanted Yemaya instead.  So she’s packing her bags.  I bought her new fabrics for her altar and will gather new seashells from Culebra, Puerto Rico so she can bless us during this trip, as she blessed me when I never expected her to be waiting for me there, during my last visit to Vieques. 

As the mother goddess, Yemaya has nurtured me through many struggles.  She knows Puerto Rico continues to struggle and wants to manifest (in addition to the many ways she already does) in a painting, in an altar, in an exhibit, in a symposium to remind people that she always got our back. We can enter the battle fearlessly cuz she’ll always have our backs. 

Yemaya…..Moforibale, modupue! 

Yaz