After a years-long battle along with leukemia, artist Martha A. Rodriguez died on Tuesday, July 5 at 62 years of age. Her vibrant paintings regularly reflected her battle along with cancer and her desire to go on fighting it.
Rodriguez painted and sculpted at her “Estudio Martita,” a workspace inside 1890 Bryant Street studios. Her job examined life, death, and womanhood, regularly depicting robust, larger women as an expression of powerful femininity.
(Martha Rodriguez was featured in this 2014 Mission Neighborhood video concerning open studios)
Throughout her second bout along with the cancer, Rodriguez continued to send messages of gratitude and wrote to friends concerning her desire to live in the present and appreciate the time she had left. She continued to make art even throughout a continue to be in a Seattle hospital, including a job entitled “Determination.”
“Determination” by Martha A. Rodriguez
Bird Levy, a curator, remembered Rodriguez as a gracious professional, that never ever quibbled over sales yet was constantly prepared to contribute pieces to the annual Pasión de Frida exhibition at Puerto Alegre on Valencia Street.
“She simply wasn’t prepared to leave them and I simply can’t say enough concerning her fierce fierce fight that she place up,” Levy said. “She will certainly constantly be an inspiration to me every day.”
Maria Sanchez, that runs the gallery Sanchez Contemporary in Oakland, had known Rodriguez for some 12 years. Two of Rodriguez’ functions are currently on display at the gallery, and Sanchez has actually established a small memorial space for people to share memories and grieve.
“She was a warrior, she was so brave. If there’s anything she taught me it’s to be brave no matter exactly what circumstances you face in life, and to have actually compassion not simply for others people yet for yourself,” Sanchez said.
But throughout her battle, Rodriguez remained bright and open.
“I can’t tell you exactly how inspiring and tough she was,” Levy said. “[She] constantly showed up along with her red lipstick and her smile on her face although I knew she had simply had a chemo treatment or some others invasive awful thing.”
Doreen Villanuevas, Rodriguez’ college roommate at the University of California at Santa Barbara, enjoyed her as an inspiration.
“She earned a difference in my life simply to job harder in exactly what I did, and to not to feel sorry for myself,” Villanuevas said. “I had lost my job. After looking at exactly what she was going through I had no necessity to complain.”
Rodriguez was from San Jose yet a resident of San Francisco for several years. She attended the University of California at Santa Barbara and later University of California at Berkeley, where she gained a degree in Social Welfare. After earning her degree, Rodriguez went on to job in public good health to research the triggers and effects of HIV.
Villanuevas remembered her insistence on being well dressed and her dedication to social and cultural work.
“The method I constantly remember Martha is we constantly had to dress up, although we were in college, and she would certainly sort of grab on my case concerning being a little sloppy,” Villanuevas said. “I constantly remember her being that method along with us, constantly in a great mood excellent spirit, never ever upset concerning truly a great deal of anything. As quickly as I ran in to her again [later] she was the same, she hadn’t lost it, she was genuine.”
Later in her life, classic red lipstick was among Rodriguez’ hallmarks – Diana Gaspar-Pena remembered a conversation along with the painter and sculptor concerning that particular bit of flair.
“It’s passion, you know?” Gaspar-Pena said. “We talked concerning it one time and she said… She didn’t hope to be a shrinking violet. It’s like, you know, listed here I am. Red.”
Gaspar-Pena additionally enjoyed Rodriguez’ earliest expressions of her social consciousness, attending higher school walk-outs and rallies for farm workers along with her.
“She still was pretty gregarious, she constantly simply had a truly excellent attitude,” Gaspar-Pena said.
Rodriguez’s postings on Facebook demonstrated this attitude. On June 13, she wrote: “World events go on to happen, the good, poor and pretty ugly. I go on to sit in my hospital room effected by fevers that come and go and return again. I have actually no control. My personal tolerance for this latest treatment has actually been tested. Doctor says the worst of the auto t Cell edge effects might be yet to come. While Globe events continue, the Syrian war, the IRA KILLING of AMERICAN adults and children, I’m housed in a bubble. This is exactly what I’ve been given: to be an advocate for my disease, Leukemia. Perhaps if I can easily grab through this I can easily locate those complications close to my heart.”
Rodriguez’s posts could be simply as exuberant concerning the daily wonders of life. A couple of weeks earlier, she posted photographs of Seattle views and exclaimed; “This is exactly what I woke up to this morning- SUNSHINE in Seattle. It’s sort of breathtaking!”
Villanuevas additionally remembered Rodriguez’ early efforts to be civically engaged. She and yet another classmate by the very same name ran for student council as “the Marthas.” Naturally, they won.
“We were always, as Chicanas, attempting to do something to much better the community,” Villanuevas said. And throughout her illness, Rodriquez reminded friends to visit an exhibition or to support a fellow artist’s show.
Rodriguez kept in touch along with friends and family along with constant updates concerning her condition and her state of mind. She and her friends, several of them additionally Latina women artists, kept each others going.
“We would certainly preserve in touch along with each others and simply preserve each others motivated,” Gaspar-Pena said. “It’s solid to be an artist.”
In late May, Rodriguez wrote an email update for her friends.
“Your wants of love, light, health, prayers are so welcomed. I have actually been surrounded by your love,” she wrote. “You have actually every one of provided me strength, a meaning for a my life and a powerful desire to continue to be along with the living – for as long as I can.”
