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Nature was her first influence. Indeed, how could it have been anything other than the verdant wonderland that surrounded her? As a young girl, Titi Escalante would immerse herself in the sights and scents of the lush coffee plants on her grandparents’ finca. In the distance, mighty volcanoes exhaled hazy plumes into the tropical skies.
“I was a dreamy and creative child,” she recalls. “From early on, I knew that my future lay in colors, art and happiness.”
Later, Titi experimented with the performing arts. Ballet enchanted her, as did more modern varieties of dance. Dancing, however, was no career for a lady in the eyes of straightlaced Salvadoran society. Even acting was somewhat taboo. Titi would hurry home after surreptitious dramatics sessions, usually making it back just before the army’s nightly curfew descended.
Her parents thought – indeed, hoped – that her passion for the arts was just a phase. Her father wanted her to follow him into the thriving insurance business he had founded. But painting and drawing brought her joy; her depictions of calla lilies, roses and sunflowers likewise enraptured those who encountered them.
I had discovered the language of art. It’s a very subjective tongue and only some people understand it, and even then, there are differences. But for me, art had become my way of life.
While her works radiated tranquility and harmony, her everyday backdrop was deeply unsettled. By the late 1970s, El Salvador was on the precipice of a bloody civil war. Like many others, Titi’s father was snatched by guerrillas. Freed upon the payment of ransom after five weeks, he and her mother moved to New York to recover from the trauma. For a time, Titi would follow them. It was there that she would study under the master.
Already in his seventies, Motoi Oi was one of the greatest living exponents of the ancient practice of sumi-e. Introduced to his native Japan by Zen monks in the fourteenth century, “black ink painting” is perhaps one of the simplest but most demanding of art forms. With a series of bare strokes in shades of black on a white background, the artist seeks to capture the essence of the subject immediately, without touch-ups.
“He was crucial to my development,” Titi reflects. “The master taught me to see nature differently, to look into the soul of what I draw. ‘Put your outer mind aside and paint from your inner mind,’ he told me. I would produce a hundred drawings and he would urge me to throw away all but ten. ‘Focus upon purity.’”
The master’s words etched themselves within his protégée. In 1987, Titi won first prize at the V International Exhibition-Competition of Sumi-e in New York. Over the decades that followed, flocking birds, graceful flowers and enchanted forests would arise from her inner mind and emerge into the world with a few deft strokes of her brush.
“Simplicity is what makes sumi-e so difficult,” says Titi. “And if you leave it for a while, you have to rebuild your strength, as if you were a lapsed athlete.”
While her dreams of becoming a dancer were unrealized, her fascination with the grace and beauty of the dance was eternal. And what better way to celebrate poise and motion than through sculpture? Her first attempt was a rooster modelled in clay, a work that left her unhappy.
“I felt that it was so horrible,” recalls Titi. “I had wanted to fashion it after the exaggerated style of the great Fernando Botero, but it didn’t turn out how I had envisaged. Fortunately, there was someone who thought it was much better than I did, though, so I immediately gave it away.”
Undaunted, Titi tried anew. The frog spawned from her inner mind was much more to her liking. She delighted in fashioning the long, slender toes. But rather than one of the exotic tree frogs or yellow toads native to El Salvador, her creation had otherworldly inspiration. The vatrichocentaur – half-frog, half-human – was to become Titi’s trademark. She progressed from clay modelling to bronze casting.
“Why frogs?” ponders the artist. “I honestly can’t say. Perhaps it was their movements that I liked. Why with women’s bodies? Because that is the one that I live in, it’s the one that I know best.”
In the grounds of the Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE) stands a magnificent figure of bronze La Volcaneña. With one of her long-fingered hands, the bare-breasted frog woman elegantly balances a large basket laden with blooms on her head, her flowing locks swept over a shoulder.
“El Salvador is known as the ‘Land of Volcanoes,’” explains Titi. “La Volcaneña is a tribute to the women who live on or near the volcanoes, who come down into the city carrying baskets of fruit and flowers to sell. In El Salvador, women often work, run their household and oversee the children’s education. So, La Volcaneña is a pillar of strength because we women are strong.”
Titi’s vatrichocentaurs equally celebrate womanhood in more leisurely settings. Her 1990s series of works – Homage to Matisse – included the resplendently reclining Odalisca and La Danza, a passionate mythological reinterpretation of the French artist’s iconic painting of eighty years earlier.
It can be almost like giving birth: once you finish a piece, it’s over for a time.
For all her prolific output, the process does not always flow freely. “It can be almost like giving birth: once you finish a piece, it’s over for a time,” admits Titi. “I cannot start immediately again, as the influence is still strong inside me and I would just create a copy of what I just did. I have to leave it for a while. And there are also dry spells, which you learn to accept with an open mind.”
At MARTE, where Titi’s exhibitions have delighted visitors down the years, the artist has also sought to nurture future generations of Salvadoran artists. Most famously, she held a workshop – The World We Dream Of – for three hundred children, many of them transported from remote, rural areas to paint and draw under her encouraging gaze, following a meditative session set to music.
It is wonderful to work with the young people like this.
“Empowering them to express themselves creatively and seeing the smiles on their faces was wonderful for me. At the end, we released hundreds of white balloons into the sky. It was beautiful.”
With her latest exhibition, Titi returned to where it all began. El Árbol de Mincho (Mincho’s tree) is a series of seven oil paintings based on a rubber tree at the home of her late grandfather, Benjamín Sol Millet. The tree figures in many of her memories throughout her life, most recently being her favorite resting spot after training her German Shepherds each Sunday.
“A friend suggested I paint the tree, and I ended up painting it seven times,” Titi smiles. “It is an homage to my grandfather, but it is equally about the circle of life, a sensory journey through the seasons. I love to express spiritual values.”
Titi Escalante and David Escobar Galindo: Our lives
“I was born in El Salvador, where I spent the first few years of my life,” says Titi. “In some ways, I suppose I was very naughty, often playing pranks. At thirteen, I was sent to a boarding school in England, Convent of the Sacred Heart. I always loved to paint and draw. I remember having great fun drawing caricatures of the nuns who taught me, which didn’t go down too well!”
“I am Salvadoran from my roots to my branches,” says David. “I have lived here my entire life, and I surely will die here. My childhood was spent mostly in the countryside, whose wildlife, skies and seasons captivated me. My family set-up wasn’t a traditional one and I was free from very early on. That independence shaped my personality, giving me a great sense of discipline, responsibility and balance.”
“As I was growing up, I had the privilege of meeting some wonderful poets,” he continues. “Claudia Lars had been a friend of my grandmother since the early twentieth century. I met her just as my literary consciousness was beginning to form. She was an inspirational character, a strong woman, tough in many ways, but with extraordinary sensitivity too. She was undoubtedly an influence on my poetic career.”
“I studied painting at the National Center for the Arts (CENAR) in Mexico,” says Titi. “I learned from inspirational figures, who stressed teaching me how to see the world rather than how to paint. Subsequently, I went to New York, which is where I learned sculpture and modeling. I spent several years at the National Academy of Design there.”
“I studied at Marcelino Garcia Flamenco College, then read jurisprudence and social sciences at the Autonomous University of San Salvador, where I also received my doctorate,” says David. “Among the posts I’ve held subsequently are Director of the Salvadoran National Library and of the Salvadoran Academy of Language.”
“While I had been aware of David, we had never met,” recalls Titi. “He was older than me and I thought of him as very serious. What first brought us together was a new collection of poetry of his, Devocionario, for which I did the illustrations. I was very inspired by that book and how he wrote about the natural world.”
“The way that Titi and I got together was spontaneous and profound,” says David. “We are distantly related through an early nineteenth century ancestor. When we finally met, everything began for us. It wasn’t a superficial passion but something marvelous that grew to great heights. The right person is the one who reaches deep inside your soul. And you only know that when you are living with the person. That is the most one can have and aspire to in life. It is the greatest gift in the best sense of the word.”
“David and I have enormous respect for each other’s work and for each other’s creative independence,” says Titi. “I would never ask him what he’s writing, nor would he enquire about what I am working on. In the same way, we don’t critique what the other has done. In 2013, we did hold a joint exhibition – The Artist and The Poet – at MARTE. A highly talented curator selected poems of his and works of mine that complemented each other perfectly.”
“I have always been a spiritual seeker,” Titi continues. “Since I was 28, I have made many trips to India on my own, and I love it. I am at one with the people, the culture and the spirituality. I am often asked there whether I am from the Punjab. In Greece and Turkey, I’ve also been mistaken for a local. I adore that, as it makes me feel even more at home.”
“My ambition now is to keep expressing myself about the world around me,” says David. “I am still an active commentator in the press, writing weekly columns. I am also putting together a new poetry collection – En el baúl de los anhelos – which is well advanced. When that is complete, I shall start another. To date, I’ve published more than seventy books, so hopefully I’ll never be accused of laziness!”
“With globalization, I am delighted that El Salvador has become visible within the world,” he says. “I am proud of my country, as I believe we should all be, as all countries are wonderful,” he says. “But while I consider myself deeply Salvadoran, I am equally a citizen of the world and indeed of the universe.”
