Tanya Ragir (1955-2023)
I am going to miss you so much.
I thought Tanya would live forever. Though she will through her kids, the people’s lives she touched, and through her art. She passed away last week, December 29th, 2023, but it was only announced today. I am heartbroken.
When we got together there was no chit chat, no edging towards discovery, no puzzles to solve—it was as if our conversation picked up very far into a book on artists’ lives. When you have both worked tens of thousands of hours in figurative art there is comradery that transcends discovery. It feels like a comrade in arms, where together you have survived spirit-curdling battles and celebrated immaculately sublime moments when the universe, art, being, and creation merge.
Tanya is one of the few artists I have been inspired to write about, and I hope you find it fitting that I share one of my pieces on her. A year and half ago I wrote the book Evolution Through Art, and I structured the book similar to the pattern of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, in the end the hero returns home with the treasure. The last chapter in my book is titled, The Sublime, and I end that chapter discussing Tanya’s life-size sculpture, Doubt Kills the Warrior, using it as an example of sublimity by a contemporary artist.
Doubt Kills the Warrior
[This section is from the chapter, “The Sublime,” in my book Evolution Through Art.]
Tanya Ragir's (b. 1955-) life-size sculpture, Doubt Kills the Warrior, is a wonderful example of the sublime in art. It shows us a capacity for freedom, of effortless human lightness, of beauty. It is as if every problem of life has been elegantly solved, and now we have a moment of being free to celebrate our inner joy.
Ragir, in the title, Doubt Kills the Warrior, is suggesting the anguish and sheer determination it takes to achieve this kind of effortlessness. It is a reminder to us that great things in life might look easy, but take a warrior-like effort to achieve, and that they should never be taken for granted.
Notice the arch running down through the center of her torso, down through her crotch, through her right leg, and ending at the exclamation point of her toes. Notice how her arms suggest the play of an invisible cape wafting as air behind her. Her left hip has a different kind of energy, one of weight, power, and movement, but with also a sense of being solidly grounded in reality. Her face doesn't show us the euphoria of ecstasy, rather she is calmly composed and focused. We can see a flare of her nostril, and her mouth is closed, lips pressed––a face of perspicacity. If one physically tries the pose, it feels like a strong push off and then the floating lift-off of ascending. The sculpture is a synthesis of determination of action with ease of acceptance once the act is set in motion.
Doubt Kills the Warrior makes me think of the prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.[1]
In closing this chapter on the sublime I would like to add my own statement of its essence from my perspective as an artist:
The experience of the sublime is to be looked for in art. Art integrates senses, emotions, and thought. The sublime in art elevates our sensory experience, heightens and taps our emotional potential, and furthers our knowledge. The sublime in art can give us a moral to the story, a stance towards living. At its best, the sublime in art inspires awe in our human potential and awakens our desire to evolve as a whole being and as a species.[2]
[1] Kaplan, Justin, ed. (2002). "Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)". Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (17th ed.). p. 735. (attributing the prayer to Niebuhr in 1943)
[2] (Newberry, 2017)
At the end of February, 2017, I took these photos of Tanya’s works in her sculpture garden in Venice, California.
Here are links to a few more pieces I wrote and presented on Tanya:
A Rejuvenating Visit With Tanya Ragir, The Cultural Daily.
Tanya Ragir's Hard Wisdom
LAAA | Gallery 825 in West Hollywood The exhibition will run from October 26 - December 26 My YouTube 3-min video here. Have you ever spent a melancholy morning walking on a beach or in the woods? Aimlessly contemplating little things like like a leaf, a struggling flower, or a stone, perhaps picking it up to feel its texture? Perhaps thinking about the pieces of your life, some that have caused you heartache? Maybe contemplating an odd feeling that nature can't give you any answers?
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Such sad and tragic news indeed, Michael. I first became aware of Tanya’s incredible sculptures after following you on your website in 2018. The day I followed her on IG, we found out that our fathers had *both* been on Terceira island in the Azores during WWII. It was quite an emotional and synchronistic revelation. She was truly a sublime artist and devotee of Eudaemonia--I loved that story you wrote about first finding out about her son’s tattoo. I am so sorry you have lost a lovely friend and kindred spirit.