READING ART/ March 2026

READING ART

TJ Mabrey

STUDIO SANTIAGO

TWO NEW SCULPTURES IN PROGRESS

TORSO I and TORSO II

White Italian Marble, 13 x 16 x 7 inches, approximate

“TJ, we have a problem.

It's cancer, but we think we caught it early."

After conferring with surgeon Dr. M. Hernandez at UNM Hospital in ABQ,

I agreed to have him perform The Whipple Procedure on my innards.

Is surgery less exacting or beautiful than carving in marble,

in the right hands?

I had a good, intuitive feeling that Dr. H. was up to the task of carving out all that needed to be removed and completing with skill. This decision had been a long, hard mental deliberation of several options given to me to deal with the diagnosis of Stage 1 Pancreatic Cancer.

Why choose surgery and an arduous recovery?

It was influenced by the extraordinarily kind, thoughtful, thorough, optimistic, yet open-minded comments, encouragement and love from friends and doctors.

Advised that chemotherapy should follow the surgery, I nixed that suggestion from the start. Even though I knew that cutting the cancer out would not prevent it from coming back (with or without chemo), I opted for a life worth living rather than for a life of slow destruction by chemotherapy!

It is the right decision?

Post surgery recovery has been a life with all the gusto, grace, and good humor possible, for a stone carver of a certain age. For the past eight months I've had no pain, and little discomfort. More importantly, I've experienced none of the horrors from chemotherapy.

You see, that's the thing about artists:

we cannot stop doing our art, under any circumstance.

Thanks to friend and fellow stone carver, Brian Barreto, who set up two chunks of marble on carving tables in my studio, I found the overwhelming compulsion to begin carving again. After vehemently declaring I was "done with carving", I began to carve on both stones in October 2025.

TORSO I

White Italian Marble, 12.25 x 17 x 8 inches

Front

TORSO I

White Italian Marble, 12.25 x 17 x 8 inches

Back

TORSO II

White Italian Marble, 13 x 16 x 7 inches

Front

TORSO II

White Italian Marble, 13 x 16 x 7 inches

Back

These sculptures reflect my journey. They are truncated torsos, both slashed and stitched: relaxed (TORSO I) and segmented (TORSO II). I have done little human torso sculptures during my life in art. But this particular assault on my mid-section became the object of my attention! I couldn't help myself. And I couldn't ignore the urge to talk about it, about life and death, with my friends.

TORSO I represents my relaxed state after recovery from surgery. I went about life as usual, until one day on my daily walk, my pants almost fell to my feet! I hadn't been aware of losing weight; it had melted off my old bones like butter on warm toast, slowly. I hadn't see it happening until it happened. The back side of this sculpture reflects that loss. Shoulder blades and ribs show where they had not been visible beneath the cushion of muscle mass.

TORSO II represents the the segmented elements of my life after I realized that the cancer returned. My liver hurt. My back ached. My sternum felt like an elephant was sitting upon it. Verified by a CT scan, the pancreatic cancer had progressed to my liver.

Relief is to know the direction of my life from now on.

The obstacle course lay before me. I'm in Hospice. I began a course of fentanyl patches, 25 mcg, changing every 72 hours, increasing as needed. Treatable issues I am now experiencing are: tumor fever, night sweats and lower energy levels. Overall, I feel good!

To me, a 'good death' is provided by MAID (Medical Aid in Dying), when pain and/or mental decline becomes intolerable. MAID provides for that passing from this world by drinking the "Maid Cocktail." The program is a wonderful gift made available to terminal patients since the The Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act came into effect on July 18, 2021 in New Mexico.

I can schedule my death. I don't know when that will be, nor do I think about it. I'll just continue to live my life until it seems the time has come for me to return to that place from which I came.

I'll let you all know when that time has arrived.

Peace and love!

TJ Mabrey

LATE BREAKING NEWS:

I started work on a new sculpture March 16, 2026. It deals with the blossoms of the Saquaro cactus, which for hundreds of years were an indication of weather changes in the lives of the Indigenous people who have lived in the Saquaro National Park region for centuries. Today they call that event "climate change". And their observations are being studied by the Smithsonian Institute.