MÓNICA ORTIZ-MENIER
My Shadow, Mónica Ortiz-Menier, Mixed media, seashells, and acrylic on canvas, 11 x 14 in. 2024.
Image Description: Two painted light-skinned hands, open-palmed, a larger one gently touching the smaller one from underneath. The smaller hand on top holds three little white cowry shells with some sand, and has a little bracelet of three small purple flowers. The background is a warm swirl of pinks, some blues, and lavender shades, with a starfish in the upper left corner. The artist’s initials, OM ‘24, and the little white ASL “I love you” sign under the artist’s initals as part of her signature. The seashells, sand, and bracelet are are tactile, extending from the canvas.
Mónica Ortiz-Menier
My Shadow, 2024
Mixed media, seashells, and acrylic on canvas.
Other Mothering inspired Mónica to create ‘My Shadow’. A nickname that was given to her by her mother. This piece is a tribute to her mother Ofelia Ortiz and her grandmother Elosia. Ofelia’s mother passed away from an illness when she was a tween. Ofelia’s grandmother took her in until she was no longer able to care for her. Ofelia’s aunts stepped in and raised her and a few of her siblings. It’s a testimony of a family’s love for the loss of their daughter and sister, and they ensure a safe space for Ofelia to grow into adulthood.
Behind the piece: Mónica is a Tejana, the term is used to describe one’s Mexican heritage from the Texas region. She spent her childhood in a small town, Corpus Christi, part of the coastal bend region of Texas. The beach is very much a part of the people’s lives. She incorporates this part of herself into the art piece. She used the small sea shells to represent her great-grandmother and grandaunts who raised her mother.
A young hand, palm up resting in the palm of the older hand. The young hand to the left represents Ofelia while the other hand to the right represents her mother. In the palm of the young hand are three sea shells. They represent the child’s grandmother and two aunts who raised her after the passing of her mother. The starfish is from the artist mother’s seashell collection.
My Shadow, 2024.
Mixed media, seashells, and acrylic on canvas, 11 x 14 in.
ID: The tactile mixed medium has a heart painted in the center of a 12 x14 inch canvas. On the left side, the heart is 3-Dimensional scripted heart made of clay and to the right side of the scripted heart in 2-Dimensional both painted in a rich purple acrylic paint. The back ground is purple with glitter lightly scattered across the canvas, representing Selena’s icon jumpsuit she wore during her final televised concert at the Houston Rodeo. There are scripts from her song ‘Dreaming of you” written on the canvas. The border is painted with white acrylic paint, heavily glittered for one to touch. To the right is a braille inscription “The goal is not to live forever but to create something that will. – Selena Quintanilla the Queen of Tejano Music”.
Mónica Ortiz-Menier, a deaf and low vision artist, in recent years discovered she could paint. She is currently developing her style. Her work aims to advocate for greater inclusivity within the fine art world for the blind, deafblind and low vision individuals. Her goal is to bring awareness of the misconception that blindness is a condition involving total vision loss, when in reality, the majority of those who experience vision loss will retain some form of residual vision throughout their life time, but they will need some adaptative assistant to navigate life. Many in our social environment have not been educated properly due to how blind people are portrayed in media, such as movies and cartoons. Vision loss is a spectrum. Annually, thousands of people will learn that they will lose all or some degree of sight due to accidents, genetics, illness or aging.
Mónica Ortiz-Menier was a member of the Heckscher Museum’s Accessibility Advisory Group as part of her work program with Helen Keller National Center. She collaborated with the New York Public Library’s Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library for the Museum’s Soundwalk projects. Her contribution helped Heckscher Museum receive a number of awards: the Engaging Communities 2025 Award of Distinction from the Museum Association of New York (MANY), as well as an Award of Excellence from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network.
As an artist, she has had many of her tactile Pop Art pieces showcased in the Journey Through Touch exhibition, PW Art Guild, Port Washington, NY (2023); and Three River Arts Festival (TRAF) in the gallery of Anthropology of Motherhood, and the Art in Hand exhibit presented by Radiant Hall (2024) both in Pittsburgh, PA. Somatosensory: Relating to the Senses presented by Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians (LAMP) and Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors (S.O.S.), Pittsburgh, PA (2025). She has collaborated with Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians (LAMP), and Radiant Hall and their artists to curate her exhibit supported by The Pittsburgh Trust.