Because she started drawing at the age of two and upside-down horse--- according to her undoubtedly surprised mother--, Marta Gilbert believes she may have learned how to paint in a previous lifetime. However, even if this in true and she has had the opportunity to practice her art form through past live, she admits her process of learning still has a long way to go. Although her subject matter may not change-always faces, always Indians-every time she stands before a white canvas she hopes the next painting will be better than the previous one.

Long-haired and petite, Marta, with her almost transparent green eyes and full lips, is herself imposing. "I like to touch people in a positive way, I like to give them what I have received and present the beauty that touches the spirit."

Marta paints Indians because their blood runs in her veins, (Osage and Cherokee), and she feels a direct connection with them. "I think my soul is Indian". Her world is populated by stunning young men and women with dark, perfect skin and along, shiny, black hair. "My rendition may be romantic but the fact is that I find Indian faces quite beautiful: their bone structure, their color… I like it all."

In spite of their loveliness, these remarkable faces she paints display a shadow of sadness. It is as their suffering surfaced in the blackness of those eyes or the lips that very seldom smile. It may be the result of centuries of oppression inflicted upon these people. "A pot can only boil for so long," Marta says speaking of the Native American movement in the United States and how they are so keen on maintaining their own languages and traditions. There is such a movement beginning also among the Indians of Mexico to validate their cultures.

Marta has an enormous respect for the Mexican Indians and their art forms. One only has to look at those colorful Huichol wool pictures, the textiles from Chiapas and Oaxaca, the clay and copper pieces from Michoacán to name but a few crafts; they are all creations of great beauty.

A lot of Marta's models are real people, some of them are the result of a combination of features and still others are draw from her dreams or remembrances. "On repeated occasions I've met people that I had already painted." Although the first time it happened, she says, it was a very scary experience, it has happened in so many instances that she takes it as a natural occurrence. "It is part of the process," she believes.

But Marta did not start her carer painting Indians. In Dallas, where she also painted murals in restaurants and banks, she was well known as a portrait artist. "It makes no difference whether I paint a rich, aristocratic lady or an Indian. For me the painting itself is the priority, the quality of the art piece is my main concern". Be it a businessman or a Huichol, Marta relates to each model as a person and depicts their individual essence as well as what they represent.

In her studio on the roof of her house in Olas Altas, Marta works five or six hours on a regular day. She starts painting early in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon, them goes out for lunch and to run errands like everybody else. "If am preparing an exhibition, though, I will often work for 10 or 15 hours non-stop."

Most of the time, she act of painting is a pleasure for Marta. "When everything is going well with my work, I have a feeling of elation and sheer joy, a definite high." When problems arise and she has to meet a deadline, though, she can get so frazzled and her mind so "soggy", as she puts it, that she is unable to continue working. "I will stop and resume my painting the next day and, many a time, she solution will come to me in my dreams." Marta is grateful for her talent. "I believe it is a gift and I believe I can do things that perhaps other people can't. That's why I know I must have learned to paint in a previous life."

Marta is a dreamer. Her nights are fertile with faces, images that turn into stories and them veritable sagas that she programs herself to remember the next morning. "I paint in my dreams when I sleep and I paint what I dream during my working hours." Actress Connie Stevens, a frequent visitors to Vallarta and Marta fan, has a painting by her untitled "Dream Power Red", a product of this magic process.

Marta is not religious in a formal way; however, like her kin the Native Americans, she believes the spirit of God is found everywhere in Nature. For this reason, there is no need to go to a temple to worship It. "It is enough for me to go to the jungle, stand next to a tree or look out over the ocean to have a religious experience." It is enough for us to look at her paintings to know we stand before a rendition of her experience that encompasses the spirit of beauty.