Tessie Barrera-Scharaga's family lost everything when the government of El Salvador fell apart in the late 1970s, a situation that culminated in a civil war from 1980 to 1992. The country's political unrest also affected Barrera-Scharaga's education as a student attending art school in New York. During that time she learned that her family could no longer support her education, forcing her to switch her major to graphic design so she could earn her livelihood. But she continued taking painting and ceramic classes to keep her dream of becoming an artist alive.

Reflecting back on those years, Barrera-Scharaga says, "When you're meant to have a passion, nothing is going to deter you."

It was a passion sparked through the paintings of El Greco—a Greek-born Spanish painter known for his emotional style and angular human figures—and a nun who taught her drawing as a young girl in El Salvador.

Although she and her other fifth-grade classmates at the all-girls' school in El Salvador perceived the nun as a stern disciplinarian, Barrera-Scharaga says it was her first exposure to formal art classes and the idea that art could become a profession.

But turning art into a full-time career would not happen for another 20 years. Her life path would first lead her to completing college, receiving a degree in graphic design and taking on the roles of wife and mother. Only then would she return to school as a student to study art.

Armed with undergraduate and graduate fine-arts degrees, which she earned in 1997 and 2000 respectively, and her irrepressible desire to express herself through paint, clay and mixed media, this Willow Glen resident began exploring how to become a full-time artist.

She reentered the art world through a desire to be near her two daughters. In an unobtrusive manner, she began volunteering to lead art projects at her daughters' River Glen School in Willow Glen. This led to a teaching position at the school in 1998.

Now Barrera-Scharaga teaches basic art concepts to second-grade students and works with the same children through eighth grade. For each graduating eighth-grade class, the art program culminates with the creation of a parting class gift for the school, such as this year's mural.

"I love introducing children to different methods of art and showing them a way to use different mediums without them feeling like they are making mistakes," she says.

This eagerness to help children freely express themselves took a different turn after her older daughter, Amanda, died in a car accident four years ago.

As her daughter's friends came to give their condolences, one youth wrote Amanda's name in graffiti lettering on paper, which he gave to Barrera-Scharaga as a gift.

The giving of this gift led to her talking to the young street artist about his style and to a novel idea. The two worked together to transfer his design to a platter with ceramic glazes. Soon, six other youths were working at her kitchen table, putting their graffiti onto clay.

"Having children and their energy around me was so helpful," she says. "After losing my daughter, I was always looking for connections."

The youths' passion in keeping sketchbooks and going to each other's houses to draw made Barrera-Scharaga want to help them find alternate ways to express themselves without getting in trouble.

"Seeing that makes you think if kids had the resources to support their creativity, we could be educating the next generation of great artists," she says.

She adds that part of what drives her to teach these children is the fact that they are being shortchanged—no tools or space to work on art—so they turn to the streets, where they are punished for creating graffiti. And she adds that low-income children often have limited options, especially in art, and that it is important to bring art back into their young lives.

And bringing art into her life has now extended beyond the classroom into her home, where she has a studio.

In the past nine years, her artwork has been exhibited in 17 shows and centers on conceptual ideas that range from Latin American poetry to honoring women and her own life experiences.

Barrera-Scharaga says her motivation to speak from a woman's voice comes from watching today's young women continue to face pressure from the world of fashion, cosmetics and the media, the same pressures that women in the 1970s had when she arrived in the United States during the women's liberation movement.

"The art world is still very male. I keep pushing," she says, referring to the need for more artwork that recognizes a woman's role in society.

Her most recent exhibit, a mixed-media installation—an expression of art that combines a variety of elements—is on display at the Latino art space Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, in San Jose, until Feb. 28.

It's called Life Line and it expresses her personal sense of loss, from a mother's viewpoint.

The work traces her daughter's life, using Amanda's clothes on a clothesline, from infancy until the age of 16, when the clothesline snaps and the clothes fall to the floor.

The gallery's associate director and curator Anjee Helstrup says her idea for the exhibition was to explore how artists physically occupy space and conceptually how they work with individual and social memory.

"She's a strong woman to be able to bring her personal story to the public," Helstrup says. "There are many layers to her work."

Helstrup says Barrera-Scharaga's installation brings together her personal loss, the social value of women's work and a spiritual, primordial element with clay.

"It's not just an object," she says. "She creates a whole world embedded with meaning that invites the viewer in."

Gallery sitter Jose Reyes says a visitor noted how in the video portion that shows a woman folding children's clothes, "she's not just folding clothes, she's stroking them and putting them to one side."

While it never occurred to Barrera-Scharaga that as an artist she would have to express human sorrow, she strives for an honest rendering of her voice of experience, she says.

Barrera-Scharaga says she feels most honored when someone who has viewed her work comes and tells her it moved them. To be able to communicate with another person through visual means is powerful, she says.

And opening the way for others, especially children, to follow their desire to be artists is equally awe-inspiring, she adds.

As for her own journey as an artist, she says, "If it was up to me I would go to school forever. I'd love to continue making art and being excited about it for as long as I live."

The gallery Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana is located at 510 South First St. and is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 408.998.2783 or visit http://www.maclaarte.org.