Remembering Maria Tanner

Maria Tanner (1959-2022)

Long-time Santa Barbara resident, Louise Maria Elisabeth Tanner, died peacefully in her sleep on February 15, 2022, at the age of 62, after a long illness.

Maria was an astonishingly beautiful, talented woman, who rarely revealed her personal thoughts to others. Nevertheless, she had the skill of being able to relate to people in a way that left them feeling good about her.

Maria worked in Santa Barbara as a nurse performing complicated cosmetic procedures. Over time, she gathered a large following, and many of her patients came to appreciate her as a talented, knowledgeable, well-organized, and skillful perfectionist.

Although Maria was exceptionally intelligent, educated, and talented, the depth of her gifts was generally not apparent to other people. Many of her acquaintances and patients did feel that they knew Maria, and they would have been glad to have become her friend. However, there was much that Maria did not reveal to others, even those she had known or worked with for a long time.

As such, now that she is gone, it is my desire to explain some of the mystery — and beauty — to the many people who, during Maria's lifetime, came to know and care about this unusual and, ultimately, elusive person.

let me peel back
this velvet-clad curtain:

I want you
       to see
             all   the beauty, 
                              the light,
that brimmed always 
right there -
               just behind it.

Poem by Zoe Branch.


Maria Tanner and Harley Hahn.	Click the picture to display a larger image.
June 1, 2014 (Maria's 55th birthday).
Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

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