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OCTOBER 2001
(Click on date for complete email)

•I would like permission to use "Our Lady" with the "Iconoclast of the Week" feature. This part of the paper is dedicated to the Iconoclast, someone in the news who, like Alma Lopez, takes a stand for free thinking and demonstrates the courage to look for ideas or solutions outside the "safe" and socially dictated norm. --Don M. Fisher (10/01/01)

•Lopez work is not sexually explicit, nor is it particularly sexy. In spite of protests, which included a modified hunger strike, the museum let the exhibit stay.--Don M. Fisher (10/02/01)

•A newpaper picture of "Our Lady" is a part of the shrine in my house to my deceased mother.--Meg Evans (10/03/01)

•This is a sin and it is morally wrong, I think that you are a disgraceful bitch who has no respect for the one who crushes the serpent..--Edna Best (10/04/01)

•Contrary to what a number of others have said about your painting of OLG I was impressed and found that you had used good taste in your painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. --Angeline Walczyk (10/04/01)

• The image of "Our Lady" forces me to take a second look at my own indoctrination where an exposed female body is seen as promiscuous and unholy.--Hector Alvarez (10/06/01)

•I am so glad that you created Our Lady. If I had not seen your artwork, I would have missed the opportunity of this very challenging and powerful spiritual exploration. --Sylvia Vergara (10/08/01)

•What a sad state of affairs if the most famous woman in history cannot be portrayed as a beautiful female with all her modesty intact! --Paul Villa (10/11/01)

•I find it hard to believe that anyone should want to have this work of art removed from a museum - particularly when the danger of any kind of religious 'extremism' has been made very clear by the recent attacks in New York and the subsequent military action in Afghanistan. --Mark Bridge (10/11/01)

•BLASPHEMY - BLASPHEMY - BLASPHEMY--CRAGMORE (10/11/01)

•YOU ARE A DISGRACE. ALL YOU WANT IS ATTENTION TO YOURSELF. --Yolanda Chandler (10/11/01)

•Article copied from German Newspaper F.A.Z. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by Reinhard Reiter, Wiesbaden, Germany for your information.--Reinhard Reiter (10/12/01)

•The Limits of Artistic Freedom: Women Artists and Censorship--Svetlana Mintcheva (10/12/01)

•When you win a victory against censorship you win a victory for all Americans. --Dan (10/14/01)

•There is a series of articles on the Cyber Arte exhibit in today's paper.--Gloria Nieto (10/14/01)

•Santa Fe New Mexican article titled "'Cyber Arte' curator recounts the past several months of controversy"-- emailed by Gloria Nieto (10/14/01)

•The thing that really struck a chord in me was something I read a long time ago  in a book about Mexico. It stated that the macho culture sees women as either saints or whores. You've managed to combine them . --adagio (10/15/01)

•The Catholic Church encourages machismo therefore as long as you adhere to any of their principles you are sleeping with the enemy, so to speak.-- Nikki (10/15/01)

•My husband wrote a letter to the Taos News about the lawyer priest from here who filed that lawsuit - saying if he really wanted to use his law degree, he should represent poor people on matters that really concern them.--Helen Lopez (10/15/01)

•That's why I took such tremendous issue with the MOIFA and dominant culture here pumping "Our Lady of What-a-looker", which I saw as more a capitulation to consumer culture rather than exhibiting a significant development of folk art traditions of our people. --Pedro Romero Sedeno (10/17/01)

•I'm really interested to know why you use the image of the 'Virgen Guadalupe' in your art. This is the first time that I have been expose to these images, therefore I would like to know more. --Mayra Leon (10/22/01)

•I like your virgin and cannot understand the harsh reaction to it. --Ruta Correa (10/22/01)

•My thesis (Master of Visual Art Theory) is on Miraculous Image: from apparition to website, with a chapter on the Virgin of Guadalupe in all her historical and contemporary mutations. --Jacinta Rooney (10/22/01)

•I am chicana and not a predominant church attender, still, I do see this as a form of disrespect.-- AMPaloma (10/24/01)

•The Museum of New Mexico and the Museum of International Folk Art are holding a private reception to mark the closing of the Cyber Arte: Tradition Meets Technology exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art. --Dr. Tom Wilson, Director, Museum of New Mexico (10/24/01)

• I loved its irreverent humour and am glad the museum went on with exhibiting it despite the controversy. -- Chris Sternberg, Toronto, Canada (10/28/01)