February 12, 2002
Subject: Virgen Maria
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 09:25:00 -0600
From: "Arturo Lopez" <ar.lopez@edinburg.esc1.net>
To: <almalopez@earthlink.com>
Alma, I saw the picture you posted on your website of the Virgen Maria.
I'm sorry but I was really ofended by it. First of all the woman representing
the virgen does not have a decent look on her face. It looks to erotic. And
the Virgen Maria being nude is a slap on all catholics like myself.
If you want to display nude models, don't do it with religious icons.
Arturo Lopez
Subject: Re: Myth and anti-myth
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 11:05:08 EST
From: Sedeno7@aol.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: almalopez@earthlink.net, oromano@tqsbooks.com, amora@osogrande.com, joeyspouch2004@yahoo.com,
happyhermit@earthlink.net, rosamwill@aol.comoromano@tqsbooks.com wrote:
Question: How often is the anti-myth a
myth?
At first, this question seemed like one of those "what is the meaning
of life" retorts, but on second thought, this is an interesting
question to pose in the whole "our lady" debate.
Given that Alma Lopez considers that the Guadalupe
apparition is a myth, then the work could be said to function as an anti-myth,
This function is carried out by her replacing the iconography
in the manta with that of the Coyolxauqui stone, touching upon the myth involving
a goddess who was dismembered by her brother, Huitzilopochtli, in retaliation
for her machinations against him while he was in the womb of their mother
Coatlicue. I am informed by a woman Conchera dancer in NM that the invocation
of Coyolxauqui in feminist pagan religion is the attempt to re-member
this sister deity, to re-member her and a need to retaliate, mythically,
to the destructive deed of the male deity Huitzilopochtli who dis-membered
her. . In effect, an anti-myth of retaliation, to remember grievances, to
counter the "myth" of compassion communicated by the deity
Guadalupe-Tonantzin. i.e. of letting go of grievances and forgiving.
This knowledge has helped me understand the
"our lady" more as a commercial airing female grievances, and is,
in a sense, a poster for a Chicana hybrid-mythology gleaned through a process
of intellectual tourism by the artist Alma Lopez through the land of myths.
The "our lady" is actually not an interpretation of
Guadalupe at all, if anything about Guadalupe is that Alma Lopez disagrees
ideologically with Guadalupe, showing such through the Coyolxauqui reference
, and also, obviously in the change of stance or pose of the female figure.
Alma's concept of feminine strength is that of a woman ready to retaliate,
not one prepared to bestow compassion. Depicted are princesses
of destruction, not the Queen of creation.
Alma Lopez' and her supporters' mistake is to
claim that her piece is an interpretation of Guadalupe, much less a valid
one. The work is more about the myth of the ego of Alma Lopez , an ego
that deceives her to believe "retaliate, don't forgive", an anti-myth
made to stand up to the creation of compassion. This analysis
can be applied also to the La Lupe series as a whole. Guadalupe does
not cavort with La Sirena, who does not exist, except in myths and loteria
cards and in the myth, in my opinion, that Alma Lopez actually cares about
the feelings of respect or value a viewer may have for Guadalupe-Tonantzin,
our compassionate Mother.
-PRSedeno mfa
Subject: AztlanNet: Re: Myth and anti-myth
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:07:57 -0800
From: Octavio Romano <oromano@tqsbooks.com>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
Organization: TQS Publications
To: Sedeno7@aol.com, AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
References: 1
Don Pedro:
Regardless of beliefs, one way or another, you have written the best review
yet of the "Guadalupe" work by Alma Lopez. Excellent analysis..
Best exposure of "art" as focused one-issue agitprop.
Octavio Romano
Subject: Re: AztlanNet: Re: Myth and anti-myth
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 13:46:28 -0700
From: Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
References: 1 , 2
Octavio Romano wrote:
>
> Don Pedro:
>
> Regardless of beliefs, one way or another, you have written the best
> review yet of the "Guadalupe" work
> by Alma Lopez. Excellent analysis.. Best exposure of "art"
as
> focused one-issue agitprop.
>
> Octavio Romano
> ============
Octavio and Pedro,
According to your standards, this is the best
review yet... however the best are still to come, and are currently being
researched and written by scholars in chicana/o studies, american studies,
and gender studies, etc. And many have been written in letters/emails sent
to me and the museum. Check out the next AZTLAN: A Journal of Chicano Studies
or last Aug/Sept issue of Ms Magazine.
Like with the image of Guadalupe, I am not doing
anything new by incorporating the image of Coyolxauhqui. The Coyolxauhqui
image is included in the work of many Chicanas including writers Gloria Anzaldua
and Cherrie Moraga and Alma Cervantez, and tattoed on a few Chicanas that
I know, as a myth/image of "re-membering." Why is a healing image
for Chicanas necessarily a "retaliation" image for Chicanos like
Pedro?
Why is the only "valid" female Guadalupe
image a "compassionate" mother? I am glad that Pedro is finally
realizing that "Our Lady" is not his mother Guadalupe. Is Guadalupe
really your mother? Do you accept it blindly/faithfully, without considering
the possibility of an image used to convert and colonize? "Our Lady"
is a Guadalupe image in the Chicana/o art tradition of re-interpreting the
icon/image of Guadalupe. "Our Lady" is about the complex Guadalupe
image, but also Chicana as woman, mother, sister, daughter... Perhaps Pedro
will realize the difference between a print in a museum and an image in a
church. Once he realizes that, then we can move on to his role in censorship
of Chicana/o art in museums, since he feels it's appropriate to exhibit this
image only in galleries.
"(Alma) Lopez is hardly the first artist
to subvert the image of Guadalupe. In the last quarter century, dozens of
other Latina artists, performers, and writers, like Ester Hernandez and Yolanda
M. Lopez, have done the same thing. And like them, Lopez has come under fire
from conservative Catholics, especially Latinos, for re-envisioning, the primary
female icon of their religion and culture.... Guadalupe is also a part of
the art and spirituality of Santa Barraza, a Texas-based artist who is the
subject of a recent book, Santa Barraza: Artist of the Borderlands. Barraza,
like many scholars and historians, traces Guadalupe's roots to the Aztec earth
mother, Tonantzin, and other female icons of Aztec cosmology. Raised a Roman
Catholic, Barraza says she became disillusioned with the Church's oppression
of indigenous people, including her ancestors. She has created her own spiritual
practice by combining Catholicism with what she calls "pagan Catholicism,"
curanderismo (folk healing), and devotion to indigenous icons. In Barraza's
painting entitled La Lupe Tejana, the Virgin's cloak does not bear the traditional
stars, but rahter pre-Columbian symbols. Also on display are the distinctive
outline of the state of Texas and references to farm workers... Many Chicana
artists reach back to the Aztec culture in what is essentially a search for
their own history." Ms Magazine, Aug/Sept 2001, pages 85-87
Subject: Alma Lopez/Pedro Romero dialogue
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:35:41 EST
From: Sedeno7@aol.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: almalopez@earthlink.net, gbejerano@aztlannet.com, rosamwill@aol.com, joeyspouch2004@yahoo.com,
PuroMando@aol.com, oromano@tqsbooks.com, kaytiejohnson@yahoo.com
Alma, thanks for participating in this dialogue,
as recently as Feb. 6., 2002. It has helped me to understand
your work and the issues communicated. I wish to respond with this art
criticisism. I am not an art historian. But I believe
I articulate a valid analysis of your work:
______________________________________________________________________
My
final conclusion is that the work "Our Lady" by Alma Lopez
is weak. It is highly derivative, showing excellent craft, but
in substance, pretty thin. Aside from shuffling around some of the design
motifs of Guadalupe and embedding the Coyolxauqhui stone, what's there besides
some vibrant colors?
Ideologically,
Ms. Lopez is taking issue with the Icon's figure as to its depiction
of feminine strength, and communicates an alternative concept of feminine
strength with "our lady". This, if anything, is what Alma
has stated is the major concern in the work. In regards to feminine
strength depicted in art, yes, the feminine form has power, beauty.
But matriarchal power has been, since ancient times, the supreme
qualifier used to depict feminine strength, by male and female artists alike.
I could elaborate on this issue more, of couse, but here
I can only say that I do not read matriarchal power in "our lady".
It's just not in the work. Nor in the context Alma uses to inform
the work, as per her website, CyberArte, or quotes she has posted in the Alma
Lopez/Pedro Romero dialogue. Her Raquelas may be beautiful and strong
figures, but they are not matriarchs in any sense of the word.
The
Guadalupe context, however, is all mother, whether one takes the account
as real or not. The maiden is signified as pregnant by her cinta, the
cord used by peasant women of many cultures, wrapped around the waist, to
make them STRONGER during pregnancy and for carrying the child to
term. The maiden's tunic bulges some over the womb. Please refer
to A Handbook on Guadalupe, Park Press, Inc., 1997 which reveals other info
relevant to the motherhood signification, or read the message given by Guadalupe
in the account of the apparition, the Nican Mopohua.
In her ideological
squabble with the Image as to femine strength, Alma, I believe, has not been
the victor. She has depicted princesses, but not the queen, the mother.
This is why I say the work is thin. The roses and nudity
are not powerful enough in themselves to make this a strong statement, not
about Guadalupe, anyways. As per her treatment of the manta adorning
the figures in the icon and her alternative image, I will quote from
my posting on the listserve AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com re subject: Myth
and Anti-myth:
"Given that Alma
Lopez considers that the Guadalupe apparition is a myth, then the work could
be said to function as an anti-myth, This function is carried
out by her replacing the iconography in the manta with that of the Coyolxauqui
stone, touching upon the myth involving a goddess who was dismembered by her
brother, Huitzilopochtli, in retaliation for her machinations against him
while he was in the womb of their mother Coatlicue. A woman Conchera
dancer in NM informs me that the invocation of Coyolxauqui in feminist pagan
religion is the attempt to re-member this sister deity, to re-member her and
a need to seek atonement for or to retaliate, mythically, to the destructive
deed of the male deity Huitzilopochtli who dis-membered her. . In effect,
what we have here is an anti-myth of reparation, to remember grievances,
to counter the "myth" of compassion communicated by
the deity Guadalupe-Tonantzin: i.e. the letting go of and non-remembering
of grievances and thus, forgiveness, compassion.
This
knowledge has helped me understand the "our lady" more as a digital
commercial airing female grievances, and is, in a sense, a poster for a Chicana
hybrid mythology gleaned through a process of intellectual tourism by the
artist Alma Lopez through the land of myths.
The "our lady" is actually not an interpretation of
Guadalupe at all,. If anything connencted to Guadalupe is that Alma
Lopez disagrees ideologically with Guadalupe, showing such through the Coyolxauqui
reference , and also, obviously in the change of stance or pose of the female
figure. Alma's concept of feminine strength is that of a woman, defiant,
ready to retaliate, not one prepared to bestow compassion. Depicted
are princesses of destruction, not the Queen of creation.
Alma
Lopez' and her supporters' mistake is to claim that her piece is an interpretation
of Guadalupe, much less, a valid one. The work is more about the myth
of the ego of Alma Lopez , an ego that deceives her to believe "retaliate,
don't forgive", an anti-myth made to stand up to the creation of compassion."
The
piece is more a statement of Alma's body-identification rather than her spirit-identification.
This confusion between spirituality and concern for bodies can
be further analyzed in the La Lupe series as a whole. Guadalupe is shown
fondling the breast of the naked mermaid La Sirena, a folk image that really
does not exist, except in myths and on loteria cards. Apparently, the
Image of Guadalupe is just a souvenir Alma Lopez has collected in her tour
of the land of myths, food for the making of another new and improved souvenir.
In
the Spanish language, "Our Lady" translates to "Nuestra
Senora" as with Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, "Our Lady of
Guadalupe". What is titled "Our Lady" by Alma Lopez
may stand in English, but not in Spanish. What is portrayed no es Senora ni
Nuestra; ella es Senorita.
To
distort a pueblo's principal religious icon, and an icon that led the
shaping of a whole nation's history and cultural identity is a very, very
serious act to be held accountable for. Accountability for or
responsibility to what one says comes along with the freedom of speech; every
artist or art museum or art critic should know that.
copyright Pedro Romero Sedeno m.f.a. 2002
______________________________________________________________________
Alma, If I can offer you a word of advice: you
are not prepared to take on the subject matter of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For
one, you have told me in this dialogue that your understanding, as articulated
for you by a Mexican man, Guillermo Gomez- Pena , is an understanding of Her
"culturally and ethnically". Please know there is an infinite
depth of understanding one can gain on the subject when one looks at the image
of nuestra Senor with the eye of faith, and understands or relates to it spiritually,
transcendant to a perception cultural or ethnic. Evidently, to
you the tilma Image is something out of a storybook, an account which never
took place.
Please
know that there are many of us across this continent that look upon the Image
and see a mystery, a mystery of the Divine, one of those mysteries that inform
and enrich and romance our inner lives, not just our culture and ethnicity.
Yes, you are right, Alma, you and I are looking upon the Image
from two different worlds. Please know that when I look upon It, I see
reality, but Reality with a capital R. Otherwise, "all is vanity",
as it is written.
I have gathered
that you showed your Lupe series to people in Mexico. May I ask, who did you
show it to? I wonder if perhaps you only got feedback from Mexican anarchists.
Let me offer you a tip: please, for your own sake,
don't display this series on the streets of Mexico City on Dec. 12,
El Dia de Nuestra Senora, because I don't think you will return to the US
in one piece. This is important for you to recognize, for your own safety.
I'm not being facetious, many Mexicans I have discussed the work with
say you would meet an unpleasant fate.
Please
know or at least acknowledge that I reiterated that I have never advocated
censorship of your work. Respectfully submitted, Pedro
Romero Sedeno mfa
Subject: AztlanNet: Re: Alma Lopez/Pedro Romero
dialogue
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 13:58:22 -0700
From: Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: Sedeno7@aol.com
CC: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com, gbejerano@aztlannet.com, rosamwill@aol.com,
joeyspouch2004@yahoo.com, PuroMando@aol.com, oromano@tqsbooks.com, kaytiejohnson@yahoo.com
References: 1
> My
final conclusion is that the work "Our Lady" by Alma Lopez
is weak. It is highly derivative, showing excellent craft, but
in substance, pretty thin. Aside from shuffling around some of the design
motifs of Guadalupe and embedding the Coyolxauqhui stone, what's there besides
some vibrant colors?OK. I have read your "final conclusions." They
are authored by an
artist with an mfa.
I am an artist with an mfa too, so your conclusion of my work doesn't have any more bearing or weight than mine. Its simply your opinion. You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to mine.
> I have gathered that you showed your Lupe series to people in Mexico. May I ask, who did you show it to? I wonder if perhaps you only got feedback from Mexican anarchists. Let me offer you a tip: please, for your own sake, don't display this series on the streets of Mexico City on Dec. 12, El Dia de Nuestra Senora, because I don't think you will return to the US in one piece. This is important for you to recognize, for your own safety. I'm not being facetious, many Mexicans I have discussed the work with say you would meet an unpleasant fate.
Such violence from people who only accept a "compassionate" mother figure.
>
> Please
know or at least acknowledge that I reiterated that I have never advocated
censorship of your work. Respectfully submitted, Pedro
Romero Sedeno mfa
You have said that my work does not belong in the museum, but should be exhibited in a gallery. So you are only advocating for the censorship of my work in museums? Respectfully responding, Alma Lorena Lopez mfa
Subject: Re: AztlanNet: Alma Lopez/Pedro Romero
dialogue
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 22:56:01
From: "Marco Loera" <m_loera@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com...
"Alma, If I can offer you a word of advice:
you are not prepared to take on the subject matter of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
For one, you have told me in this dialogue that your understanding, as articulated
for you by a Mexican man, Guillermo Gomez- Pena , is an understanding of Her
"culturally and ethnically". Please know there is an infinite depth
of understanding one can gain on the subject when one looks at the image of
nuestra Senor with the eye of faith, and understands or relates to it spiritually,
transcendant to a perception cultural or ethnic. Evidently, to you the tilma
Image is something out of a storybook, an account which never took place."
...hmm, is Guillermo Gomez-Pena (just) a Mexican
man? I would say that he has been involved in the Chicanoa culture ,in several
capacities for many years, enough to be critical from the Chicanoa perspective
(I believ he considers himself a "Canochi," right?). I respect your
opinions, but to me the critique has been divided on a secular vs. Christian
perspective...and, just for clarity, I don't believe in any organized religion.
Spirituality, I do believe in.
"I have gathered that you showed your Lupe
series to people in Mexico. May I ask, who did you show it to? I wonder if
perhaps you only got feedback from Mexican anarchists. Let me offer you a
tip: please, for your own sake, don't display this series on the streets of
Mexico City on Dec. 12, El Dia de Nuestra Senora, because I don't think you
will return to the US in one piece. This is important for you to recognize,
for your own safety. I'm not being facetious, many Mexicans I have discussed
the work with say you would meet an unpleasant fate."
...I do think this constitutes some kind of
religious moral contradiction...violently reprimanding someone to defend the
visual representaion a "compassionate" mother? And since when did
Mexicanos regard Chicanoa work as virtuous? I thought we were still Pochos?This
is just my opinion. Some people consider me an artist. It really doesn't matter
to me. I will have my MFA on May 18th (if you think that gives me credibility...or
maybe I should have waited till May 18th to write this, if you think that
piece of paper gives me more credibility).
-Marco
Subject: AztlanNet: Alma Lopez/Pedro Romero
dialogue.
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 19:46:03 EST
From: Sedeno7@aol.com
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: gbejerano@aztlannet.com
You have said that my work does not belong in
the museum, but should be exhibited in a gallery. So you are only advocating
for the censorship of my work in museums?
Respectfully responding, Alma Lorena Lopez mfa
Alma, no, I am not advocating for the censorship
of you work in museums, or anywhere else for that matter. You misquote
me. Your contention about " his (Pedro's) role in censorship of
Chicana/o art in museums" is an absolute and vicious lie, my friend,
STOP IT! stop twisting my words and my "role" here. I said
that I felt that a more appropriate venue for your work was a gallery.
A museum can show bad art if it chooses to, (they often
times do), but I think they should qualify it as such, especially a
publicly-funded one that gets its funds by stating its mission is to be educational.
A museum fails in its responsibilities if it is showing a misrepresentation
of a tradition, in this case, of the Hispanic folk art tradition, which is
the domain of the MOIFA's purview. There are other expressions
besides what was shown in CyberArte where tradition can meet technology and
is NOT sent to Trash Bin, as per the tradition of a clothed maiden signifying
Guadalupe.
A gallery does not have
to follow an educational mission and that's why I said a gallery would be
more apropriate for your work in question. I felt the MOIFA made various
errors with Cyberarte, and my attempts to correct them were through community
education and cultural intervention, not censorship. I reiterate,
I have never advocated censorship of your work. (period)! Can
we move on?
Alma Lorena Lopez also writes: OK.
I have read your "final conclusions." They are authored
by an artist with an mfa. I am an artist with an mfa too, so your conclusion
of my work doesn't have any more bearing or weight than mine. Its simply
your opinion. You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to
mine.
Alma, please stop with the smokescreens and start refuting my arguments about your work. If you don't refute them, then you concede that my "opinion" must be correct, w/ or wo/ an mfa. Quit sidetracking about your "rights" and dialogue about your work, please. You haven't submitted a single answer to the questions I have asked you ABOUT THE WORK during the course of this dialogue you initiated Feb. 2 with your posting "The Education of Pedro Romero Sedeno". At least you spelled my name right. BTW, Lorena is a beautiful name.
about showing "our lady" in Mexico
and the reaction of Mexicans to it, alma wrote: Such violence from people
who only accept a "compassionate" mother figure.
Alma, you just don't get it, my friend. The
Guadalupe is integral to the Mexican cultural identity and political history.
I know Mexicans, personally, who are not believers nor religionists, per se,
but who do accept the Image as a significant symbol of what it is to be Mexican,
and a proud Mexican. There will be those that will see your work as
that of a gringa from up north making fun of "lo que es Mejicano"
and may give you a good porazo upside the head, norteamericana. Then,
there are religionists that do not fully understand the non-violent tenets
of Jesus and Guadalupe. Alma, you just don't know Mexico, do you?. I
do believe you suffer from cultural amnesia. Oh well, at least I warned you.
Will you ever answer my question: who did you show your work to in Mexico.?
alma writes : "Our Lady"
is about the complex Guadalupe image, but also Chicana as woman, mother, sister,
daughter.
ok, alma, show us where your "Our Lady" is about mother. and please don't refer to the breasts on the "angel" because I didn't see them lactating. If you don't show the mother, then it's not about the Guadalupe most raza knows. Ask Santa Barazza, maybe she has a different opinion. . BTW, in Santa's work, Guadalupe is portrayed by the clothes She wears, amongst other things. The cinta is probably the most crucial signifier I refer to in my arguments. Your semi-nude maidens do not portray Guadalupe, simply because it is your "opinion" that they do. The work is not informed by the mother, Nuestra Senora, where is this communicated in your work?
Subject: Re: AztlanNet: Alma Lopez/Pedro Romero
dialogue.
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 19:31:13 -0700
From: Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
References: 1
Sedeno7@aol.com wrote:
> A gallery does
not have to follow an educational mission and that's why I said a gallery
would be more apropriate for your work in question. I felt the MOIFA
made various errors with Cyberarte, and my attempts to correct them were through
community education and cultural intervention, not censorship. I
reiterate, I have never advocated censorship of your work. (period)! Can
we move on?
You may not agree that the exhibition was educational, but it was. Its intent was to demonstrate how traditional iconography and new technologies are combined in the work of four Chicana/Latina/Hispana artists - three of them from NM and me the outsider from California. And like I have stated before, my work is well within a Chicana/o art tradition. In solidarity with me and to take a stand against censorship of Latina artists, the three Nuevo Mexicana artists asked that their work be removed if my work was removed.
> Alma, please stop with the smokescreens and start refuting my arguments about your work. If you don't refute them, then you concede that my "opinion" must be correct, w/ or wo/ an mfa. Quit sidetracking about your "rights" and dialogue about your work, please.
I am not saying your opinion is correct. All I am saying is that it is your opinion and you have a right to express it. That is all. Or do you think your opinion/views are more important? If so, why?
> Alma, you just don't get it, my friend. The Guadalupe is integral to the Mexican cultural identity and political history. I know Mexicans, personally, who are not believers nor religionists, per se, but who do accept the Image as a significant symbol of what it is to be Mexican, and a proud Mexican. There will be those that will see your work as that of a gringa from up north making fun of "lo que es Mejicano" and may give you a good porazo upside the head, norteamericana. Then, there are religionists that do not fully understand the non-violent tenets of Jesus and Guadalupe. Alma, you just don't know Mexico, do you?. I do believe you suffer from cultural amnesia. Oh well, at least I warned you. Will you ever answer my question: who did you show your work to in Mexico.?
Pedro, I know Mexico. I was born in Mexico. My aunts, uncles and cousins live in Mexico. I did segundo de secundario (8th grade) in Mexico City. Since I was a kid, I have traveled to Mexico every 2 to 3 years. The last time I was in Mexico City was in 1998 for the NACCS conference where I exhibited work. The last time I exhibited my work in Mexico was in Juarez, Chihuahua in 1999. The exhibition space was the local museum in Juarez when I received the Pollock/Siqueiros premio for visual arts for the US side of the border. I wouldn't exhibit in Mexico or anywhere if I am not invited. But I do, when I am invited.
>
> alma writes : "Our Lady" is about the complex
Guadalupe image, but also Chicana as woman, mother, sister, daughter.
>
> ok, alma, show us where your "Our Lady" is about mother. and
please don't refer to the breasts on the "angel" because I didn't
see them lactating. If you don't show the mother, then it's not about
the Guadalupe most raza knows. Ask Santa Barazza, maybe she has
a different opinion. . BTW, in Santa's work,
Guadalupe is portrayed by the clothes She wears, amongst other things. The
cinta is probably the most crucial signifier I refer to in my arguments.
Your semi-nude maidens do not portray Guadalupe, simply because it is
your "opinion" that they do. The work is not informed by the
mother, Nuestra Senora, where is this communicated in your work?
You are right. I don't include the cinta, but I also don't include alot of other signifiers of the "traditional" Guadalupana, but then I have asked what is the purpose of artists portraying the same image over and over without any personal, social, political interpretation? It is mother/sister/daughter/woman because it is a female with a female body. And although the breast may not be literally lactating, they are full and for me, represent nurturing especially since I was breastfed. I am flipping through Santa Barraza's book Artist of the Borderlands, and I don't see the cinta in many but I do see Coyolxauhqui in one.