November 27, 2001
Subject: Our Lady
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 19:35:20 -0800
From: "Michael W. Harper" <mharper@mtsac.edu>
Organization:Mt. San Antonio College
To: almalopez@earthlink.net
Dear Alma Lopez,
I have been asked to write a short article on
your lovely (and provocative) image, "Our Lady," for San Diego State
University Press. The piece is to appear in anthology entitled, Bordered Sexualities
(see the site for further details) http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/press/borderedSEX/borderedSEX.html
What I am curious about (and a big part of the
focus of the piece) is the inherent irony of the image as you have depicted
it. By irony, I mean this: Your version of the Virgin of Guadalupe demands
that its audience be able (and willing) to think two things at once: 1.) the
Virgen as sacrosanct icon with all of its social, religious and cultural components
and 2.) the same Virgen as a sensual (and sensuous) female that carries equally
valid, yet distinctly different, social and cultural associations.
In researching the controversy that surrounds
your work, I am struck by what I notice as peoples' unwillingness (or inability)
to embrace both ways of thinking at the same time, thus provoking the varied,
controversial responses to your work. Part of this, I suspect, is the cultural
conditioning we all are potentially susceptible to when we rely too heavily
on the pre-packaged (and utterly simplistic) thinking that American culture
seems to seek out in the media and other surces of information. But, again,
I think that there might be more to it than the knee-jerk reaction that blames
all of our critical foibles on the media. I'm still working through some of
this, but think that the religious tradition from which both your image and
its controversy emerge might have more to do with it than I can fully articulate
now.
I would appreciate any insight you might have
into these ideas.
With much appreciation,
Mike Harper
Mt. San Antonio College