https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8 This exhibition serves as a study towards the exploration of Chicanx and love towards their traditional role model in Catholicism known as La Virgen de Guadalupe. On here you will recognize that all artist are women of Color who identify as Chicana artist. Their Cultural beliefs/Inspirations falls into La Virgen de Guadalupe. Many of the artists did extensive research on their own identity and how it fell into place with the culture, their sexuality, and their religious views within themselves and the generations that followed. They all created changes in this religious icon that best represented who they were as individuals. Nevertheless, La Virgin gained momentum as a revolutionary symbol for the Chicano movement. Since the earlier stages, Mexicanos have considered her to be La Reyna (the queen) of Mexico and a strong spiritual figure that helps people in need. Aside, from being a Catholic figure, Chicanos saw La Virgin as a mother and a savior towards their community. She was considered a symbol of liberation, as she was for the indigenous people of Mexico, Juan Diego, and the Mexicans when they gained independence from Spain. With this said, this religious icon has now been converted and used as a cultural expression that represents the pride of being Chicanx. Towards many artists, La virgin is also used to pinpoint their views on sexuality and gender, and as many say,"Ni Santas Ni putas, solo mujers".(not saints, nor whores, just woman). Artist such as Alma, Yolanda, Easter and Santa Contreras best represented this culture and all had one thing in common in their artwork, which was, relating The Virgin and changing the stereotypical ways of traditional values. However, a few of these artists in this exhibition did receive controversial comments towards the relationship that they displayed of sexuality with religious icons. But that didn’t stop these women from using La Virgin to depict what they believed was an empowerment to represent woman through La Virgen. It suddenly became a feminist statement and gave attention towards the indigenous people as well as Chicanos who deeply related towards their identity of being queer people of color, working class, and strong woman while still maintaining their religious practices. Overall, many of these works have brought up this cultural hybrid aesthetic and spiritual idioms into the light on what it truly was being identified for themselves and the art in the time period. en-us 2017-04-06 03:33:07 UTC 2023-02-22 21:13:18 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Hotsun.png lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168283757
Alma Lopez, Lupe & Sierena in Love, 1999. Print by Alma Lopez, 17.5x 14 in. Lupe& Sirena series.

As seen above most of Alma Lopez work participated portraying her identity and her own views of The Virgin Mary. Alma Lopez identified herself as a Queer Chicana Artists who believed in aspects of creating cultural and spiritual pride. Alma’s goal was to empower the feminist pride towards the culture and community of Chicanx. In this artwork, however, it became rather controversial towards the audience. Instead of seeing how Alma portrayed her own identity they criticized her for portraying La Virgen de Guadalupe as a typical street woman instead of the mother of God. Regardless of the criticism, she had a lot to express in her artwork such as the Monarch butterflies that represented immigration from Mexico to the U.S. She even included the U.S border to represent the divided countries. As she states,” they see Latino’s as criminals and an economic burden, however, we are similar to the venerable viceroy butterflies, just trying to live and survive.” Overall, I felt the need to add her as part of the Chicana exploration of identity. The two famous characters in this print were the Virgin Mary and a famous Lottery character in Mexican Culture. Bringing these two characters together became a unique way of rethink the meaning of spirituality as part of the queer Chicana community. ]]> 2017-04-26 05:38:16 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168283757 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284061 2017-04-26 05:42:26 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284061 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284581 2017-04-26 05:49:45 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284581 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284915 2017-04-26 05:53:55 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168284915 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285118 2017-04-26 05:56:14 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285118 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285201 Santa Contreras Barraza, Trinity, 1993. Acrylic on canvas, 55x60 in. Collection of the Artist.

As a Mexican American, Santa Contreras found herself to be a Chicana artist that wanted to make a difference with the way that the Virgin Mary was Portrayed. She was able to accomplish this with many of her paintings that transformed the commonly shown European images of the Virgin Mary into the Indigenous woman. In this painting, she represented the Christian trinity along with the feminist and around included symbols of rebirth and fertility. The Virgin Mary is shown arising from a cactus, this is a representation of the historical story of when Juan Diego first found the Virgin Mary through this journey in the desserts. Aside from this, Santa Contreras was able to explore her own identity as a Chicana and referred to this Virgin Mary as a Goddess. She included La Guadalupe along with two other women in the background as modern women in support of the Chicana community. Overall, Santa is important to this exhibition because she was able to display her own culture identity and recognized the Indigenous beliefs that followed along with the spiritual aesthetics of Chicana Art.

]]> 2017-04-26 05:57:11 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285201 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285272 Right:Our Lady. Digital print by Alma Lopez. (c) 1999 Courtesy of Alma Lopez. Special thanks to Raquel Salinas and Raquel Guitíerrez.
Left: Virgen/ Lady. Acrylic on Canvas by Alma Lopez, (c) 2001-2009. Courtesy of Alma Lopez.

Alma Lopez has continuously practiced her rights as an artist to depicted her own views of the Virgin Mary through her identity as a queer Chicana. In this image and acrylic painting, she was sure to identify the marginalized, queer female, Chicana, and challenged all stereotypes of the Latina brown body. This woman was said to be identified as the Aztec Warrior who returned back to defy the gendered power relations that the U.S and Chicano Nations hold. As usual, many did not agree upon Alma’s work and criticized it for being sinful and relating it back toward the catholic community. Many in the Latino/Hispanic/Chicano community, at the time, disagreed upon lesbian/ same-sex desires. Therefore, when Alma publicized this in an art show called Technologies meets Tradition, numerous amount of people came with disagreement for going against the cultural norms, in this case, machismo (masculinity) and femenina (feminine). However, Alma's goals were to shift the idea of constant criticism of identity through gender, race, class ideologies and religious views. She would constantly embrace and empower the feminist and eventually became the staple toward the women’s Liberation movement, alongside with Yolanda Lopez and Easter Hernandez. In addition, Alma continues to embrace her studies and adds her own theme of roses, The roses that cover this character are known to be identified as “the real” therefore, it portrays the realness of the Latina body and realness of defining as a queer identity.]]> 2017-04-26 05:58:12 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285272 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285347 Yolanda M. López, Portrait of the Artist as the Virgen of Guadalupe,1978. Oil pastel on paper, 32 x 34 in. Collection on the artist.]]> 2017-04-26 05:59:09 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285347 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285774 La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendio los Derechos de los Xicanos/ The virgin of Guadalupe Defending the rights of the Xicanos. Etching by Ester Hernandez, (c) 1976. Courtesy of Easter Hernandez

Identified as a Chicana Artist as well, Easter Hernandez made it a goal to produce as many artworks that went against all the stereotype of the feminine Latina body. In this artwork, her characters were always representing the feminine power. She displays the female character over a Halo to represent the idea of women being represented as Gods. As she states,” We are all Gods, we are all Goddesses.” She took this traditional image of La Virgin de Guadalupe and was able to transform into a woman with strength and power. This image served as a model to identify all women in the Chicana community in order to protect and defend the rights of her people. I believe that Eater Hernandez was a strong Model to identify the rights that women deserve, through this she was able to identify it with herself and show her own representation of what La Virgen meant to her. She continuously changes the male-centered bible into her own aesthetics of her spirituality. 

]]> 2017-04-26 06:04:04 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285774 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285832 2017-04-26 06:04:58 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168285832 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168502547 2017-04-26 21:07:51 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168502547 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168529599 2017-04-27 02:08:44 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168529599 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168533045 Walking Guadalupe, 1978. Mixed-media collage, 6 x 10 inches.
Study for the Guadalupe series.]]> 2017-04-27 02:41:02 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168533045 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168535127 (Santa Contreras Barraza)
--->Tenopia, Tia. "Santa Barraza- In her own words ." Latinopiacom. March 06, 2010. Accessed April 26, 2017. http://latinopia.com/latino-art/santa-barraza/..
--->Pérez, Laura E. Chicana art: the politics of spiritual and aesthetic altarities. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

(Alma Lopez)
--->Pérez, Laura E. Chicana art: the politics of spiritual and aesthetic altarities. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
---->Alba, Alicia Gaspar de, and Alma López. Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez's "Irreverent Apparition". Austin: University of Texas, 2012.
--->"Latino Art Community, Alma Lopez." Chicana/o Art Book. Accessed April 27, 2017. http://latinoartcommunity.org/community/ChicArt/ArtistDir/AlmLop.html. (Lupe and Sirena in love)

(Easter Hernndez)
--->Pérez, Laura E. Chicana art: the politics of spiritual and aesthetic altarities. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
http://www.esterhernandez.com

(Yolanda M. Lopez)
--->Pérez, Laura E. Chicana art: the politics of spiritual and aesthetic altarities. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
--->López, Yolanda. "Women's Work Is Never Done." Persimmon Tree. Accessed April 27, 2017. http://www.persimmontree.org/v2/summer-2009/womens-work-is-never-done/.
--->"The Guadalupe Series." Yolanda Lopez. Accessed April 27, 2017. http://almalopez.com/projects/ChicanasLatinas/lopezyolanda3.html.]]> 2017-04-27 03:04:12 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168535127 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168542178 The apparition, the miracle of unconditional love, is no longer of the Virgen, but it is also of the couple" 
-Alma Lopez ]]> 2017-04-27 04:28:57 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168542178 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168665223 As a Painter, printmaker, educator, video artist and activist Yolanda Lopez found herself creating experimentations of what La Virgen, or in her case, what La Morenita meant to many Chicanos and herself. However, what differentiates her from the rest was that she found herself being an Atheist and instead of being shaped religiously from the culture, she went with the popular representation that Chicanos identified most with.  Her creation of the Guadalupe series focused primarily on the experience of Mexican American and challenged the ethnic stereotypes that Mexicans were extinguished by.  She included generations of her family and different aspects of mixed cultures.
 I felt that this Chicana artist did a good representation of what the Virgen was represented within in her community. Along with this, she developed a pride in culture, religions, and woman in the Chicana Community. ]]> 2017-04-27 15:21:49 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168665223 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168668366 Yolanda created this piece as a self-portrait to demonstrate women in the progression from oppressive traditional values. She emphasizes the working class and the generations in her family. In this series, she includes herself, her mother. and grandmother. Yolanda continues to illustrate strength and power of Chicanas. She holds on to the traditional halo of La Virgen and is depicted as an empowered woman. Her forced and drive is in a dramatic motion of wanting to move free from this oppression of traditional womanhood. It creates such a beauty of power that many Chicanas thrive for. The need and want to continue to succeed has been influential throughout their community. In addition, this is important to this exhibition because it also represents her identity and how she views herself in her own cultural beliefs.]]> 2017-04-27 15:31:17 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168668366 lmc697 https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168711565 Walking Guadalupe portrays La Virgen de Guadalupe in her normal setting, however, down below it represents Guadalupe being able to walk. This was a very controversial piece because many believe that Yolanda was portraying Guadalupe as a sexual human being. This type of imagery was taboo to many, it brought up the idea of sexuality with what many considered their Reyna in religious aspects. It was both offensive and disrespectful towards their beliefs. However, as always the interpret views differ from the artist. As the artist, her goal was to allow the Guadalupe to gain movement. This allowed me to refer it back to the Chicano movement and the Chicano community always wanted to better their education, civil rights, and social issues. I believed it was an important piece towards the exhibition because it represented the religious ideals that Yolanda held as a Chicana Artist and giving the Virgin mary legs was a revolutionary symbol for the Chicano community. ]]> 2017-04-27 17:42:18 UTC https://padlet.com/lmc697/idp6pq6rkft8/wish/168711565