DARK GODDESS / BLACK MADONNA
Last month, preeminent writer and poet Ana Castillo invited me to submit something for her new online zine, "La Tolteca 2.0." I'm deeply honored to be included in this first issue. Below, I am copying the text she used, and adding some of my own photos. I hope you'll have a look at her zine and follow her. If you don't know her work, it's time you did. She's a literary treasure.
DARK GODDESS / BLACK MADONNA
Traditionally, the huipil is the indigenous dress or blouse of Mesoamerica. Known for its straight, simple shape and intricate patterns, it is usually, but not always, woven on a backstrap loom. As a survival strategy during Spanish colonial rule, a wealth of information was woven into the design. Text within the textile. These garments were clandestine books. They functioned as containers for religious beliefs, agricultural secrets, and community traditions, all discretely embedded within the threads.
Inspired by the concept of a garment as messenger, I began in 2003 to create contemporary, non-wearable versions from paper and canvas. My intention was to weave the threads of truth, justice, beauty, and power into my huipiles, aligning with the cultural, historical, and social context of their tradition. In December, 2019, I published a book, “Whispers in the Thread,” to celebrate 15 years of this series. While it was at the press, I was contemplating what would follow it, and I realized the answer was ‘more huipiles.’ This new beginning however, called for something different. I felt I was finished creating specific works for particular women or issues.
So I took a leap.
Wanting to continue my practice of reusing and repurposing, I took my boxes and bags of materials, threw everything on the studio table, to see what I could make of the chaos.
This new way of working forced an emergence, and created a more organic, non-goal oriented process. Challenging as it is, I persevered, determined to allow something to take shape that I didn’t consciously direct.
The first work had been pieced together for months, and it wasn’t until January that I really dove into it. This oversized huipil had begun with a black chamisole and a woven plastic bag from the produce market, stitched on to some old painting aprons. It had no focus until I incorporated a book cover whose title “The Dark Goddess” showed faintly on the spine.
I began to build the concept around her, the ancient mother goddess whose shrines I’ve made pilgrimages to in Mexico and Europe since the 1990’s. She had come home to me, and found a place in my studio. As Covid-19 was now beginning to spread to this continent, I also gave her an oversized facemask to symbolize protection and care for all her children.
Just as I was applying the last bits of textile and found objects, George Floyd cried out for his mama before his last breath was stolen from him. Like mothers around the world, I cried out with him, and for him. What if we all begin to see Black and dark as the place of emergence, without which nothing is birthed, nothing is grown, and nothing flowers? How could that awareness change our ingrained racist attitudes? DARK GODDESS / BLACK MADONNA is dedicated to George Floyd and all BIPOC whose lives have been shattered by white privilege.
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