Patssi Valdez

For my presentation, I have decide to do it on Patssi Valdez. Mainly because of her role as a Chicana artist in a predominately male group (ASCO) which also was a big influence on chicanx art.

I really enjoyed Gaspar de Alba's "Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask" reading, mainly because of its emphasis on the lack of Chicana artist representation in CARA but also because of her critique of the male dominated art and what that represents. Towards the end when she discussed Marcos Raya's "Through Frida's Eyes" piece, she gives a constructive and positive  narrative of the power and gender dynamics. Later she reinforces the lack of Chicana representation by mentioning the irony that only one of the five pieces of Frida Kahlo were made by a woman and questions whether Frida was just being used for representational purposes for the female gender rather than actual inclusivity of the artist. I also really enjoyed the different artistic representations of the traditional virgin/mother/whore as la Virgen de Guadalupe/La Llorona/ La Malinche, seeing there being an actual expression of these roles sort of made the labels that we are usually given as Chicanas more real and vulnerable. I especially resonated with Yolanda Lopez' "Portrait of the Artist as the Virgen De Guadalupe" where she describes that the Virgen is 'jumping off the crescent moon, jumping off the pedestal she's been given by Chicanos'. Growing up with three older brothers in a Mexican household felt like the epitome of machismo, and Catholicism being something that was culturally inherited to me and prevalent throughout my life, I always found myself looking up to La Virgen and finding strength in being a woman because of her. I would always wonder if she were alive would she be going against or working to dismantle the male patriarchy that has been a big underlying component in Mexican/Chicanx culture.