Week 3: Yolanda's Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1978: blog 3

Growing up in Mexico I got to experience the devotion Mexican people have on the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is referred to as the Queen and mother of Mexican people. As a kid, I had a great admiration for la Virgen de Guadalupe because everyone talked about how miraculous she is. She also is the definition of how a woman should be. It is interesting to see how Lopez uses many iconic features from the Virgen of Guadalupe and involves then in her artwork. In  Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1974, Lopez uses iconic features that represent the Virgen of Guadalupe such as her Blue Cloak filled with gold stars, an angel, red roses and rays of sunlight. Instead of using those features to represent the Virgin of Guadalupe, Lopez depicts her mother, Margaret and brings up a new way to see “womanhood” and a new proposal of beauty. Her mother, Margaret, is surrounded by bright gold sun rays as she sews a blue cloak with stars. There is an angel at the bottom looking at her and seems to be wondering and looking at Margaret. The roses do not take up a lot of space, instead, they are on the corner of the painting and lay on the floor. There is also a serpent that is tightly wrapped and pinned to the sewing machine. The serpent can have different meanings, one which is fertility. The image of Margaret shows a woman who has shed her imaginary skin like a serpent and has given a new meaning to who Chicana woman is. It does not mean being passive and displaying only purity, love, and devotion. It means leaving behind the stereotypes and owning her sexuality- her life. The image does not show women displaying “youth or glamour, whiteness, and leisure, thin and curvaceous bodies,” it shows a woman that represents beauty without the need to follow stereotypical and sexist ideals of beauty. I like this painting because it illustrates a real woman- a real representation of a Chicana woman who does not need to meet the requirements of society to be beautiful. She is the representation of beauty. 

Yolanda M. Lopez, Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe, From the Guadalupe Series, 1978. Oil pastel on paper, 22 x 30 inches.