Week 10: Quarter Reflection

The one most memorable thing from this class was the activity where we named the artists that we knew. It was the most memorable because it put into perspective how much I knew about art but also how much more I did not know about Chicana art or the impact that it had on the Chicana community. Before that activity, I could only think of Frida Kahlo and Georgia o’ Keefe as the most prominent women artists. Being introduced to many more artists from my peers was educational and it motivated me to stay highly engaged for future material.

One of the artists that really caught my attention was Yolanda Lopez because she referenced the Virgin Mary and religion which is something that I myself have been re-evaluating. Yolanda Lopez discusses her connection to religion and how it was considered unusual because she did not identify as a religious person like many other Latinos. I grew up going to church but for my family, it was something that did not come first and as a result, I felt that I did not have a deep connection to Catholicism. But I did feel that I needed to have a sense of attachment to the Virgen de Guadalupe because it was an icon that I saw everywhere around my neighborhood. Yolanda Lopez’s art and her motivations for her Virgen art pieces made me realize that the Virgen holds much more importance beyond religion.

Additionally, her art piece Nuestra Madre, which incorporates indigenous spirituality, gave me the best representation of this class. The art piece is an embodiment of Chicana femininity through different perspectives, it embodies the idea that Chicanx norms like religion prove to be barriers to Chicanas, and that through art these norms can be challenged.