Editor,
I’d like to comment on Blake Driver’s recent article on Thursday about professor Tey Diana Rebolledo and her presentation, “Les Claravidentes: Chicana Artists and Writers.” While the article was well written and informative, I am concerned that Driver’s description of Alma Lopez’s work “Our Lady” as an almost nude Virgin Mary is deceiving.
After hearing all the news reports of the “blasphemous” Mary, I visited the Museum of International Folk Art to view the exhibit cyber art myself. I found the Lopez’s depiction of the Virgin to be wearing what could be considered a 1950’s style bathing suit was far from being “almost nude.”
Lopez’s “Our Lady” is not the controversial sex goddess the news is making it out to be, but rather a picture of a woman depicted as “Our Lady” who must be in her 30s and has the body of a woman who probably has given birth herself. She does, however, appear to be a woman of strength, much as I view the Virgin Mary.
The amazing thing about Mary is that she is a woman, just like I am. I often wonder what Mary and Jesus would look like if they were actually living in the 21st century and if I’d recognize them. And now that I have viewed “Our Lady” at the Folk Art Museum, I have to think that Mary probably would have worn a bathing suit if she took young Jesus to the swimming pool today.
-Anne Nacke
UNM student
