The "Our Lady" is a 14" x 17.5" digital print. This print was included in an exhibition titled CyberArte: Tradition Meets Technology curated by Tey Marianna Nunn at the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.The exhibit consisted of four Latina artists (three New Mexicans and me) whose visual work included imagery containing traditional cultural iconography (such as La Virgen) produced using digital technology. The three New Mexican artists are Elena Baca, Marion Martinez and Teresa Archuleta Sagel. The purpose of Cyber Arte was to introduce people familiar with the cultural iconography to new technologies and vice versa.

Cyber Arte opened on February 25, 2001 and closed as originally scheduled that same year on October 28. Soon after the opening, Jose Villegas and Deacon Anthony Trujillo were joined by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan in organizing protests demanding the removal of the small digital print. The protests were violent. The museum, the curator, and I endured constant verbal abuse and physical threats.

The print that the Archbishop and the protestors found so offensive is only an image of a forty year old woman with her belly and legs exposed standing on a black crescent moon held by a bare breasted female butterfly angel. This small print was on exhibition in a museum, not a church.

After my initial shock to the reaction to "Our Lady," I realized that the organizers were primarily men, the Catholic Church, and conservative religious groups who would bus men and women to the protest sites or would ask them to sign postcards or write emails. I still cry when I remember receiving an anonymous large yellow envelope containing letters written by small children. It makes me sad that adults teach children to hate and write hate mail.

The witch hunt continues. On December 2002, I was invited to exhibit "Our Lady" by a young artist curator, only to be censored by the director from an annual Virgen de Guadalupe exhibition at the Aztlan Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas. During the summer of 2003, a conservative religious group from Pennsylvania came to Self Help Graphics in East Los Angeles to protest a silkscreen based on "Our Lady" titled "Our Lady of Controversy" where the standing female figure is wearing boxing gloves ready to defend her constitutioinal rights. This summer, a curator for the Fullerton Museum declined to exhibit "Our Lady." Although, the curator selected a "safe" Guadalupe image that I produced in 1997, the museum received hate emails from Hector Carreon aka Ernesto Cienfuegos of La Voz de Aztlan website.

Since the controversy in Santa Fe, "Our Lady" has been the subject of magazine and journal essays. In the last three years, I have traveled internationally on invitations to speak about the controversy. My visual work and the "Our Lady" controversy are topics of study in courses that range from women's studies, queer studies, religious studies, chicano/latino studies, art history studies, museum studies, american studies as well as new media studies.

I admit, I was surprised by the violent reaction to Our Lady because I am a community artist born in Mexico and raised in California with the Virgen as a constant in my home and my community. I am know that there is nothing wrong with this image which was inspired by the experiences of many Chicanas and their complex relationship to La Virgen de Guadalupe. I am not the first Chicana to reinterpret the image with a feminist perspective, and I'm positive I won't be the last.

MORE ABOUT OUR LADY

Calvo, Luz "Art Comes for the Archbishop: The Semiotics of Contemporary Chicana Feminism," Meridians: feminism, race transnationalism, Volume 5, Number 1, 2004

Campbell, Clayton. "From Serrano to Ofili to Lopez" Flash Art Magazine (August-September), 2001

Heartney, Eleanor. "Art et politique religieuse aus Etats-Unis" ArtPress: Images et religions du Livre, Numero 25, 2004

Janofsky, Michael. "Uproar Over Virgin Mary in a Two-Piece Swimsuit" The New York Times (March 31), 2001

Keller, Cathryn. "Faith and the First Amendment: Santa Fe Style" Museum News (July-August), 2001

King, Sarah, S. "Santa Fe Madonna Sparks Firestorm" Art in America (June), 2001

Lopez, Alma "Silencing Our Lady? La respuesta de Alma" I Am Aztlan: The Personal Essay in Chicano Studies, edited by Chon A. Noriega & Wendy Belcher, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, 2004

Lopez, Alma. "Our Lady & Censorship," Conscience: The News Journal of Catholic Opinion Spring 2003

Matthews, Sandra "Icons, Heroes and Stories of Survival," Masquerade: Women's Contemporary Portrait Photography, edited by Christine Rolph and Kate Newton, England: Staffordshire University, 2003

Meyer, Richard "After the Culture Wars: Censorship works best when no one knows it's happening" Art Papers (Nov/Dec) 2004

Montoya, Margaret "Un/braiding Stories About Law, Sexuality and Morality," UCLA: Chicano-Latino Law Review, Volume 24 Spring 2003

Walker, Hollis "Our Lady of Controversy," The New Gate Keepers: Emerging Challenges to Freedom of Expression in the Arts. Edited by Christopher Hawthorne and Andras Szanto. Columbia University, 2004

Walker, Hollis. "Like Una Virgen: Chicana Artists Update Our Lady", Ms. Magazine (August-September), 2001

Walker, Hollis. "Depiction of the Virgin of Guadalupe Stirs Objections" Los Angeles Times, (April 4), 2001

Walker, Hollis. "Another Day, Another Inquisition?" The Wall Street Journal (March 28), 2001