Curated by Multicultural Educator Laura Jijon
Laura Jijon is a creative writer, multicultural educator, interfaith chaplain and independent scholar. She formerly served as the Director of UNM-Gallup’s Adult Education Center. Over the course of her decades-long career, Laura has collaborated with Hispanic Catholic Communities in a variety of ways, and these experiences influence her interpretation of Gallup’s New Deal art.
My vocations as creative writer, multicultural educator, interfaith chaplain, and independent scholar intersect at the point of my interest in the socio-spiritual lives of communities where I have been privileged to live and work. My interest is not in documenting what I observe, but in accepting invitations to participate in the cultivation of cultural and religious traditions that have blossomed among groups isolated from mainstream practices because of distance, poverty, illiteracy, and/or fear—a blossoming which nurtures a sense of belonging, pride, purpose, and hope, as well as community cohesion, identity, and healing. I have collaborated with a variety of groups to create meaningful celebrations, gatherings, and events rooted in rich oral traditions that have been carefully carried and lovingly tended for generations. In all cases, the focus has been on visual storytelling using colors, images, symbols, and symbolic actions instead of text and often instead of words. Visual engagement allows people living in an “aliterate” context to create profound meaning and transcend the limits of language.
A powerful influence on my interpretation of the artworks in Gallup’s New Deal art collection is an experience I had when I first arrived in Gallup. I was invited by a local priest, a beloved and humorous Franciscan from Northern Mexico, to form a bilingual (Spanish-English) liturgical theater troupe to help his parish learn more about the Bible and the saints, and to develop a more Franciscan perspective on scripture and church teachings. While we immediately had an enthusiastic response from folks wanting to join the theater, almost none of the members had ever read the Bible or hagiographies, and some simply could not read. So, in order to prepare for performances, our “texts” were religious art. Images on the church walls of the Stations of the Cross, statues of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego, and paintings of Francis receiving the stigmata formed the core of our “curriculum,” and I would listen as our actors and stage crew told the stories they knew with regard to each. The images were inspiring in large part because they were familiar. Stories told included the teller’s personal history and relationship to the image and family memories such as, ”Mi mama always had us pray the rosary in front of her altarcito to the Virgin before we went to sleep.” They also included individual spiritual understandings such as “La Virgincita loves red roses because that’s what she gave Juan Diegito to convince the Bishop,” and “Nuestra Señora helps the poor and speaks our language—that’s why we love her.”
Using this collective knowledge, we would create vignettes mirroring the images, encouraging actors’ natural responses instead of developing scripts. These performances soon became religious rituals themselves, and were naturally integrated into parishioners’ understandings of their faith tradition. They never recounted the theater pieces saying, “The play about St. Francis asking for his favorite cookies just before he died . . . ” Rather, parishioners said things like, “Remember when St. Francis asked for his favorite cookies just before he died. . .” Their remembrance wasn’t, “We walked in the street with the actors and the Padres gave us palm branches. . . ” but, “Remember when Jesus came and we all walked with him and welcomed him to the church with palm branches. . . ” This experience inspired my reading of several of Gallup’s New Deal paintings as icons, which use a language of images and signs rather than letters and words.
Whether among the Spanish speakers of St. Francis parish in Gallup, or twenty years among campesinos along California’s central coast farmland, whenever I have experienced the pleasure and privilege of life in a Hispanic Catholic community, the women are clearly the main Keepers of Tradition. Mothers, Grandmothers, and Wise Women hold honored—if unofficial—roles, acknowledged by laity and clergy alike. Therefore, seeing these three New Deal paintings as images of feminine spirituality, of biblical women in a Southwestern Iconography, is really not surprising at all!
Given the historical isolation of Hispanic villages from centers of religious authority, a beautiful and rich folk Catholicism developed in New Mexico that continues to be cultivated to this day. In this spirit, let us “read” these three New Deal paintings as icons: images of sacred narrative inspired by the Bible and expressed in the visual language of the American Southwest, reflecting an especially feminine spirituality in the characters of Mary Magdalene, the Woman at the Well, and the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows.
The Magdalene is easily identifiable in iconography because she is usually portrayed as a young woman, dressed in red, with her hair uncovered and unbound—exactly as the lone woman appears in Paul Lantz’s Church in the Rio Grande Valley. Historically—and mistakenly—Mary Magdalene was viewed as the repentant prostitute, as someone outside of institutional norms. Likewise, in the painting, the woman here appears outside and at some distance from the church. However, in the Gospel, after Jesus healed Mary Magdalene, she became one of his closest followers and sources of support. She, along with the Virgin Mary, is often shown at the foot of the cross in traditional images of the crucifixion, and she was the first to see the Risen Christ, announcing the resurrection to the others, which earned her the title of Apostle to the Apostles. While Lantz’s woman in red is clearly pictured outside the church itself, consider the steeple, which Christian imagery considers “the finger of God.” Notice how its shadow points discreetly at the woman, calling attention to her. Look closer and you’ll notice her vibrancy. She is full of life and movement, almost appearing to dance on the earth. The significant yet unsung role of Mary Magdalene in the life of Christ poignantly exemplifies the often unspoken value of women to the spiritual life in the Hispanic villages of New Mexico.
The imagery of a woman at a well is seen throughout scripture as reflecting the life-sustaining nature of spiritual truth, often offered through women. (Two powerful versions of this archetype are Miriam’s well that accompanied the Hebrews during the Exodus and Rebekah providing water to Eliezer as he seeks a wife for Isaac.) In Quenching their Thirst, Eliseo Rodriguez evokes the iconic image of the Story of Jesus and the Woman at the Well with his portrayal of a couple at a water barrel. In the Gospel, the woman at the well gazes at Jesus, surprised that he, as a Jew and a man, initiated a conversation with her, a Samaritan woman. Likewise, in the painting, the woman looks intensely at the man in the foreground. In the Gospel rendering, Jesus first requests water from the woman and then later offers her the Living Water of his teachings, promising to quench her spiritual thirst. In the painting, the woman holds a jar to draw water, and the man tips his head towards her. While popular images of Jesus portray him bearded and in robes, this painting with a man in hat and overalls, the attire of a laborer, is also a wonderful way to imagine Jesus, who was, after all, a carpenter.
Providing food and water for laboring men would have been a common task for women in Hispanic villages. Reading this painting as not just a scene of daily life, but also as an icon of the gospel story reflects the deeper value that women’s “ordinary” work provided to sustaining the bodies and souls of their communities—the food and drink necessary for physical nourishment and the words and time necessary for spiritual nourishment.
Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows is often portrayed as an older woman dressed in black as seen in Lloyd Moylan’s The Rio Grande Country. The simple church in the background appears a bit off kilter: the window isn’t level, there are cracks in the wall, even the cross seems to be leaning and a bit unstable. Such imagery is an appropriate reflection of what the institutional church must have seemed to the devoted villagers without access to regular priestly authority. In spite of their isolation, these communities maintained a rich spiritual life with an abundance of rituals, prayers, and iconography colorfully weaving Catholic teachings with the seasonal wisdom of rural New Mexico. Although bent with age, the darkly clad woman, in the vestments of a widow, walks forward, the shuttle on the loom of village life. According to tradition, Christ took on the sins of the world, and his mother, as Our Lady of Sorrows, took on the pain.
While anyone spending time in a Hispanic Catholic community should soon appreciate the influence of spiritual practice on daily life and the important role women play in maintaining the practices, I cannot claim that revealing feminine spirituality was the intention of Lantz, Rodriguez, and Moylan when they created these images. My interest here has been to envision how these works might have been seen within the 1930/40s Hispanic community in Gallup. They might well be seen as familiar icons, nestled in Mama’s nicho or embraced by the adobe walls of a village church, reflecting beloved sacred stories, sure evidence that the Spirit continues to dwell among them in whatever place they called home.
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Gallup and McKinley County are situated on the ancestral and current homelands of the Diné and Ashiwi peoples.
Gallup’s New Deal art collection consists of over 120 objects created, purchased, or donated from 1933 to 1942 through New Deal federal art programs administered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support artists during the Great Depression.
The Gallup New Deal Art Virtual Museum features three types of exhibits, combining traditional and non-traditional approaches to illuminate academic, creative, and individual understandings.
Gallup’s New Deal art collection includes works by a demographically, professionally, and stylistically diverse group of named and unnamed artists.
Image Use Notice: Images of Gallup’s New Deal artworks are available to be used for educational purposes only. Non-collection images are subject to specific restrictions and identified by a © icon. Hover over the icon for copyright info. Read more
