Description
Book SynopsisInitiates a gender-based framework for analyzing Latin American and Caribbean folk art. Exploring the roles of women as artists and consumers in specific cultural contexts, this title looks at a range of artistic forms from across Latin America, including Colombian molas (textiles), Andean weavings, Mexican ceramics, Mayan hipiles (dresses).
Trade Review“
Crafting Gender deftly fills a gaping hole in gender studies by providing a rich body of information on women’s traditional arts. Exploring the distinctions between art, ‘folk art,’ and just plain work in a great variety of cultures, the authors illuminate social context, belief systems, aesthetics, and technique, expanding the field to areas not well known outside of academia and Latin America. Feminists, artists, and scholars will find much material in Eli Bartra’s book with which to mold and weave their own forms.”—
Lucy R. Lippard, author of
The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Feminist Essays on Art"Crafting Gender is an original collection that presents in one volume several subjects generally treated separately, integrates them with a gender perspective, and offers an approach that is truly innovative."—
Marysa Navarro, coauthor of
Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to HistoryTable of ContentsIllustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction / Eli Bartra 1
Always Something New: Changing Fashions in a "Traditional Culture" (Suriname) / Sally Price 17
The Emergence of the
Santeras: Renewed Strength for Traditional Puerto Rican Art (Puerto Rico) / Norma Valle 35
Kuna Women's Art: Molas, Meaning, and Markets (Panama) / Mari Lyn Salvador 47
Connections: Creative Expressions of Canelos Quichua women (Ecuador) / Dorothea Scott Whitten 73
Engendering Clay:
Las Ceramistas of Mata Ortiz (Mexico) / Eli Bartra 98
Women's Folk Art in La Chamba, Colombia (Colombia) / Ronald J. Duncan 126
The Mapuche Craftswomen (Argentina) / Dolores Juliano 155
Women's Prayers: The Aesthetics and Meaning of Female Votive Paintings in Chalma (Mexico) / María J. Rodríguez-Shadow 169
Earth Magic: The Legacy of Teodora Blanco (Mexico) / Betty LaDuke 197
Tastes, Colors, and Techniques in Embroidered Mayan Female Costumes (Mexico) / Lourdes Rejón Patrón 220
Contributors 237
Index 241
