The Sacred Feminine
The Feminine Principal in New Mexico Folkloric Art
by Judith McLaughlin

Publication Date: November 2008
20 photographs – TBA pages
$TBA/PB (978-1-890689-27-8) $TBA/HB (978-1-890689-52-0)
Sacred Feminine cover
This book examines the role of culture, religion, psychology, art, gender and history in the development of the New Mexican religious folk art form during the Colonial and Territorial Periods. It was an art that richly portrayed the feminine both in character and in spirit. From the time of the conquest in the mid-1500s, the territory was Spanish Catholic in tradition, laws, art and culture. In what was an isolated and barren land the settlers turned to their religion and eventually created a native, indigenous folk art that exemplified their faith and eased their loneliness and seclusion. The saints, carved and painted, became members of the family. Santos were the object of prayer. These saints held special places of honor in each Hispanic home usually upon an altar available for daily veneration. The saints preserved not only the faith but la famila.