This volume initiates a gender-based framework for analyzing the folk art of Latin America and the Caribbean. Defined here broadly as the "art of the people" and as having a primarily decorative, rather than utilitarian, purpose, folk art is not solely the province of women, but folk art by women in Latin America has received little sustained attention.
Crafting Gender begins to redress this gap in scholarship. From a feminist perspective, the contributors examine not only twentieth-century and contemporary art by women, but also its production, distribution, and consumption. Exploring the roles of women as artists and consumers in specific cultural contexts, they look at a range of artistic forms across Latin America, including Panamanian
molas (blouses), Andean weavings, Mexican ceramics, and Mayan
hipiles (dresses).
Art historians, anthropologists, and sociologists from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States discuss artwork from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Suriname, and Puerto Rico, and many of their essays focus on indigenous artists. They highlight the complex webs of social relations from which folk art emerges. For instance, while several pieces describe the similar creative and technical processes of indigenous pottery-making communities of the Amazon and of mestiza potters in Mexico and Colombia, they also reveal the widely varying functions of the ceramics and meanings of the iconography. Integrating the social, historical, political, geographical, and economic factors that shape folk art in Latin America and the Caribbean, Crafting Gender sheds much-needed light on a rich body of art and the women who create it.
Contributors
Eli Bartra
Ronald J. Duncan
Dolores Juliano
Betty LaDuke
Lourdes Rej n Patr n
Sally Price
Mar a de Jes s Rodr guez-Shadow
Mari Lyn Salvador
Norma Valle
Dorothea Scott Whitten
Industry Reviews
"The richness of this book comes from the possibility of comparing the artistic production of different countries to each other and the ability to discern the differing ways that women produce their arts... Highly recommended."--L. E. Carranza, CHOICE "Folklorists will ... appreciate the essays that introduce aspects of belief systems that are fundamental to a critique of gender relations and also underlie the spiritual relationship of artists to their material and imagery... Many themes in this book suggest new directions for folk art scholarship in the twenty-first century... Crafting Gender is appropriate for courses on folk art, as well as on women and gender studies. It will stimulate further discussions on such topics as the variables of marketing art and cultural identity, sustainable village craft enterprises, and power plays among artists and local art collectives and government agencies."-- Suzanne MacAulay, Journal of American Folklore "For anyone interested in women's folk art in Latin American and the Caribbean, Bartra's volume is an invaluable resource, and it is a major contribution from the standpoint of students and scholars interested in art, the anthropology of work, gender and family studies, and international development. I share Bartra's hope that this anthology will be followed by many others that contribute to the discovery, understanding, and valuing of the incredibly rich creative world of women folk artists."-- Kimberley Grimes, American Ethnologist
