This is a collaborative piece by Jason Garcia (Santa Clara) and Vicente Telles.  Vicente Telles is an award-winning Santero retablo painter of saints and a highly talented portrait painter from the South Valley of Albuquerque. He is one of a few U.S.  Latino artists chosen to participate in the La MalincheExhibit created at the Denver Art Museum and traveled to the San Antonio Art Museum. His religious santos watercolor and foraged pigments in paintings are currently in shows in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Jason Garcia is from Santa Clara Pueblo and known for his clay tiles and telling the story of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in his “Tewa Tales of Suspense” series.

This piece is entitled, “Warrior Maiden Muse/Our Lady of La Macana”.  The piece is made from basswood by Vicente.  There is the wood frame and the inset is wood, as well as the base.  The piece is gessoed and then painted with foraged and commercial watercolor pigments.  One side is painted by Jason and the other side by Vicente.

The side painted by Jason reflects on the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.  The woman is taking a hammer to the church bell and is surrounded by flames.  The green area surrounding her has roses, connecting to the Tewa name of Santa Clara Pueblo, “Kahpo Owingeh”.

The opposite side is painted by Vicente and has Our Lady of La Macana.  This is an interesting juxtaposition to the Pueblo Revolt scene on the opposite side.  “Only a few paintings of the Virgin of the Macana (also called just Macana) still exist, and they all date to the second half of the 18th century. They all display remarkably similar iconography: Mary is shown as a statue, bleeding from her forehead, wearing a crown, and holding a macana (a wooden weapon embedded with obsidian blades commonly used by the Nahua peoples of central Mexico—not by the Pueblo peoples in New Mexico). She is surrounded by events from the Pueblo Revolution.  In the painting of Macana in the New Mexico History Museum, the statue of Mary dominates most of the composition. Mary is identifiable as a statue because a pedestal is visible beneath her. We also see a crescent moon at the base of the statue; Mary is often shown standing on a crescent moon (as a reference to her purity and immaculate conception), but here her feet are absent. She wears a blue mantle and an elaborate dress covered in flowers. The dress flares outwards to create a pyramid shape, adding to the impression that this is a painting of a statue. We get no sense of her body underneath. Statues such as this would have been carved in wood, and then painted. Additional clothes and jewelry (that could be swapped out) would have further enlivened it.”  You can read more here about the Virgin of Macana.