Retablos of Resistance 1
Eight artist friends and I collaborated on an artist's book project to capture our thoughts and experiences with the year 2020--which included our responses to multiple crises that year from COVID-19, to racial unrest and the presidential election. All of the images here were created as part of that project. The book I created, "Retablos of Resistance" (Lawton-cover and Lawton-8) was inspired by Mexican retablos and ex-votos, small devotional altars and paintings commemorating saints and/or stories of traumatic events. Retablos are small altar-like forms typically found in churches and homes. Ex-votos are small paintings on tin that depict a tragedy or someone with a grave illness/injury; a saint or martyr that intervened to 'save the day'; an inscription describing the tragic event and giving thanks for the divine intervention. In thinking about the year 2020 and similar events from the past--a continuous cycle of injustice, hardship, disease, and devastation--resistance has been the key to surviving and thriving. The concept of retablos and ex-votos fit well with visualizing the events of 2020. "Be the Coffee" is a self-portrait I created during the pandemic centered around a fable about a mother's advice to her daughter using coffee as a metaphor. This fable spoke to how I felt I needed to think and behave to survive the multiple crises that comprised the year 2020.
