Someone on a social site I post on once stated that he couldn’t understand the contradiction between my statement that I was an agnostic and the fact that a number of my retablos made use of images of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

One side of the Mexican coin as well as the Universal coin. (click on images to make larger.)

I answered that for me, she was a symbol of that gentle, loving, peaceful, motherly, female side of Mexico that balanced the macho, warlike, violent male side. He didn’t understand this and actually ended our correspondence—a perfect example of that force I sought to counterbalance. I have just finished a retablo entitled “Macho” that demonstrates the male side of the dichotomy.

My newest retablo deals with the dichotomy between the masculine and the feminine in both Mexico and the world.

I also have a sculpture I completed over a year ago entitled, “Anima/Animus.”

Since first reading Jung 32 years ago, I have been almost constantly engaged in examining that force which seems to drive the world—that shifting between anima and animus that the I Ching might call yin and yang and that religion might classify as good and evil. Not that either the anima or  animus is purely good or evil, but certainly all is a matter of trying to balance.  This is a simplistic statement of a very complex matter, but one I often deal with in my work.  This statement is being made after the fact as I very rarely have a concept in mind when I begin a work.  I like to see where each piece leads me and I’m as surprised as the viewer may be at where I am led by the process.

ANIMA/UNSHADOWED

This detail examines the shattering of the male side of the ego by a feminine consciousness. The gold object in the glass case is a small replica of the instrument used to sever the head in sacrificial prehispanic temple ceremonies. The hammer shattering the glass is meant to symbolize the gentling effect of the feminine on the masculine.