Monday Draft Questions

1. Amelia Mesa-Baines provides examples of several Chicana artists and their inspirations. She describes how the murals and paintings were multi-dimensional, with “memories and experiences, layered and scattered in a multiple text within each work” (308). Is any mode of art capable of fully expressing an artist’s complex emotions and background to an audience, or is this impossible?
2. In “Introduction: Invocation, Ofrenda”, Laura E. Pérez discusses the influence of religion in Chicana art, noting,“the artwork itself was altar-like, a site where the disembodied—divine, emotional, or social— was acknowledged, invoked, meditated upon, and released as a shared offering” (6). What other unique forms of altars/offerings can be found in a typical day?
3. In Lourdes Portillo’s film, La Ofrenda: Days of the Dead, an American tourist commenting on the Day of the Dead celebration expresses her wish to live in a culture where she could openly talk about the death of her husband (21:10). Why do Americans today tend to avoid talking about grief and death?