guadalupe | The Mary Project

I saw her from across the room. I recognized the colors first, then saw the form.

It was Our Lady of Guadalupe, practically glowing in reds, greens and yellows on the plain white wall of the art gallery. As I moved closer, her colors broke into a jumble of squares, pixelating before my eyes. Printed on a 3-foot-square paper, the colors danced as shapes, and I marveled at how they came together into her image just a few feet away.

Did others see the same thing as I did? What an interesting take on the Madonna in the modern world. Broken down into pixels. Religion challenged by modern society. Or was it about the recognition being in the heart more than the eyes?

Artist Edgar Reyes and his take on Our Lady of Guadalupe. Photo by Cheryl Nemazie.

That’s when I met the artist, Edgar Reyes. I soon found that Our Lady of Guadalupe had a very different meaning to him.

He was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and migrated to the United States with his mother as a small child. He still remembers saying goodbye to his grandmother, whose house was covered with images of the Virgin Mary. He and his young mother knelt down before his grandmother so she could bless them for a safe journey, all the mothers in his life seemingly melding into one at that moment.

He got some help getting used to life in the States from an aunt in California (also named Lupe, by the way) and has overcome many hardships as an immigrant. Edgar is now an artist and teacher in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. He carries a battered and well-traveled Guadalupe statue from the very town where Juan Diego first saw the Virgin Mary appear to him, bringing his cloak imprinted with her image to the bishop as proof. The iconic image is a touchstone to Reyes’ culture and an homage to the women who helped him get to where he is today.

Reyes has carried this statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe with him around the country. Photo by Cheryl Nemazie

“No estoy yo aqui, que soy tu madre?”
(Am I not here, I who am your mother?)

I’ll let him speak in his own words about what Mary means to him:

“For me what she stands for is respecting women. It’s not so much the religious component of her, but it’s what she stands for… it is woman empowerment and women’s rights…men should respect women… they are a valuable part of our community. They are not just child bearers. They hold the key to success to a fruitful community.

She has always just been there for me. Guadalupe has guided my way through life indirectly and subconsciously.

I grew up religious, but I’m very cynical about the Catholic faith. The Virgin Mary has become a cultural icon for many Latinos. Many of us are unaware of the fact that she was used as a vehicle for the colonization of Mexico and converting many native people. Despite this fact Latinos proudly wear her on their belts, necklaces and even get her portrait tattooed.

I usually carry something in my wallet of her or relating to her. I just always have had something with her image on it. It is part of my culture. Guadalupe is a hybrid of Native American and Spanish beliefs.

To me she is mother earth. The giver of life.

I want her to be a mosaic here in Baltimore. I really want to be the first artist to put her up.”

This morning before I set off on my journey, a dragonfly appeared hovering above my windshield. I was in a parking lot in a shopping mall, nowhere near a field or marsh. And it hung there as began to drive, flying just a few inches ahead of me, like it was leading somewhere. It stayed with me for a good ten seconds, and disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

* * * * *

“There’s a barn up here with a beautiful painting of Our Guadalupe on it. I want to stop and take a picture of it,” I said. Cheryl and I were careening down a four-lane highway in rural Calvert County, better known for conservative Republican farmers than a Mexican barn-painting Catholic.

“We should travel across the country and write a book called ‘Mary in America,” Cheryl said, going on to explain the coffee table book we could work on together. She’d take the pictures of the people, places and things – and I’d write the stories.

I spotted the barn and hung a U-turn, rolling to a stop on the shoulder with cars whizzing by. Cheryl leaned out the window with her camera.

“Back up a little,” she said.

I backed up and the 4-foot-high panel under the eaves of the red barn came into better view between a powerline and pole. There was Our Lady of Guadalupe in all her glory. Green robe covered with stars, bursts of light behind her, angels at her feet. The plywood was weathering. The artwork was beautiful.

Next the red barn was a line a pick up trucks, and I couldn’t see the house for the trees.

“Back up a little more,” she said.

As I inched backwards on the highway, I saw a pickup truck approaching along the shoulder in my rear view mirror. The truck was twice the size of my little hatchback, jacked up on enormous wheels with rack of spotlights affixed to the top like Mickey Mouse.

“Oh my gosh, it’s the person who lives here!” I say.

He pulls into the driveway and rolls down his window. Halfway.

“We’re admiring your Mary. Is it okay if we take a picture,” Cheryl says, as she hops out of the car and approaches the truck.

By the time I get there, she’s run closer to the barn, and I’m looking up at the man behind the wheel. The cab is lined in blue flame upholstery. He’s about 250 pounds with a day’s growth of a beard and short, curly blond hair. He’s not Mexican. He’s 100 percent Calvert County. White, male, and country.

“I’ve passed this Mary before on your barn and I had to stop this time,” I said. “She’s beautiful.”

“Well, thank you,” he said, with a slight smile. His teeth were small compared to the rest of his body. “I asked a lady at my church to paint it for me. I saw what a wonderful job she had done before, so I asked her to paint Mary for my barn.”

He was warming up.

“I’d like to build a little structure to keep off the rain.,” he said proudly, “I used to have a light for it, but the kids kept running over it with the lawnmower.”

I laugh, and we introduce ourselves.

“I’m glad you like her,” he says.