Mestizaje: The Feminist Art of Kathy Sosa

by Kathy Sosa, Sandra Cisneros (Foreword by), Ricardo Romo (Commentaries by)

Overview

Derived from the words miscere and genus in Latin, mestizaje refers to a mixing of the races. In the book Mestizaje, internationally acclaimed artist Kathy Sosa presents a cross-sectional view of Mexican American culture as it is practiced in the centuries-old blended culture of the Texas-Mexico borderlands. She documents and projects the effects across generations of peoples and cultures meeting, overlapping, and organically blending into something new. The richness and beauty of mestizaje come from a place where people speak Spanglish, eat Tex-Mex food, and dance to Willie Nelson and Flaco Jimenez—sometimes all at once. Sosa foretells what much of the United States has become or will be like before long.

The imagery and symbolism of puro mestizaje (total mix) figure prominently in Sosa’s work, and it is a mix unique to the borderlands’ historical traditions and myriad cultures. Sosa derives inspiration from and reflects a bold palette of strong female figures. Celebrating what the women of these borderlands think, feel, and revere culturally, she explores the roles of indigenous traditions, colors, and textiles. Family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances—real and imagined—participate in the spirit of mexicanidad, though most were not born in Mexico and some have never visited. Supplemented with dual-language essays in English and Spanish by art critics, collectors, and historians, Mestizaje rejoices in feminist notions of blended cultures and opens readers’ eyes to the lessons they offer and what they tell us about America today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595343154
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	09/10/2024
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Kathy Sosa is an artist and educator. She received national recognition for her traveling exhibition Huipiles: A Celebration, which debuted at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C., as part of the Smithsonian Latino Center. Her work has been featured on CNN and in other media nationally. She is the coproducer of the documentary series Children of the Revolución: How the Mexican Revolution Changed America’s Destiny, which chronicles the history of the Texas-Mexico borderlands. She is the author of Mestizaje: The Feminist Art of Kathy Sosa and the coeditor and illustrator of Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico​: Portraits of Soldaderas, Saints, and Subversives​. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and Querétaro, Mexico.  

Read an Excerpt

Before Kathy Sosa became Kathy Sosa, she was once Mrs. Peña, Title One reading teacher at Washington Irving Middle School on San Antonio’s West Side. “Miss” to her students, or “Mama” to her two boys. And long before that, she was Kathy Chapman, teen transplant from Troy, Alabama.

From the border between girlhood and adulthood, Kathy came to live in San Antonio in 1968, when the city hosted the World’s Fair and welcomed newcomers. San Antonio was an explosive big city for an adolescent looking to belong. Like most individuals launching into maturity, she peered into the nuevo mundo laid out before her and resisted her past. Kathy chose to cross borders, because she did not want to emulate the segregated life of her childhood. Comforted by the familiar and marveling at the new, she easily relinquished pork rinds for chicharrones, black eyed peas for frijoles, buttermilk biscuits for breakfast tacos.

A brief foray at Incarnate Word High School inspired Kathy to abandon the austerity of her Protestant upbringing and acquire a genuine admiration for the rococo altars of saints and angels. She went through several more metamorphoses in her life, meeting remarkable situations and astonishing individuals, each inviting her to cross a border a step at a time until arriving at her current life.

This invitation to cross borders inspires Kathy Sosa’s art to this day. Because the story the Alamo forgets to remember is that South Texas is particularly unique for former adversaries wedding one another. Die-hard Chicanos with “gringo” surnames abound, as do blonde “Blancas” honoring a long-ago abuelita, proving the universe is large enough to encompass contradictions.

Inducted twice into the Tex/Mex heritage by way of marriage and motherhood, Kathy Sosa has evolved an intriguing blend of cultures. The trees of life that figure predominantly in her paintings are ultimately portraying her own life tree, as observer and participant.

Kathy Sosa’s artwork is intensely woman-centered. It’s as joyous as discovering an armoire packed with precious vintage cloth. As a textile collector myself, I appreciate this. The polka-dots in her art are as reminiscent of Alabama quilts as they are of Tehuantepec fabric. Turn any Oaxacan huipil inside out, and you will see the beloved dotted design. The brilliant, embroidered flowers from the iconographic huipiles of the Mexican isthmus were coopted from shawls delivered by Manila galleons that touched the shores of Acapulco after forays in China, their true source.

For the record, the beautiful lace headdresses the Tehuanas are famous for also arrived by way of Colonial-era trade. They say they were originally Dutch christening gowns, till some Zapoteca trend-setter decided to wear one on her head. And how did the Bolivian indigenous women acquire the European derby? Pull one thread and the whole story connects one culture to another.

So, it is no surprise that Kathy Sosa’s art should weave new worlds to old, present to past. Are these angels and icons in Kathy’s paintings inspired from St. Petersburg or Constantinople or Florence? Or perhaps from the gilded altar in Taxco? Or maybe from the Little Flower Basilica on San Antonio’s West Side. It’s hard to know.

What I do know is this. Kathy Sosa sees women as glorious beings. Trees of life gathered from Mexican folk art morph into crowns, ornate headdresses made of gardens raising their subjects to the status of goddesses and saints. She adds nimbi around their hair to remind us these aren’t just ordinary portraits of neighbors and friends, but women distilled, women spirit-filled. Maybe history ignored them, but here they are rightfully honored

I am thinking of the late Sra. María Luisa Camacho de López, a San Antonio huipilista who taught Kathy and me about Mexican culture. The subject of one of Kathy’s paintings, our revered maestra shared her knowledge generously and altered our lives and art irrevocably. It is only proper that she should be exalted and remembered here. We thought her gorgeous and said so. “Ustedes me ven con ojos de amor,” she would say. But that’s what we do, isn’t it? When we admire someone, some thing. See them with eyes of love.

For the art of Kathy Sosa is above all celebratory. Alive even when honoring death. Delivered with admiration. She is seeing her subjects with “ojos de amor.” There can be no higher praise than that. 

Sandra Cisneros

September 26, 2023

Table of Contents

ESSAYS

Introduction: Sandra Cisneros 

p. 5 A Mestizo Feminism: the Art of Kathy Sosa Ricardo Romo 

p. 9 KATHY SOSA: Cosmic Race Portraiture Carla Stellweg 

p. 47 Past and Present: Reflections on the Tree of Life Jennifer Speed, Ph. D 

p. 53 Day of the Dead Gentleman Callers and Their Muse On My Mind: Homage to Mom Kathy Sosa

p. 187 Fine Art Meets Street Art In Defense of Borderland Culture Kathy Sosa

p. 223 Artist Statement 

p. 231 A Little About Coming to be an Artist and The Mestizaje that Inspires Me Kathy Sosa 

p. 237 About the Essayists

SERIES

p. 21 Face Painting + 52 

p. 43 Trees of Life 

p. 115 Personalidades Grandes 

p. 129 Winged Creatures 

p. 147 Paperwork 

p. 157 Found Objects

p. 169 Huipiles 

p. 185 Artivism, Installations & Public Art

p. 217 Revolutionary Women

p. 227 Career Highlights

Editorial Reviews

Mestizaje honors women and is a joyous riot of patterns and colors inspired by the vibrancy of Tehuantepec huipiles and American quilts. Kathy Sosa’s palette leaps across borders in a trajectory that celebrates opposites such as Mexican trees of life morphing into Byzantine iconography. She gathers inspiration from across the globe and, ultimately, makes the art her own.”

— Sandra Cisneros

 “Kathy Sosa’s portraits loudly proclaim ‘I am who I am.’ She celebrates the power of women’s thoughts, being, and cultural and ethnic identities through the glorious use of color, motifs, and historic and symbolic perspectives that honors the reality of who we are.”

— Ellen Riojas Clark

 “In this stunningly beautiful and vividly stirring catalogue raisonné of Kathy Sosa’s work, she reveals the alchemy of her vision drawn from myriad artistic cultures, histories, and legacies: traditional and folk, figurative and decorative, symbolic and allegorical. Sosa has forged a unique narrative portraiture that celebrates the raza cósmica that has emerged in the crossroads lands of South Texas.”

— John Phillip Santos

From the Publisher