I found this large ceramic sculpture, titled Sor Juana’s Dream, in the garden of a Canyon Road gallery in Santa Fe (Blue Rain Gallery). The title of the work is “Sor Juana’s Dream”, and the work is by Deborah Rael-Buckley. Just as ceramic art, this work is outstanding. Rael-Buckley does many large sculptures working in ceramics. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s story is fascinating .
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was born (illegitimate) in 1648 in New Spain, in what is now New Mexico. (New Spain consisted of all New World lands controlled by Spain, an empire which included all of present-day Mexico and Central America and stretched to what is now the Canadian border, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific.) A feminist, opposed by the church all her life, she became a playwright, poet, and mathematician, and possibly had a love affair with her benefactor the Marquessa de Mancera, wife of the Spanish viceroy in New Spain.
Completely self-taught, Sor Juana proved very precocious as a young girl, teaching herself to read and becoming adept in mathematics, philosophy, history. She wrote poetry and plays. Because it was not appropriate for girls or women to be educated (or for that matter, even to be able to read), Sor Juana was forced by her father to burn her books. While still a child, Sor Juana cut off all her hair, saying that she believed “knowledge was a more desirable adornment.)
Sor Juana was taken into the Viceroyal court by the Spanish viceroy the Marques de Mancera as a maid of honor for his wife the Marquessa. The Marques and Marquessa became Sor Juana’s benefactors and supported and encouraged her writing. Sor Juana developed an attachment and strong attraction to the Marquessa, and in some accounts (including Rael-Buckley’s work) a long love affair. Much of Sor Juana’s poetry speaks of her love for the Marquessa.
Ultimately, even with the support of her benefactors, the Marques and Marquessa, Sor Juana was forced by the church to renounce her scholarship and enter a convent for her remaining years.
There is much scholarship on Sor Juana Ines, one of the New World’s earliest feminists and certainly a brave and courageous woman. Wikipedia includes a detailed biography and also extensive samples of her writing. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is also the subject of a book by the great Mexican writer, Octavio de la Paz, The Traps of Faith (here [Amazon]).
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