Testimonio

La Peña Gallery

227 Congress Ave

Austin, TX 78701

March 8 – August 31, 2007

La Peña proudly presents “Testimonio” at La Peña Gallery. This exhibition showcases the ceramic and sculptural work as well as honoring the life of Marsha Gomez. It will be on display March 8^th through August 31^st .

Marsha Gomez was an artist, activist, art educator, single mother, community organizer for environmental and community rights, and friend to many. Although her life was tragically cut short in 1998, her work, ideas, and actions continue to influence people today. Her ideals were shaped by the ideas of equality, peace, and honoring the earth. She believed artists can use their art to make social change and to promote political activism and they can be visionaries that creatively express those conditions that are of vital importance to the well being of our planet.

Marsha Gomez exhibited her work internationally in many galleries and museums and received many honors and awards. “Madre del Mundo” is perhaps her most well-known sculpture and it was commissioned several times. The first life-size “Mother of the World” was placed on Western Shoshone Land, across from a missile testing site in Nevada, as a protest of what was being done to the land.

About her work, Marsha Gomez said, “My sculptures are personifications of the forces and phenomena of nature that sing poetically of a matriarchal way of being – from an ancient memory of that time, from accumulated life experiences, and in total reverence for the sacred Mother Earth from which my work is made. My work speaks specifically to the experiences of “la mujer indigena”, or the woman of the earth. These are women have courage, women who have courage, women who are working to make a difference, women who are facing major challenges in their lives and in their communities, and women who have struggled through all of it and have acquired the wisdom of experience.”

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1951 Marsha Gomez went on to attend school in Arkansas. It was there she learned many traditional pottery techniques from Southeastern Native tribes, which was part of her lifelong journey to reclaim her own Choctaw heritage. She came to Austin in 1982 and quickly became involved in the community. She took part in activities such as teaching clay sculpting at the Dougherty Arts Center and also became involved in arts education programs funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission for the Arts, and the City of Austin. She was a co-founding mother of the Indigenous Women’s Network and in 1988; she founded and became director of Alma de Mujer, a retreat center for social change outside Northwest Austin.

For more information, please contact La Peña at (512) 477-6007 or lapena@igc.org. You may also visit www.lapena-austin.org. La Peña is an interdisciplinary cultural and educational organization dedicated to the enhancement of art in all its forms. La Peña's mission is to support artistic development, provide exposure for emerging local visual artists, musicians, poets and other performing artists, and offer Austin’s visitors and residents the full spectrum of traditional and contemporary Latino art.