Maturation and Integration
Most critical considerations of De Hoyos’ career track her professional maturation as the moment in which she allegedly sheds the reductive constraints of her strident political poetry. Her works in later poetry collections such as Woman, Woman are frequently characterized as more nuanced and personal pieces. Pointing to the tonal transition she makes to ironic humor, as well as their significantly shorter lengths, Woman,Woman and other later publications are often considered a departure from De Hoyos’ didactic Chicano liberation politics. Most crucially, these works are recognized for their introspection— in them, De Hoyos turns inward, no longer keeping her sights towards external Anglo oppression. This in turn allows her to address proto-feminist concerns within her insular Chicano community.
Although the detection of an increase in nuance is certainly accurate, to conflate this with a depoliticization within her work suggests that personal and feminist themes alike cannot be political, perpetuating the misguided notion that Chicana feminism was not as engaged in liberation as its mainstream counterpart.
A STRATEGIC PAIRING OF DISCIPLINES
In her pivot to the personal, De Hoyos frequently relies on the intimate experience of visual and material creation to form the crux of poems’ metaphoric function. This exhibit proposes a strategic pairing of one of these poems, titled “The Artist,” alongside one of her illustrations: “Lazos de Amor.”
“The Artist” tells the story of a “he” in the process of creation. From initial intent and inspiration to vivid execution, and finally successful admiration, De Hoyos draws out the narrative surrounding poesies in in an almost hyperbolic gesture; the language is histrionic, the moment protracted. The true subject of “The Artist,” however, does not appear until halfway through the poem, when “he groaned, bending under the weight/of his talent; and the woman who shared his days/ heard his need and came to stand beside him.” The woman's presence lasts another six lines during which she “brought him her fresh life-blood that flowed abundant from her healing hands” before she is then narratively cast off. Much like his pouring of paint, “the woman” pours her “life-blood” in an act of sacrificial offering, replenishing him and granting him the strength to “conquer cosmos” as he benefits from the “ritual of their ageless love.” The poem ends in idolization of “his wondrous hands,” despite the obvious role that the woman’s hands have also played in this moment of creation.
It is a poem both preoccupied with appreciating and condemning the role women have been relegated to in the arts and the larger Chicano movement. “The Artist” recognizes the crucial labor women wordlessly and thanklessly contribute to male “genius,” while also exposing its constrained nature. In using words pregnant with connotations of fertility and life-creation when describing his process, Hoyos points to the irony of ignoring women’s biological capacity for creation. An emphasis on hands as the conduit through which poesies may be fulfilled is dispersed throughout the poem, as he begins “single-handed,” and ends with “wondrous hands” (plural), but only after he has been offered the woman’s “healing hands.” The result is an ambivalence in the title “The Artist.” De Hoyos strategically uses only he and she pronouns throughout the piece, never betraying which subject is “The Artist,” though undoubtedly aware of the gendered assumptions readers would project onto their reading.
Pairing this poem with one of de Hoyos’ illustrations, “Lazos de Amor” proves fruitful in visualizing the nuanced and ambivalent work “The Artist” performs. Reading De Hoyos’ visual and lyrical work in tandem illuminates the intimate relationship between her two talents, granting new meanings to each medium.
Lazos de Amor invokes the larger Chicano graphic tradition of centralizing the image of the Hand as a symbol of action, declaration, and power. Here, however, the typical fist of protest (see bottom right image) has been duplicated and loosened; two open hands occupy the plane, facing each other in an upright pose. Rather than aggressively asserting their presence on the scene, these hands seems to passively occupy the center. The positioning is ambiguous, as the action performed could be interpreted as a gesture of cradling, of support, or of gathering.
They foreground a simple linear design which draws on Chicano appropriation of pre-Columbian iconography. In this case, the lines form pseudo pyramids— the ultimate feat of human creation. If we are to read the action as one of support, one could connect the image to the role of women in creation that was just discussed in de Hoyos’ poem “The Artist.” The hands’ role would remain implicated with labor, however, as the support depicted is not static. The hands are centralized beneath the pyramidal designs’ peak, suggesting their role in erecting the structure. Importantly, the hands are truncated at the wrist by a weaving ribbon which reads lazos de amor (ties of love). The position’s similarity to that of handcuffs reflects an involuntary element to the labor being depicted here. Still, the symbolic handcuffs are beautiful and winding, and apparently made of love, further supporting the ambivalence De Hoyos’ utilizes in representing the gender dynamics which surrounded her. This pairing reveals a possible dialogue between her two mediums, as both emphasize the illogical gender roles upheld regarding the arts and activism.