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Showing posts from October, 2014

Guadalupe: Beyond Weird Science

The Lady of Guadalupe is considered cultural phenomenon. I have seen this image. It has been imitated in diverse formats including tattoos, sculptures, t-shirts, and coke bottle tops from El Paso to Sheboygan. But I have seen the real thing; It hangs almost 500 years after it was, dare I say created, by an artist "yet to be determined. "Unlike the Lady of Jasna Gora, in Poland, also a "cultural" icon, the image is one wherein paint strokes could not be detected by even the most advanced scientific techniques. This image has outlasted the ravages of the second law of thermodynamics: entropy. Jasna Gora is painted upon survivable material. The Lady of Guadalupe is imposed upon material that should have deteriorated at the most in 40 years. Yet it still exists almost 500 years after its debut. According to reports by NASA studies, the colors are actually floating a hundredth of an inch above the ayate fabric. Ayate is a cactus fiber used by indigenous tribes in