Dulce Hermida: An altar for the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe

An altar
to celebrate the incarnation of Jesus 2000 years ago.

This altar has been a very important artwork for me. As a person
and woman artist I would never imagine to do a relief artwork
of this dimension ( 40 x 16.5 ft ) in such brief period - in
just 27 days.

I have done this art-style for many years. But now it really
made me nerveous and sleepless for many nights, not
knowing whether there will be enough time to finish it.
It took us day and night to work on it; "us" encludes my
partner Eduardo who gave me all his support and help
at any time.

Dulce Maria Hermida

I made angels smile, as my back was aching and my knees hurt while working in a strenuous, stoop positionon to mount reliefs on the huge panels that were laying on the ground. Our goal was to finish an altar in a size of twelve meters high and 5 meters broad, showing through arelief formed open curtain the holy spirit, St Peters cathedral in Rom and some mysteries Jesus performed.

Padre Jesús Angel

The number of mysteries I should work on was changed by padre Jesus Angel several times.So instead of creating only four relief-mysteries in the beginning I had finished ten at the very last day. I felt relieved, when I saw twelve large panels with my artwork being brought up by workers to a large wall in the church, the very place where it was supposed to be seen by hundreds of people, every day. I was proud, when I presented the altar,as promised, to padre Jesus Angel, on october 12th.

It was the day the Nuncio Apostolico in Mexico was coming to bless the new jubilar bell built for the 2000 years incarnation of Jesus Christ and my altar is the alegory on this theme.
All the time I worked on it in the church,in the house of GOD, while people were praying - silent or loud - , I worked with the sounds of choruses singing praises to the Lord. In the heat at noon I could listen to the beats of wings from birds, flying into the church to find some shadow. Then there was this silence at night, one can only find in a church,and me, working, in front of a cross under the view of the virgin of Guadalupe seeing what I was doing. My art became inspired by all of this and I gained more and more strength to finish this enormous work.

Eduardo Cobo

But I never would have been able to finish this altar without my two great colaborators Eduardo and my daughter Jessica, who helped, working on my side. Arantja and Eduardo jr.- my two younger children - staid with me many hours of the day. All the time I was pleased for the big support I received from my family. I am thankfull for their helping hands, their encouraging words and smile.

I will never forget the group of nuns called "mioletas" doing prayers for me every day and to listen to their words of comfort when I felt weakness. Thank You!

Thanks to the priest Jesus Angel who gave me the opportunity to build this immense relief altar for his church.
And thanks to all my friends, especially to Angelica and Alexander, whose interest and encouragement was of great help.

I am motivated now as artist and as woman to be able to take any challenge of creating more Artwork like this in the future.The feelings and impressions the people had about this altar while I was working on it and their joy when they saw the final result, will always remain in my memories.