Photograph by Alisa DiGiacomo captures the Black Doll a soft-sculpture doll by artist, Jessica Luna, featured in the Images of Women exhibition.
On February 22, 2020 Susan Luna, in partnership with History Colorado presented the program InSights & InPerson “Mother Daughter Creative Connections with Susan Luna.” This program featured family history, life history of Jessica and her soft doll sculptures. The doll sculpture captured in photograph were featured during this program.
Jessica Luna (1936-1982) was an artist, one of the first Chicana activists (including as a member of Hembra, a feminist Chicana organization and Denver’s Latin America Research and Service Agency LARASA) in Colorado, as a feminist, supporter of a woman’s right to choose, a wife, and as a mother. When Jessica was diagnosed with cancer in 1980, she began to work on her IMAGES OF WOMEN soft-sculpture doll series, creating 46 embroidered doll sculptures. This series became an exhibit of her soft sculpture dolls (these dolls reflect her experience and the experiences of women in general). In 1981, the dolls as part of the “Images of Women” exhibit were displayed in Phipps Auditorium as an equal rights fundraising event.