Rachel Negrete Thorson
The Way She Shines, 2024
Serigraph, Ed. of 60 with hand embellished marker paintings
30 x 22 in. 

This print is about Alice Bag and her journey of finding a connection to her creative force in music while exploring her ancestry and the divine feminine. Perhaps this experience signaled our deep connection for many Chicana artists like me and Alice, in Los Angeles. This image shows Alice Bag immortalized, calling upon history, the wisdom of the stars, and the memory of the land, showing our connection to the divine, space, and time.

To navigate the decades of Alice Bag’s prolific musical contributions, is no easy feat. In my interviews with her, I used astrological timing techniques and secondary progressions of the moon phases to get a feel for what set the tone for her in the 1990s. Through my research, I learned that she experienced a new moon in her 12th house during the 90s. New moons often portend a time of new beginnings, a pivot from one trajectory to another, and are usually connected to an important event. The 12th house of any person’s astrological chart is representative of ancestry and travel to faraway places and the subconscious. 

In 1991, Alice saw the exhibition The Splendor of Thirty Centuries at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. While there, she felt a deep connection with a small sculpture labeled Goddess #13 identifying deeply with the divine feminine. She was so inspired by this sculpture that she formed a punk/folk band with Theresa Covarrubius and named the band “Goddess 13.” Unfortunately, the group never released an album but was enjoyed by ELA's 1990s underground music scene.

When it came time to design and produce this print, the reference material for the Goddess 13  figurine was nowhere to be found, even with the help of Pauline Wollenson of the LACMA archival library. So, I decided to present Alice Bag as a representation of Goddess #13. Like this statue that was unearthed after being underground for so long, may we be enlightened to converse about the offerings and gifts that Alice Bag and the Goddess 13 band have humbly brought to us through the art of music and the feminine power to awaken creative movements.