“Based on my study of Nahuatl language and Mesoamerican artistic praxes, I create works that are in conversation with pre-Hispanic legacies,” writes Santa Fe–based artist Moira Garcia. In Citlalcueitl (Star Skirt) (2025), the multidisciplinary Chicana artist, art educator, and native New Mexican converses with the cosmos to map the Nahua origins of the universe, when the goddess Citlalicue, meaning “stars-her-skirt,” birthed an obsidian knife which created new life on Earth.

It is a tale of sacrifice and creation—the inherent duality of existence illustrated by the stepped fret xicalcoliuhqui pattern. Woven with strips of gouache pan amatl, or gouache on amate paper, the deity’s star skirt is made of a bark paper used in Mesoamerican glyphic writing systems that were nearly eradicated through colonization. Garcia works to reanimate such traditions through her own art-making practice.

Read the full article here.