Many works in the SAAM's collection are religious works. Of these works, many are depictions of religious women. The following works are ones that, explicitly or implicitly, could be read as depictions of spiritual femininity or womanhood. How these works investigate the theme individually benefits from consideration.

Elena Karina, St. Theresa, 1979, glazed porcelain

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1980.99

Although there is no St. Theresa, there are many Saint Teresas in the Catholic church, most of whom have followed in the footsteps of Teresa of Avila. There are dozens of associations with the various Saint Teresas, including mystic thought and lives lived as hermits. Someone savvy to art history may know Teresa of Avila as depicted by the Baroque artist Bernini (“Ecstasy of Saint Teresa”) ; that depiction of St. Teresa is theatrical, with natural light and figurative golden light raining down upon it.

That ornate design is exactly what St. Theresa does bring to mind; its pearl sheen like angelic light, and its rising ridges and peaks like a saintess’s halo. While this is an obvious connection for the audience, Elena Karina wasn’t interested in the revelry of anything but the natural motifs she imitated. Karina had stated: “Well, don't you think that all names are, in a sense, rather arbitrary labels of convenience?”

While Bruria states that the use of shell in her work is undoubtedly feminine and yonic, the intention of Karina’s use of shell is to evoke the forms of shells and tide pools. Femininity is a concept that is brought to this work from knowledge of its title; it is not inherent in the work without that.

Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson, Une Martyre (Saint Thechla), 1891, oil on canvas

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Richard Ball Dodson, 1923.8.1

‘And wearing a mantle that she had altered so as to make a man's cloak.’

-The Acts of Paul and Thecla

Saint Thecla was an apocryphal saint of early Christianity remembered through her adoration of the apostle Paul and the women she would inspire through her miracles. Despite Thecla being given the title of martyr, she would live a long life wherein she would reject marriage, baptize herself, and teach other women to follow. Many of Thecla’s acts, costumes, and miracles were masculine ones, as they were not the acts of a cloistered nun, like Teresa of Avila, but more akin to the acts of a priest.

Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson does not portray a masculine Saint Thecla; Thecla is typically young, slim, and beautiful in virginal ivory. This portrayal is not at odds with the Acts of Paul and Thecla, but Thecla could have been portrayed very differently. The SAAM takes the story of Saint Thecla and relates it to Dodson’s own life: both were women achieving despite family disapproval in male dominated fields, so it was possible Dodson saw herself in the saint. However, Dodson’s success was in the restrictive Academy; if she were to portray masculine women, if there was ever the desire, there would be little chance for her success.

Bruria, Dream Sequence, 1978, porcelain, glaze, china paint, decals, and cloth with slip

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jonas Rosenfield, Jr. in memory of Lenore Rosenfield, 1981.19

Bruria’s career as an artist began in earnest with her 1970’s co-founding of LA’s Womanspace, a now-defunct space for women artists, by women artists. It is unsurprising that a fair portion of her art, then, would relate to hers and her peers’ womanhood.

Womanhood is experimental with Bruria; ‘Dream Sequence’ use of color and material is bold and folkish. The cloth that veils the head is actual cloth that has been cold cast, to harden the folds to the form.

The motifs in this work are common motifs of the artist: cast lace, wing imagery, and colorful glazes. The colorful glazes in other works are meant to be shell-like, and because they are shell-like, are meant to evoke female genitalia. This draws comparisons to Karina’s use of shell-form, which does not ask the viewer to make the connection. Still, this motif does not necessarily signify the womanhood of the figure, as several of the artist’s other sculptures are ambiguously or un- gendered. Only the cloth with slip codifies Dream Sequence as depicting a woman, as it is arranged as a headscarf, as Bruria’s own Othrodox Jewish mother would.