Made with inexpensive materials like tin or sheet metal, exvotos are devotional paintings offered in gratitude by everyday people. Individuals who experienced everyday miracles–being cured of an illness or saved from an accident–expressed their gratitude by creating an exvoto composed of both a visual and written description of their experience.
After the Center for Creative Connections installed eight exvotos from Mexico as part of Maria Teresa Pedroche’s Staff Point of View, we invited visitors to reflect on their personal experiences and prayers by creating their own exvoto in the Interactive Gallery. Visitors can take their creation home with them or add it to C3’s collection of visitor exvotos by placing it in a binder for others to read.
Since we first launched this activity in December 2015, hundreds of visitors have made exvotos expressing gratitude for their family members, their smartphones, their pets, their city, their schools–the list could go on and on! Take a look at a few of the recurring themes that we’ve found in some of our visitors’ exvotos:
Food
Nature
Art
Personal Relationships
Obstacles
What are you grateful for? Create your own exvoto the next time you drop by the Center for Creative Connections, and share your creation on Twitter or Instagram using #DMAexvoto.
Paulina Lopez
McDermott Graduate Intern for Visitor Engagement