The cult of making decorations and/or postal art has made big business out of rubber stamping. It has spawned magazines like Rubberstampmadness and businesses with names like Alice In Rubberland and Rubber Stampede.
Lynette Wagner knows serious stamp use well...she is the founder/proprietor ofOur Lady's House of Rubber. Located in the heart of trendy Santa Fe, New Mexico, its name refers to Mexico's brown-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe. This apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared near Mexico City in 1531, causing miraculous roses to bloom from desert rocks. These days, her image permeates the USA: she can be found on beach towels, T-shirts, earrings, towels -- and, of course, on rubber stamps.
Our Lady's House of Rubber (whose full title is Guadalupe's No 1, A-OK Rubber Stamps & Crosses) sells a mind-boggling array of stamps: vegetables, minerals, celebrities, alphabets, symbols and historical figures. But it also features Guadalupe shrines made by artists and do-it-yourself stamps or milagros. Milagros (literally, "miracles") are items which one uses to give thanks to saints: if a saint cures a problem of the eye or heart, a tiny eye or heart is then hung on his or her image.
Our Lady sells kits for making milagros of anything (Elvis, the Queen). But Wagner's best-selling image IS that of the Virgin. And, for fans, the shop is close to a genuine shrine. This is the Santuario de Guadalupe, a vast adobe building with a long history. Built some time between1776 and 1795, it remains north America's oldest Guadalupe shrine.
Wagner, who is not Latino and used to work as a nurse in California, venerates the Virgin for aesthetic and feministic reasons. "I'm not Catholic; I just find Her attractive. Plus She really is important to American culture."
Our Lady's House of Rubber is located at 102 West San Francisco St (Suite 5), Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 USA. Tel: (US) 505-982-9862.
Rubberstampmadness is available for 24 per abroad subscription or 18 within America (Canada, 22) from RSM Enterprises, 408 S. Monroe (No 210), Corvallis, Oregon 97333 USA.
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