Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women's Altars
For at least 1000 years, women have created home altars dedicated to their personal deities. Turner, who earned a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Texas, has spent more than 20 years exploring this rich, cross-cultural tradition. She weaves scholarship in feminist religious studies, many interviews with women altar-makers and an obvious appreciation for this individual art form into an informative (if, at times, repetitive) and occasionally inspirational reading experience. Turner is motivated by a feminist need to discover a woman's spiritual tradition that has been neglected or dismissed by male scholars. She emphasizes how, by creating private, domestic altars, women have claimed space from public and patriarchal practices for their own individual relationships with the Divine. After a brief historical survey of the tradition of women's altars, Turner devotes the major part of her study to analyzing contemporary altars made in what she terms "folk religious practices" (those running counter to institutionalized religions). She also includes altars made by women without institutionalized affiliation, such as pagans, Wiccans and goddess worshipers. In addition, she provides a brief biography of each altar-maker in a particularly valuable appendix. For all the merit of Turner's thorough textual analysis, many readers will feel that the book's value resides in its 110 illustrations, 80 in color, since it is through these that we are allowed to enter the private space of the home altars. (Oct.)Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.