Homebound

Given the limitation of recorded information about women artists, this book attests to the fact that there were many women artists in the nineteenth century albeit very little is known about them. … The study is… a gateway that will allow others to pursue further knowledge that could provide enlightenment about women’s lives … (and provide) the present with knowledge that will help in the understanding of culture and society.
It was exciting to monitor the progress of this historical investigation and more exciting to find women who quietly created works of art, using their creative energies in making their lives aesthetic and meaningful … certainly a great contribution to the body of knowledge on Philippine women artists. Brenda V. Fajardo, PhD

In the nineteenth century, women were hardly documented and considered as artists, and it is only very recently that they are becoming more visible through empirical research and “compensatory histories.” This compensatory history by Eloisa May Hernandez is a significant contribution, not only in filling the gaps of history, but more importantly, in imaging the Home and domesticity as subject matter, as creative resource and as artistic space that extends to many sites - from the house and its interiors, the household and its everyday rituals of self-maintenance, to the highly charged field of the studio, the political economic structures of the artworld and the "world." In this book, women need not be bound to the home as constricting space, but bound towards the notion of home as site of empowerment, community, and continuity.
Flaudette May V. Datuin, Ph.D.