Visual Arts Development Project: International Society of Altar Making

"A house without an altar is ungrounded." We must ask our Ancestors to protect us, to guide us, to reach us, and to raise us to understand the creative intelligence and life force within us. Shonna McDaniel's

Altar-maker/Curator Andrea Jennifer "YaYa" Porras

International Society of Altar-Making Artists construct. Temporary installations curated by altar makers drawing on personal history. Envisioned to evoke the transformative value of historical and contemporary cultural traditions, MAP's Gallery uses the power of myth, stories, and imagination to give voice to the universality of cultural traditions.

City of Altars Installation, SOJO Museum Sacramento CA Dec 2023

Altar-maker Curator Andrea Jennifer "YaYa" Porras was an artist and assistant to the Map Gallery, where she was mentored and guided by master artist/Altar Maker Michelle Walker. YaYa, in her own right, has studied the traditions of her ancestry; she is an Aztecan dancer, an African-modern dancer, actress, poet, and altar artist from Sacramento, California.

Tribute to Jose Montoya at the Galleria Posada, Sacramento, CA, 2013

From 2006 until Its closing in March of 2013, the MAP Gallery consisted of temporary installations curated by Founder and Executive Director Michelle Walker, the Artistic Director of the Gallery and Founder of the International Society of Altar Making. She has facilitated altar-doing workshops since 1980. Michelle drew from her New Orleans ancestry and her interests in Ndebele, Hopi, Bon Po, Tibetan Tantric, and Kundalini philosophies and practices; she integrated those elements into her personal altars and altar-making over the years.