about us
Denise Alvarado, Voodoo Artist
Denise Alvarado is a professional cultural psychologist, mystical artist, and Native American healer with experience in dream interpretation, tarot, and a number of the healing mystical arts. For private spiritual counseling and intuitive readings via e-mail, contact voodoomama@planetvoodoo.com. To view her artwork, please peruse this website and also visit www.mysticvoodoo.com.
Artist Statement:
I studied art formally at the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College in Iowa. However, my professional life ended up taking a different direction and I ended up with an Associates degree in Human Services, a bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology, and a Masters degree in Clinical psychology. I hold advanced certification in addictions counseling, and I am an ordained Reverend from the Universal Life Church Monastery. I am currently a PhD candidate in psychology research and evaluation. I take every opportunity to study spirituality, religions, and mysticism. In spite of my extensive academic background and quest for sound science, I still believe in the healing arts, magick, sprituality, and Voodoo. I know that without my art and my painful childhood, I would not be where I am today...
My interest in Voodoo art came honestly. As a New Orleans native and the daughter of two of the best artists in the world, I was exposed to a wide variety of art forms from the time I was old enough to be aware. My father, Don Alvarado, was a formally trained and renowned medical illustrator (Gray's Anatomy) and my mother, Mae Moore, was largely a self taught painter of folk art, nature, and mystical imagery.
Growing up in the Deep South provided me with ample opportunity to experience mysticism in its many forms from an early age. My first séance on the bayou was led by my aunt who began teaching me the ways when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My mother spent hours telling me Native American stories while braiding my hair. At that time, I had my magick box that I kept hidden under my chest of drawers that contained, among other things, Gypsy Witch Fortune Telling Cards, a kachina, and a Voodoo doll. I experimented with manipulating energy and drawing and painting images hidden deep in my psyche all throughout my youth. I loved fortune telling, Native culture, and the power of oracle. Childhood was not an easy time for me, and my art was my saving grace.
I was raised Catholic. Well, sort of. It was the traditional thing to do as Hispanicized Aztecs after all. I went to catechism and was confirmed. I hated catechism and I hated the church. It bored me and I never felt alive there. But we did it because my father told us we had to, like his father had told him. Years later, my father told me he never believed in God. At least, not the God of the Catholic Church. Mother Earth was his Higher Power. That explained why we spent so much time in nature developing an intimate relationship with Her. We were also drawn to our animal relatives and always had snakes, lizards, turtles, scorpions, tarantulas, birds, and a wonderful poodle named Wilma around. I was always partial to the dragon energy of lizards; the bigger, the better.
My parents nurtured my creativity from the time I could hold a pencil in my hand. My father took me to work with him at LSU Medical School where I hung with the graphics artists and photographers and learned the tricks of the trade. I was like a kid in a candy store. My father made sure I had all the first class art supplies any little artist could dream of. He taught me how to pen and ink like he did in those
awesome anatomical drawings he would do. While I got my early formal training from my father, my mother taught me how to paint and draw with feeling and intuition. She was regularly painting astrological portraits and other mystical and mythical folk artsy type things. She also taught me how to sew and embroidery, while my grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet. It was the perfect balance and formed the foundation for my art today.
Many blessings to all who visit this site,
Denise Alvarado