Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women's Altars

Ancient spiritual traditions - Goddess, Celtic, African, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Greek Orthodox - are being revived and remade by women who create amazing altarpieces. Kay Turner has been exploring the subject of women's altars for over 20 years. She has found them in the studios of artists in Detroit, New York or San Francisco and kitchens and bedrooms in Mexican-American homes in Texas. The statues, flowers, pictures, photographs, amulets, stones, shells and other things that make the altars represent their makers' histories, beliefs and desires. From Mama Lola celebrating Afro-Caribbean gods in Brooklyn, to a Wiccan in California worshipping the goddess Aphrodite, Kay Turner draws out the personal stories that lie behind the altars, most reproduced here in colour, and explains their universal appeal and significance.