Used originally as a performance piece in 1976, each of the three panels has a red velvet exterior ‘tuck and rolled” to resemble a low rider car. The center panel, a mirror, creates an optical illusion placing the viewer between two images: the 1940’s “Pachuca” and the “chola” of the 1970’s. First exhibited in the 1976 at the Women’s Building, then in 1990 at UCLA’s Wight Gallery, “CARA: Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation/” In 1998, Las Tres Marias was added to the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American Art. Currently it is being featured in the internationally traveling exhibit “Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum”