MADISON — A Madison arts organization is creating a publishing arm to give Latina artists a more permanent platform beyond the short run of a gallery exhibit. Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development, or LOUD, will debut LOUD Latino Publishing with a catalog for “Las Curanderas: From Ashes, We Rise,” an exhibition focused on Latina women artists and healing. The exhibit is on display at Madison College’s Truax Campus, 1701 Wright St., throughout Hispanic Heritage Month and will remain open through Oct. 15. A reception is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. at the exhibit’s opening. The catalog will be available at the event and online. The publication will include the work of all 26 artists in the exhibition, along with short biographies. It will also feature profiles of the exhibit’s two local artist-curators, Issis Macias and Jessica Gutiérrez, their statement about the project, and a letter from Marina Álvarez, a curator, scholar, educator and University of Chicago doctoral candidate. For LOUD founder Oscar Mireles, publishing catalogs is a way to preserve exhibitions that otherwise disappear after a few weeks or months. The organization plans to produce a catalog for every LOUD exhibit, not only major museum shows. “We’ve had a lot of exhibits, but they’re up for maybe a couple weeks, maybe a month,” Mireles said. “How do you carry a temporary exhibit? How do you make it permanent? You can freeze the people and lock them in a room. Or you can create a catalog.” Mireles, who is retired, has made expanding opportunities for artists a central focus of his work. He has said that Madison has no shortage of artists and writers, but too few institutions create opportunities for them to share their work. The “Las Curanderas” exhibit is only the third major Midwest exhibition focused on Latina women artists in the past 25 years, according to Álvarez’s letter. The two earlier examples were the 2017 and 2018 presentations of “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-85,” a traveling exhibition that brought together work by more than 100 Latina artists from across the Americas. Álvarez writes that Latina artists remain underrepresented by mainstream museums and galleries, even as their male counterparts receive greater attention. She also points to the economic pressures facing Latina women, who are among the lowest-paid demographic groups in the U.S. workforce, while often carrying unpaid family and caregiving responsibilities. “Latina art has been marked by a severe neglect, and in our current moment, the stakes are much higher,” Álvarez wrote. She added that Latina artists continue to show resilience shaped by both necessity and care. LOUD’s first catalog is intended to make that work accessible after the exhibit closes while building a longer-term record of the artists and their contributions to Madison’s cultural community.