Angels in the Architecture

He looks around, around

He sees angels in the architecture,

Spinning in infinity

He says "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!"

                                                                                                       -- Paul Simon, You Can Call Me Al

In a desert valley about 10 miles southwest of Tucson stands the mission cathedral of San Xavier del Bac.  

The cathedral is a National Historic Landmark.  Its construction began in 1783, the year the American Revolutionary War ended, and was finished in 1797, the last year of George Washington's presidency.

The cathedral is the oldest intact European structure in the United States, and the exterior is a classic example of Spanish Colonial architecture:  simplicity, clean lines, balconies and bell towers:

 

But it's really the interior that takes your breath away.

The interior decoration begins simply.  In a vestibule at the entrance to the cathedral, the walls feature primitive relief sculptures . . .

The vaulted ceiling of the vestibule is simply but beautifully decorated:

Immediately to the left of the entry vestibule is the baptistry and the baptismal font, said to be the oldest item in the cathedral, carried forward from the previous mission church.

 

Further in, relatively modest statues and fresco murals adorn the walls of the nave, accompanied by elaborate moldings and painted designs above and below:

The cathedral has four masonry vaulted ceilings, three of which feature a shell motif, which is a symbol of pilgrimage after the patron saint of Spain, Santiago or James the Greater.  Here's a view looking back toward the entrance to the cathedral:

Notice that the shell motif is also used in the window openings (on the left and right sides of the image below):

And check out those angels, who look like local señoritas and are showing more than a modest amount of leg.  Tradition has it that these angels are likenesses of the two daughters of the artist who painted the ceiling.  (Would those Puritans in Massachusetts approve?)

The decoration of the nave and its ceilings pales, however, once we arrive at the apse containing the altar at the front of the church, where the style goes totally crazy Byzantine . . .

Compare this with the interior of Albuquerque's San Felipe de Neri church, built in 1793 at the same time as San Xavier del Bac:

The transepts at San Xavier are only a bit less elaborate than the altar area:

 

 
























And towering over the intersection of the nave and the transepts above the altar, the great dome:

If you would like to see these images (and more) in a larger format, visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Wild Clouds and Sunset Color

We had a wild afternoon of wind and clouds streaming in from the southwest.  Most of the time there was little color, but the textures and shapes were amazing:
 

Then, after the sun had dropped below the horizon, a gap in the overcast allowed the sun to light up the underside of the clouds:

If you would like to see these images and others in a larger format, visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!




 

Sonic Escape

I'm on the board of the Corrales Cultural Arts Council, a small, all-volunteer non-profit that brings nationally- and internationally-known professional musicians to the village of Corrales, New Mexico, and the surrounding area.  Last month we hosted Sonic Escape, a dynamic flute-violin-cello trio that bills themselves as "Daredevils with Instruments."   They play everything from classical to Celtic to contemporary, and they play it all beautifully.  Click here to listen to one of my favorites,  Spökskepp (Ghost Ship), an original composition by Maria Millar, the violinist of the group.

(You can read previous posts about our concerts here and here.)

In addition to a general audience concert on a Saturday night, some of our performers will do music education programs for schools on the Friday before.  Two of the Sonic Escape players -- Maria and her husband, flutist (or flautist) Shawn Wyckoff -- came to the Corrales Elementary School gym on Friday morning, much to the delight of about 500 students . . .

. . . then, after lunch, to Cleveland High School in nearby Rio Rancho, NM, to play for about 800 students in their concert hall: 

For the Saturday evening general audience concert, Maria and Shawn were joined by cellist Nan-Cheng Chen.  The trio performed in the Old San Ysidro Chruch, an 1868-vintage adobe church that has been decommissioned and is now used for community events.

Shawn, Maria, and Nan-Cheng graciously allowed me to photograph during their sound check/rehearsal before their performance.


 

If you would like to see these images and more of Sonic Escape, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!

A Day in Northern New Mexico

If you draw an east-west line running through Santa Fe, New Mexico, the territory north of the line is considered northern New Mexico.  It contains mountains and mesas; towns and villages like Los Alamos, Taos, Abiquiu, Espanola, and Ojo Caliente; and thousands of acres of wilderness and national forests.

Courtesy of Google Maps

Last weekend we made a 28-hour foray into northern New Mexico.  Our Saturday began with a beautiful sunrise over the Sandia Mountains (looking east from our back yard):

We drove to Santa Fe for lunch, then headed north along the Rio Grande to Taos, which we had never visited.  About 10 miles west of Taos the Rio Grande has cut a narrow canyon into a wide plain.  Here's an aerial view looking south.  (I found this image on the internet but do not know who made it; I would credit them if I knew.)

The bridge is nearly a quarter-mile long, and is 565 feet above the river.  The Washington Monument would fit under it with ten feet to spare.

From street level it's not very impressive when you're driving or walking over it:

But walk out onto the bridge and look down . . .

or walk along the side of the gorge . . .

and you get a better sense of the scale . . .

BTW, for what it's worth, this bridge has appeared in many movies including Natural Born Killers and Terminator Salvation (neither of which I have any desire to see).

After the photo op stop, we headed across the Carson National Forest on our way to Ojo Caliente as clouds rolled in from the west:

(Yes, that flat-topped mountain in the distance is the Pedernal, which appears in many Georgia O'Keeffe paintings.)

 

Ojo Caliente (literally "warm eye" but usually meaning "hot springs") is a tiny town built around hot mineral springs that have been known for thousands of years.  Ancestral pueblo tribes built settlements nearby, as ruins and abundant potsherds attest:

In 1868, Antonio Joseph, the first representative to Congress from the New Mexico territory, built the first bath house at this location (still standing and restored), and it became known as a "sanitarium," where people came to be healed by the mineral waters.

A hotel was built in 1916, and we stayed in one of its rooms:

The facility has been updated quite nicely, but I couldn't help but think of some lines from a song by Ian and Sylvia, "National Hotel," and made an image to go along with them:

                                                              All the halls are haunted
                                                              At the National Hotel
                                                              Snorin' and  a-screamin'
                                                              Down the hall the demons wail . . .

But in truth it is a wonderful place:  pools large and small, indoors and outside, filled with steaming mineral waters; sauna and steam rooms; massages and mud baths; yurts for yoga and meditation.  

Besides the old hotel there are now cottages and suites, and a first-class restaurant that serves delicious meals.  The only weird thing was people sitting in the lobby -- or in the restaurant (at breakfast and lunch) -- in bathrobes!  We soaked in the pools for an hour on Saturday afternoon, then had a great dinner and fell into bed.  

Sunday morning the skies were overcast with a mix of light misty rain and snow, but we went for a pre-breakfast hike up onto the mesa above the river and the resort:

After breakfast we spent the morning in the pools, checked out, had lunch, and as the skies cleared we drove 13 miles south towards Espanola to see the "art cave."

The cave we visited is in a gated community, and is owned by a retreat center called "Origin," but we had made arrangements through a local hiking group to get in (and pay a $20/person fee for the privilege).  When you pull into the graveled parking lot, each parking space is indicated by a sign like this one:

The cave is one of twelve carved into sandstone outcroppings throughout New Mexico by the self-taught artist Ra Paulette over a 30-year period.

This cave looks out over the Ojo Caliente river valley and the Jemez Mountains to the southwest.  It is intended for meditation and reflection, and for being appreciated in person, so (as in many of the mission churches in New Mexico) no interior photography is allowed.  All I have are exteriors:

However, there are many images from Paulette's caves available on the internet, and I found one from the inside of the cave we visited:

This image is from an Academy Award nominated short documentary produced by Jeffrey Karoff about Paulette, called "Cave Digger."  You can watch a trailer for the film here.  The caves have also been featured on CBS Sunday Morning.  Here's a link to images from the show.

After exploring the sanctuary/cave, we hiked back down a rocky hill to our car . . .

. . . and drove home.  It was a very relaxing and satisfying trip.

If you would like to see these images in a larger format, you can visit my photography website by clicking here.

Enjoy!