Sunday, Sunday Church Day

Today's church is the old adobe church from Taos, New Mexico.
A source of inspiration for artists, travelers and natives alike, the mission church of Saint Francis of Assisi, in Ranchos de Taos, has been worshipped in, painted and photographed by artists and travelers who have lived in or passed through northern New Mexico. Its mysterious sculptural form, created out of the indigenous building materials of adobe and wood, has been portrayed by more artists than any other church in the United States.

This is the back of the church

The village of Ranchos de Taos was settled by the Spanish in 1716. "The Ranchos Church," San Francisco de Asis, was completed in 1815 and provides one of the best examples of Franciscan Old World architectural ideals combined with New World building techniques.

The church is fortress-like, with adobe walls four feet thick and enormous buttresses. Light plays off its enormous sculptural form to reflect the change of line, time and space. The church's surface holds the community's history—generations of hands plastering and replastering the adobe walls. This gets done once a year. For many Taosenos, the church provides a place of worship on Sundays and holidays, for others it provides an anchor in the landscape.

This is the most photographed and painted church in the world. Made famous by Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams.

I caught this shot of the father running in, he was late to start church.

When we went last year to visit my daughter in Taos we heard that at dawn, when the sun was coming up it cast a shadow of the cross on the front of the church, well who wouldn't want a photograph of that? So we got up at 5 in the morning and drove to the church and waited and waited, and then waited and waited. The sun was coming up and it got higher and higher and still no shadow of the cross. We waited until about 8 am and then went back to our hotel and told the clerk about our dissapointment and he told us it was just certain times of the year that happened. Oh well, it was great fun to watch the sun come up in front of the church with coffee in hand!

Cheers to Happy !!