Whenever I visit New Mexico, I have to make a trip to Santa Fe. When I was growing up here as a child, Santa Fe was the big city where we went every couple of weeks for groceries and other supplies our tiny little community of La Puebla and Espanola could not supply. The highlight of many of these trips, aside from getting to ride in bed of the pickup, was an opportunity to ride the escalator and elevators in the Five and Dime and Penny's. Another highlight was getting to see all of the Pueblo and other Native American groups spreading out their wares of blankets, pottery, jewelry and leather work on blankets along the arcade of the Governor's Palace along the north side of the Plaza. The final highlight of the day long trip was usually lunch at my mothers' favorite eatery The Pink Adobe Restaurant.
So in the sprit of reliving childhood memories, we had lunch at The Pink Adobe. A sudden cold snap the night before had left it a bit chill to eat in the patio, so instead we were seated inside next to a traditional horno style fireplace with pinon wood briskly burning and perfuming the air.
The Pink Adobe, like so many other businesses, buildings and organizations throughout the state, has fostered and encouraged retaining the old traditional architecture, so the walls were softly tinted plaster, with niches furnished with traditional carvings of Saints, Colonial style tin work and other examples of New Mexico craftsmanship. The ceiling was the traditional vega beam and latillo side slatted wood planks and the floor was hardwood with a 50 year old patina.
After lunch we went over to the San Loretto Chapel to see the miraculous stairway. Along with its miraculous stairway, the San Loretto Chapel is the oldest existing medeival style church west of the Mississippi and is patterned on the San Supplice Chapel in Paris. The 9 stained glass windows were made in France and the stations of the cross were carved of plaster by local artisans. The altar was made in Italy.
According to the story, the Sisters of San Loretto, who had been brought to Santa Fe to start a school for girls, had built the chapel for both themselves and to act as the chapel for the school. The choir loft, as tradition, in monastary churches, was accessible only by ladder. The sisters, not wanting to have to climb ladders to get to their choir loft began to search for ways to have a stairway built. The main problem was that a traditional center stairway would take up too much space in the area meant for seating. The sisters started saying a novena for a solution to their stairway problem and on the ninth day a carpenter appeared and set to work. He built the stairway in 6 days and then disappeared again without leaving a bill for work or materials. No one knew where the wood came from, who he was or where he went but the stairway he built for the sisters remained.
Built of native woods, the stairway consists of two full spirals and stands without any support on the center or edge. It rises 23 feet from the chapel floor to the choir loft and has 32 steps. Originally it had no railing, but was so terrifying to mount that the sisters had a railing added.
In 1968 the school closed and the property was bought by a private family. Since then it has been declared a national treasure and is funded by donations and support from the San Loretto Inn next door.
The miraculous stairway in San Loretto Chapel
We wandered off to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum to view the special 10th anniversary exhibit entitled Georgia O'Keefe and the women of the Steiglitz circle. In addition to O'keefe's work and photographs of the various woman artists by William Steiglizt, the exhibit highlighted the growth of the school of realism and abstract art that these women were exploring in the ten year period from 1920-1930. The painings ranged from some simple sketches and watercolors, childlike in their simplicity and rendering to beautiful sensuous flowers of O'Keefe and color studies and abstracts of the other women. Supplemental material covered the work of these women which led up to the culmination of styles shown in the exhibit.
We made our way back to the car past the Indian vendors on the plaza, with only one detour to admire some amazing rugs and pottery in one of the shops, and drove back through the later afternoon sunset. We arrived Back in Albuquerque just in time to see the last rays of the sun illuminate the memorial trees in the park near the house.
Full moon over the Sandias, 33,000 miles closer to earth and 14% brighter than normal.
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