Often when I’m driving up to Taos on the back road, rather than the highway, that leads through the National Forest and several small mountain towns, I stop in Truchas where a friend is running a wonderfully diverse shop called “Then Thousand Saints.”
Then I drive on to Las Trampas to look at the beautiful old adobe church by the side of the road. I thought the church had been abandoned as the tiny village around it shrunk; I was only able to find the church open and to go inside once, some years ago, when a woman was vacuuming the floors.
Enter an amazing non-profit, Nuevo Mexico Profundo, which works to fulfill the vision of its founder, Frank Graziano. Helped with donations from foundations and individuals, the organization uses local volunteers with specialized knowledge to repair the exterior and interior of our old churches—some in villages, some in pueblos—that have, over the centuries, suffered the damages of time.
Recently I toured the Las Trampas Church where the elaborate interior, with altar screen, bultos, and other religious paintings was being skillfully restored by local craftsmen who know the value and singularity of these early 19th-century examples of religious art.
As you can see from these photos of work on the exterior, this is challenging and depends on the help of local men who rise to the occasion to save churches that had been, over the decades, the center of their communities.
Attendance at religious services in all churches has fallen to an historic low, but the significance of these buildings is broader, invoking the joint efforts of volunteers who understand the importance of the past.
[All photos are from the Nuevo Mexico Profundo website. Many more photos of the art and exterior restoration of this church are available and well worth viewing.]
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