Time & Location
May 25, 2024, 2:00 PM
Laguna, 1 Friar Rd, Laguna, NM 87026, USA
About the event
SATURDAY / 25 MAY 2024 / $65
Our visit begins at 2:00 p.m. at Laguna Pueblo’s St. Joseph Church, built around 1699. The interior exudes the mood characteristic of early missions. Features include one of the few surviving altar screens by the artist known as the Laguna Santero, nave walls painted with murals in abstract Pueblo motifs, and two large hide paintings.
In the 1930s Father Agnellus Lammert, a Francican pastor at Acoma and Laguna, collaborated with John Gaw Meem to design and build four stone churches in Pueblo villages. We visit two of these, in Acomita and McCartys. St. Anne in Acomita stands out among all New Mexican churches for its exquisIte woodcarvings. The church has thirty-three ceiling beams each carved with the iconography of a saint, in addition to extraordinary carvings on the choir loft and communion rail. Acoma parishioners worked for months on these carvings, mostly at night—after work—by the light of candles and gas lamps. Historic photos and an article on these churches is here.
Our visit is hosted by the Franciscan pastor of the Laguna and Acoma parish, Father Charles McCarthy. Laguna parishioner Paul Pino gives us a tour of the altar. Proceeds from ticket revenue benefit church restorations.
Before and after: For lunch prior to the tour stop in Albuquerque or have an unforgettable, life-changing Laguna Burger (cooked to order, at busy times it takes a while) at the same I-40 exit (114) as St. Joseph, or get the burger (or something else) at the Great American Diner, exit 108. Nearby you can visit the exterior of another Lammert/Meem church, St. Margaret-Mary in Paraje, here. Or take a short hike to unique petroglyph panels at Lobo Canyon, here. Another option is the Los Portales Shrine in Seboyeta and, en route, the Bibo Bar and the beautifully situated morada in Moquino, seen in the distance behind the church.