145/365:Mission San Miguel

145/365:Mission San Miguel, a photo by doglington on Flickr.

On the way back from Paso Robles, we visited one of my favorite of the California missions, little Mission San Miguel in the town of the same name. This mission is often overlooked, but it is the only mission still sporting its original fresco artwork. The art was the concept of one man, a Native American, who decorated the entire mission with only a few apprentices (also Native American) He is known as the Michelangelo of the Missions and, in between the pseudo Greek and Roman columns and motifs the padres had him paint, he wove in birds, flowers and plants that were sacred to his tribe. (For instance, a motif of a baptismal font is rendered as an Abalone shell.) So this mission is as much about Native cosmology as it is about Catholic iconography. I took many more pictures of this mission a few years ago when I went on my Mission Mission. See that set here: www.flickr.com/photos/atweed/sets/72157624861831447/with/...