Saint Francis
in the Peyote Field

This tabla was created on a piece of broken drum fashioned with yarn and beads embedded in a beeswax-pinepitch-copal matrix as are all the other Santos in the collection. From a study of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, the artist here portray the saint’s meditation on death, which numerous religious historians relate as a prominent theme of his later years.

In a bold synthesis of religious styles, the artist has placed the saint in a Buddhist meditative position with the Eight-fold Wheel of Life as his halo. He holds a memento mori in one hand and gazes upward. One notices that he sits za Zen in a field of peyote. Saint Francis is the patron of the church at Real de Catorce, a small Mexican pueblo at the gateway of Wirikuta, the ancestral peyote fields of the Huichol Indians, who originated this art form. Here Saint Francis is pictured as the Guardian of Wirikuta, the mystical presence holding death while encircled with life.

This piece has been exhibited at the Windsong Gallery in Ranchos de Taos, on the plaza of the Church of San Francisco de Asis. Click here for a detail image