Tohono O'odham San Xavier mission setting
— a white church the desert keeps polishing.
Not only on a wall.
“The mission church the Tohono O'odham call the White Dove of the Desert sits on the San Xavier district, about ten miles south of Tucson. The current building went up between 1783 and 1797, on a foundation laid by the Jesuit Eusebio Kino in 1692. The parish still serves the community. The white plaster catches the desert light differently in every hour.
Tohono O'odham San Xavier mission setting, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mission San Xavier del Bac stands on the San Xavier district of the Tohono O'odham Nation, about ten miles south of Tucson off Interstate 19. The Jesuit Eusebio Kino founded the mission at the O'odham village of Wa:k in 1692. The current church was built by Franciscan friars between 1783 and 1797, after the Jesuit expulsion from Spanish North America. The parish has served the community without interruption since completion. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and remains an active Catholic parish under the Diocese of Tucson. The Santa Cruz River runs in the floodplain to the west.
The building is finished in white lime plaster, applied in repeated coats over fired brick and volcanic stone. Against the Sonoran sky and the brown of the surrounding desert, the plaster reads almost luminous, which is the source of the name Tohono O'odham give it: the White Dove of the Desert. The carved facade between the two towers is the most ornate Spanish Colonial Baroque work in the United States, attributed to craftsmen brought from Mexico. The west tower is unfinished, capped flat rather than domed; the working theory among scholars is that completing it would have meant paying the king's tax.
The church is open to visitors daily, free of charge, with Mass celebrated for the O'odham parish on Sundays and feast days; visitors are asked to enter quietly during services. A small museum and gift shop sit at the south end of the plaza. The Patronato San Xavier, founded in 1978, has overseen a multi-decade conservation of the interior paintings and statuary using methods drawn from European fresco restoration. Photography is allowed; the interior is dim and demands a steady hand. The mission is on tribal land, and visitors are guests of the Tohono O'odham Nation.