Mission Santa Clara de Asís
— what stayed when everything else burned.
Not only on a wall.
“The eighth Spanish mission in California, founded by Franciscan friars in 1777 in the valley south of San Francisco Bay. The current church is the sixth on or near this ground, after the earlier ones fell to floods, earthquakes, and a fire in 1926. The bronze bell at the entrance was cast in 1798 in Mexico City and shipped north to California; it has survived every rebuild. The grounds belong to Santa Clara University now, the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The rose garden behind the church is open most afternoons.
Mission Santa Clara de Asís, 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.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
The mission stands on the campus of Santa Clara University in the city of Santa Clara, at the south end of San Francisco Bay, about 75 kilometres south of San Francisco and 65 kilometres north of Monterey. Founded on January 12, 1777, by Father Junípero Serra's Franciscan order, it was the eighth of the twenty-one Spanish missions of Alta California, and the only one later absorbed into a university. The valley floor sits roughly 23 metres above sea level. A long section of the original adobe wall still runs along Palm Drive on the present campus, marking the line of the 1822 quadrangle.
Six churches have stood on or near this ground. Floods from the Guadalupe River drove the friars off the first site in 1779; earthquakes in 1818 brought down a later one. The 1825 adobe, the fifth church, was lost to fire on the night of October 25, 1926. The bronze bell hanging at the entrance was cast in Mexico City in 1798, a gift of King Carlos IV of Spain, and survived every rebuild. The current church, completed in 1929 in Mission Revival style, is a steel-and-concrete copy of the lost adobe. The wooden cross before the door is a 1976 reproduction; the 1777 original rests in a glass case inside.
The church functions as both a Catholic parish and the campus chapel of Santa Clara University, which has held classes since 1851. It is open to visitors most days from morning Mass through early evening, outside of liturgies and weddings. There is no admission fee. The historic adobe wall, the rose gardens beside the de Saisset Museum, and the original 1777 wooden cross sheltered inside the church are accessible without a guide. The campus is reached from US-101 or via the Santa Clara Caltrain station, about a ten-minute walk from the front doors. Mass is celebrated daily; the Sunday schedule is posted on the parish website.