His eyes were turned to beauty only he could see, a gallery of gods. Native American spirits, watching over Christ.
“Some of my Zuni people won’t go along with this,” Alex Seowtewa told me, but he painted his vision on the walls of a church for more than half a century. This old mission in the heart of the pueblo was not in the heart of most Zuni’s. It reminded them of a time when Coronado came calling, looking for gold. And paid with death. The priests who ordered the Zuni’s to build the mission were found dead, buried beneath its floor.
“I was told not to look at the color of skin by my grandfather,” Seowtewa said. He dipped his brush into his own soul and painted what seemed best. For Alex, religion is a search, not certainty. He spent his life capturing clouds and sunsets to hang on a church wall.
He reached into the world and found its vagrant beauty.
