Clare Cresap Villa, Santera

Clare Cresap Villa has been a practicing santera – an artist who creates religious images in the Spanish colonial tradition of the American Southwest – for over a quarter of a century. Her expansive works include nearly one hundred retablos, dozens of bultos, a series of large-scale reredos, and altar pieces for a series of historic church restoration projects.

To bring the saints and their blessing into homes everywhere, Clare Cresap Villa has created “los santos de la gente” (saints for the people). These reproductions of Villa’s original retablos are mounted on hand-crafted wood and tin backings. Each piece is created by a trained artisan in the Clare Cresap Villa studios.