Santos Collection At Regis University Keeps Santero Tradition Alive

If you find yourself passing by the neighborhood of Regis University and you walk to the Dayton Memorial Library located at 3333 Regis Blvd, you may find a hidden gem waiting for you. The Santos Collection is tucked away up on the third floor of the library, waiting for visitors to come appreciate the collection of the late Father Thomas J. Steele. 

“[The collection] is somewhat known throughout the community, but we are working on growing awareness,” said Hannah Miller, who studied art history and then received her master’s in library science with an emphasis on archives.  She is now the archives and digital collections librarian at Regis University and has been overseeing the Santos Collection for the past four years.

“There is a lot [for me] to learn still, but I’ve gotten well versed in the history [of the collection] and I’ve made partnerships and friendships with local santeros. I was really excited to do more work with our visual culture and cultural heritage collections,” Miller said. 

This collection consists of extraordinary sculptures, paintings and artifacts from talented and faithful santeros who all come from different backgrounds to showcase their craft. Anyone is welcome to visit the gallery while the library is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

 Regis Santos Collection Gallery Displays Centuries of Santero’s Work

A santero is essentially a “saint-maker” who creates santos, which are sculptures, paintings, or other types of artifacts depicting a saint or historical figure in the Catholic religion. The santero tradition gained popularity in the 1700s in the southwestern United States, particularly in New Mexico and southern Colorado. 

Typically, santeros create either bultos, which are carved, wooden sculptures of saints that are painted, or retablos, which are carved wood or tin sculptures of saints and other Catholic figures. Most of these bultos and retablos are hand-carved by santeros and painted with soil, water or other natural materials from the earth to preserve the original tradition while also giving it a unique appearance. 

Father Steele was the main curator for what the Santos Collection has grown into today. Steele was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1933, and by 1951 had joined the Society of Jesus. 

By 1968, he had already completed his PhD from the University of New Mexico and then taught English courses at Regis University for 30 years. During his studies at the University of New Mexico, it was said that he encountered his first Santo at a store, and he quickly became “enamored” with the tradition and history of santos. 

“He started spending any money that he had building a collection of santos while he was in New Mexico and started building relationships and working closely with santeros/santeras,” Miller said.  “When he was an English professor [here], his collection had grown to over 200 objects; that’s when he donated it to the library.” 

Miller adds that the gallery is only a fraction of what they have stored in their archives and collections vault. She claims that there are over 1,000 artifacts in the collection. The rest can be seen on their digital archives website. 

Even after Father Steele donated his collection, he continued to collect santos, worked closely with community artists, and authored over 70 books and articles specifically about the Santo traditions. 

Carlos Santistevan was among the local santero artists that collaborated with Father Santistevan, born in 1938 and raised in Denver, has been creating bultos and retablos since the 1970s. 

“I started carving when I was like 10 or 11 years old, and I carved a musket and a couple of other things,” Santistevan said. “Then, I started doing what is considered colonial New Mexican art in 1971.” 

His first Santo artifact came about when he welded two pieces of metal that resembled the head of Jesus Christ. He then continued creating retablos, which Father Steele took a liking to. 

Father Steele’s collection and other museums enable santeros like Santistevan to really showcase their skills and personal feelings regarding religion. But Steele’s collection wasn’t just a collection of compelling artifacts; he intended it for research purposes and to understand the history of this craftsmanship and religion. 

“Father Steele definitely regarded this collection as a teaching collection in that he wanted it to be accessible to researchers and to students, rather than considering it like a museum collection,” Miller said. “We wanted it to be on display and used in instruction.” 

Miller believes that this gallery helps students and community members understand the significance of each artifact while conducting research. She states that the university does not intend to add to the collection at this time but is instead looking into conservation work for the artifacts and allowing undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience with conservation.

“Space in the vault is limited, [and the] budget is limited,” Miller said. “We’re not aggressively trying to grow the collection at this point. We received some grant funding to bring a conservator to campus, and we’ve been working with her. These collections date back to the 18th century and are very fragile, and [the conservator] has been helping us do condition reporting [on these artifacts].” 

Miller also mentions that Father Steele had a significant impact on the history of this tradition and was highly regarded by santeros. 

“[Father Steele] wrote a book called “Santos and Saints,” and this santero was talking about Father Steele’s book, and he said he considered that text the Bible of Santos because it gives a history of the iconography, and so when he’s working in the studio [and] he’s thinking about what saint he’s going to work with, he pulls out Father Steele’s text,” Miller said. 

Sean Trujillo is one of the Denver santeros who has retablos featured in the Santo Collection. Trujillo has been doing santero work for 10 years, and he continues to hone his craft. The piece that is showcased in the Santo Collection is his “In Faith We Survive” piece, where he created a retablo of the struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political division in the nation.

“What it all boils down to is maintaining a legacy here in Colorado, just like the santeros did back in the day,” Trujillo said. “They were pillars of their community, and they offered a resource for other people to express themselves through faith and to make a difference in their community. That’s what santeros do.”

Trujillo’s story is unique in that he not only creates beautiful retablos, but his association with the LGBTQ+ community and practice of the Catholic religion have helped his artwork become more meaningful and authentic, giving him motivation to continue creating retablos. 

“I had peaks and valleys in terms of my relationship with faith and coming out of it and leaving it,” Trujillo said. “Especially being a gay man, there’s a stigma within the Catholic Church about homosexuality, so I left it for a while. I got involved at CHAC [Gallery], and the elders in our community were heaven-sent because they taught me how I could heal through art and reconnect to the things that were important to me, no matter what restrictions the world gave me.” 

Trujillo explains how he had a chance to travel to Rome, the center of the Catholic religion, where he was able to meet Pope Francis. He states how in that moment he experienced Jesus and the religion in a whole different way. It did not matter if he was a member of the LGBTQ+ community; Trujillo felt accepted not only by the Pope but also by the Catholic religion, which prompted him to return to practicing the religion and shifted his art by allowing him to truly express what he thinks and feels while remaining true to himself.

“It’s a sting [after the passing of Pope Francis] to see somebody of that caliber, but meeting him in a humanistic way [made me feel] like we were equal,” Trujillo said. “These people [like Pope Francis] leave a lifelong impression on you. They open your eyes to so many different things. He was just one of those people that we got to experience in this lifetime, and it was pretty special.” 

Trujillo says that he plans on making a retablo or sculpture of some kind of Pope Francis in his honor. According to Trujillo, the santero trade is about staying true to tradition and practicing old methods of making paint out of soil, mastering carvings like old santeros and giving it meaning in a personal way. 

“This is who I am, this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” Trujillo said. “It is important to carry on this tradition because there are a lot of different struggles that our community faces and have faced throughout the community for many generations. I think it’s very important that I spend my time to contribute to that change and to be a mentor to kind of just guide [the youth] through different routes.”