Mission San Buenaventura will honor its founding father with the image of the saint on a woven tapestry, permanently on display at the church.
Artist John Nava designed the tapestry based on an 1810 oil painting by Father Jose Mosqueda. The UC Santa Barbara graduate, who also completed his MFA in Florence, Italy, is an internationally recognized artist. His works are found in numerous private, corporate and public collections throughout the United States, Europe and Japan.
The Franciscan Community commissioned the tapestry and gifted it to Archbishop José H. Gomez, who in turn gifted the tapestry to Mission San Buenaventura, the ninth and last mission that St. Junípero Serra founded.
In 2003, Nava’s tapestries for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels won the National Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture (IFRAA), the design award for visual arts.
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