After 32 years, Maria Luisa Leon TeΓ±a has finished the Tucson Museum of Art nacimiento.
TeΓ±a has been adding pieces and setting up the Nativity scene at the Tucson Museum of Art annually since her mother died in 1977 - it was a way to honor her memory.
But now, to protect the elaborate 800-piece Nativity scene from heat and dust, and keep it as a permanent exhibit - albeit one that still closes in March - the nacimiento is behind glass in the historic Casa Cordova house at the museum.
"This is a way to better protect it in the long term," said museum spokeswoman Meredith Hayes.
A portion of Casa Cordova has been renovated to the tune of $127,000, making for a spiffier home for the nacimiento. Another $80,000 in renovations are needed to complete the adobe house.
TeΓ±a learned the art from her mother, Maria Arredondo de Leon, who won several nacimiento competitions in Mexico. Like her mother's, TeΓ±a's nacimiento fills an entire room, from floor to ceiling.
"The more you look at it, the more you see", said Hayes of the elaborate and detailed display.
Year after year TeΓ±a has taken the time to dust, retouch nicks, change up some of the colors and reinstall her nacimiento.
So the moment the glass up went earlier this month was bittersweet for TeΓ±a.
"This has been my life for more than 30 years", she said. It used to take her about two months to prep everything and put it in place along with one or two helpers. She expects that she will no longer be updating and adding every year.
She's invested so much time on her nacimiento, that it's impossible for her not to have many memories attached to it.
Her husband, Joseph, who died in 2002, is part of many of them. He also had to sacrifice a bit so that TeΓ±a could put up her exhibit. "He had to eat TV dinners all that time, my sweetheart," she said warmly.
She also vividly remembers her mother's lesson on how to go all out with her nacimiento.
Her mother was so famous for her nativity scenes that people would come to the door of their home and ask permission to come in to see it. Buses would stop so passengers could get a look, and nuns would make sure not to miss it.
It was easier to put it together in Mexico. "You could buy at the market anything you needed for the nacimiento. Moss, hay, small trunks of wood, plants," TeΓ±a said. And she could get the white ceramic figures, ready for painting. But it also required more work. "Because everything was natural you had to water it every two to three days", she said. Her mother would leave enough space so she could navigate through the display for that chore.
Just as her mother passed the tradition on to her, TeΓ±a has passed it on to her helpers, who have put together nativity scenes that have attracted their fair share of attention.
TeΓ±a still has some figures that belonged to her mother, but she's very attached to them so they are not at the museum. She is also very attached to her exhibit, even though she will not have to put it together every year.
"I'm always going to be involved in anything that has to do with my nacimiento", she said.
